The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is holding its annual awards program 7-8 March in New York City. Events that are open to the public include the Award Finalists Reading, a panel entitled “The Mandarin at the Minimart: What We Talk about When We Talk about Mass Market Fiction,” and the Awards Ceremony. All the events will be at The New School University.
On 7 March at 6PM, the Award Finalists Reading will include: Chimamana Ngozi Adichie, Donald Antrim, Debbie Applegate, Bruce Bawer, Alison Bechdel, Taylor Branch, Frederick Brown, Patrick Cockburn, Frederick Crews, Kiran Desai, Mark Doty, Dave Eggers, Karen Emmerich, Ann Fessler, Daisy Fried, Terri Jentz, Troy Jollimore, Alexander Masters, Daniel Mendelsohn, Lia Purpura, Julie Phillips, Simon Schama, Jason Roberts, Sandy Tolan, and Lawrence Weschler.
At 11AM on 8 March, the panel entitled “The Mandarin at the Minimart: What We Talk about When We Talk about Mass Market Fiction” will feature Lev Grossman (moderator and Time book critic), Walter Mosley (novelist), Louisa Ermelino (Publishers Weekly Reviews Director), Reagan Arthur (Little, Brown executive editor), and Jennifer Reese (Entertainment Weekly book critic) discussing the topic. The NBCC’s description is “More and more often professional critics are called upon to review mass-market fiction. Mysteries, thrillers, romances, science fiction, ghetto lit—editors are getting more aggressive about assigning them, and literary writers (Roth, Ishiguro, McCarthy, Chabon, Atwood) more fearless about borrowing from them. Why do critics review genre fiction so condescendingly? Why does genre fiction get so little critical attention? Who are the hacks, and who are the pros, and how do we tell them apart—and do literary critics have the skills to do it?”
Finally, the 2006 NBCC Awards Ceremony will take place at 6PM on 8 March.
For more information on the weekend, the events, or the NBCC, see the NBCC web site.