Anita Mechler

The 2023 Ignyte Awards finalists are announced. Starting their runs at the top of best seller lists are Only the Dead by Jack Carr, Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, King: A Life by Jonathan Eig, and The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings To Amass Power and Undermine the Republic by Stephen Vladeck. There are author interviews with Gene Luen Yang, Luis Alberto Urrea, Laura Tillman, and Suzannah Lessard.

There are announcements for the 2023 Mythopoeic Awards finalists and Eisner Awards nominees. Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming biography of Elon Musk will arrive September 12. Author interviews feature conversations with the likes of Nicole Cuffy, Emma Cline, Brittany Snow, R.F. Kuang, Jenny Fran Davis, Julia Quinn, and Samantha Irby. Benedict Cumberbatch will star in the adaptation of Max Porter’s Grief Is the Thing With Feathers.

PEN America and Penguin Random House sue a Florida school district over book bans. Debuting at the top of the best-seller lists are The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks, Queen Charlotte by Julia Quinn, written with Shonda Rhimes, The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up by Andy Cohen, and Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain by Andrew McCarthy. There are conversations with authors Alex Pappademas, Polly Stewart, Andrea Bartz, Matthew Dallek, Juliet and Kelly Starrett, Stephen Vladeck, and David Fleming. There is adaptation news for Ernest Hemingway’s Across the River and into the Trees.

Arinze Ifeakandu wins the 2023 Dylan Thomas Prize with God’s Children Are Little Broken Things: Stories. The Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist is announced. Chris Turner wins the 2023 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing with How To Be a Climate Optimist: Blueprints for a Better World. Other awards announcements include the 2023 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize longlist and the 2023 Orwell Prizes shortlists. Urban historian Fred Siegel is remembered upon his death at 78. Interviews feature Rachel Cargle, Tembe Denton-Hurst, Sunny Hostin, Carl Sferrazza Anthony, Lisa Brideau, Christina Sharpe, Judy Blume, Kerri Arsenault, Isabella Hammad, Stephen Marche, and Felix Salmon. Plus, adaptation news for Chelene Knight’s Junie and Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo.

The Christian Book Awards winners are announced. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, The 23rd Midnight by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro, The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself by Luke Russert, and Lessons Learned and Cherished: The Teacher Who Changed My Life by Deborah Roberts are new to the bestseller lists. Interviews arrive with Mona Gables, Edan Lepucki, Julia Argy, James C. Jackson, Mariana Alessandri, Emma Nadler, Landon Jones, and Dave Eggers.

The June 2023 Indie Next List Preview is out, featuring #1 pick Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. The Sheikh Zayed Book Award 2023 winners are announced. Multiple sources cover the targeting of journalists worldwide and the repercussions of Writers Guild of America’s strike. Starting their run as best sellers are Happy Place by Emily Henry, In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune, Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane, Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You by Lucinda Williams, and Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding) by Laura Dern and Diane Ladd. 

The Edgar Award winners are announced; Best Novel goes to Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka, while Eli Cranor wins Best First Novel for Don’t Know Tough. Ebony highlights “5 Black Male Poets Whose Words Enthrall Us.” The NYT romance column is out. There are new efforts to pass the Right To Read Act. Nora Robert faces censorship in Florida. Killers of the Flower Moon makes news. Plus, Page to Screen.

Jamil Jan Kochai wins the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize for The Haunting of Hajji Hotak And Other Stories. More award news arrives from the Writers’ Trust Rising Stars and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize shortlist. Several interviews feature the voices of authors such as Melissa Coss Aquino, Genevieve Wheeler, Tove Danovich and Neil King. There is adaptation news for Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

Announcements include 2023 Young Lions Fiction Award finalists, Nancy Drew action figures, and a new digital publishing imprint, Orbit Works. Beginning their debuts on the best-seller lists are Dark Angel by John Sandford, The Only Survivors by Megan Miranda, Lassiter by J.R. Ward, You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith, I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan by Katie Porter, and It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs by Mary Louise Kelly. Author conversations include the thoughts of Alison L. Strayer, Elizabeth Graver, J.C. Hallman, Jonathan Rosen, Lauren Oyler, Minka Kelly, Julia Lee, Tanis Rideout, and Daniel F. Runde.