2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize winner announced
Lisa Ko of Brooklyn has claimed the 2016 PEN / Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction for her novel The Leavers, which will be published by Algonquin Books in 2017. The novel follows a 10-year-old boy after his Chinese-American immigrant mother leaves for work one morning and doesn’t come back. Soon, her son Deming finds himself […]
Award-winning director ‘surprise’ guest at Kingsolver Earth Day event
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Barbara Kingsolver, speaking at the Paramount Theater April 22, called special guest Nicole Kassell to the stage during the program, to discuss their collaboration in bringing one of Kingsolver’s novels to film. Kassell is an award-winning television and film director whose stunning first feature film “The Woodsman” premiered at the 2004 Sundance […]
Vigil for Ilham Tohti follows presentation of Bellwether award
Barbara Kingsolver joined hundreds who gathered in support of Ilham Tohti, the Uyghur writer and scholar recently sentenced to life in prison in China on unfounded charges of separatism. The candlelight vigil in New York City Sept. 29 followed the 2014 PEN Literary Awards Ceremony, where Kingsolver had presented this year’s Bellwether Prize to Ron […]
Climate change topic of Kingsolver testimony for Pennsylvania hearing
Barbara Kingsolver provided testimony to a House Democratic Policy Committee hearing on climate change for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Aug. 26, 2014. Her remarks were read by Julie Slavet, executive director of the Tookany / Tacony-Frankford Water Shed.
Kingsolver to receive Library of Virginia lifetime achievement award in Richmond
The Library of Virginia will honor Barbara Kingsolver with the 2014 Literary Lifetime Achievement Award, at the library’s Annual Literary Awards Celebration in Richmond Oct. 18. Click here to learn more and see the lists of finalists in other categories.
Berea College convocation will feature Kingsolver’s ‘Novel Perspective’
Barbara Kingsolver will take a Berea College stage November 6, alongside best-selling author Silas House, who is also the college’s National Endowment for the Humanities Chair in Appalachian Studies. The two will be paired for the Berea, Ky., college’s convocation, in a presentation titled “Writing and Roots: Barbara Kingsolver’s Novel Perspective, a Public Conversation with […]
2014 PEN / Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction winner announced
Ron Childress has been named the winner of the 2014 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction for his manuscript And West Is West. Selected by award judges Terry McMillan, Nancy Pearl, and Kathy Pories, Childress will receive $25,000 and a publishing contract with Algonquin Books. Click here to learn more about the author and his novel, And West is West.
Annotated Poisonwood Bible to be auctioned, benefiting PEN center
A first-edition copy of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, annotated, will be auctioned by Christies New York this fall, to benefit The Pen American Center. According to the PEN website, “Seventy-five writers and artists have written or drawn directly in a first edition or a significant catalogue of their own work.” The “extraordinary collection of rare […]
Harvard school bestows 2013 Global Environmental Citizen award
Barbara Kingsolver was the recipient of the Harvard School of Public Health “2013 Global Environmental Citizen Award,” for “outstanding contributions to furthering knowledge about the global environment and promoting awareness about the urgent need to protect it.”
Science in fiction topic of Sweet Briar article
Sweet Briar College Magazine has published an article about Barbara Kingsolver’s meticulous use of science in her fiction, following the author’s address for the 2013 Julia B. Waxter Environmental Forum at the college in March. Kingsolver was invited to speak at the forum after her pre-Flight Behavior research led her to Sweet Briar professor of biology Lincoln […]