The NBCC awards the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing each year to recognize outstanding work by a member of the NBCC. The citation is awarded in honor of Nona Balakian, a founding member of the National Book Critics Circle, where she served as the board’s first secretary. The eminent critic and longtime editor at the New York Times Book Review also served on the Pulitzer Prize committee, the Board of Directors of PEN, and the Authors Guild board, was the author of Critical Encounters: Essays (1978), and co-author (with Charles Simmons) of The Creative Present (1969).

Since 2012, the Balakian Citation carries with it a $1,000 cash prize, thanks to a generous donation by NBCC board member Gregg Barrios.

A complete list of past Balakian winners follows the list of committee members.

2014 Submission Guidelines

You must be a member of the NBCC to be considered. If you are not a member, you can join online anytime before December 14, 2014, in order to be eligible for the award. All submitted reviews must have been published in 2014.

2014 Submission Procedures

Submissions may be made by email. Emails must be time stamped no later than midnight Monday, December 14, 2014. Submissions may also, as in the past, be submitted in hardcopy by mail.

What to submit via email: 
Send up to five book reviews (all published in 2014) of no more than 5,000 words collectively. The total word count for the submissions must not exceed 5,000, on pain of the entire submission being disqualified from consideration for the award. 
In your email, include a note listing the venue; title and word count of each piece submitted. 
Send links to your reviews as published online.

Due to the capricious nature of the online world, links may expire. If you can, attach PDFs or screenshots of your book reviews as they appeared online or in print. 
Please make a print backup of your submission. In other words, make sure you have one print copy of each book review, preferably the published version. If there is a problem with your electronic online submission, you may be asked to submit a print version.

What to submit via mail: 
Submissions must be postmarked no later than Monday, December 1, 2014. Send up to five book reviews (all published in 2014) of no more than 5,000 words collectively, with a brief cover letter listing the title and word count of each piece submitted. The total word count for the submissions must not exceed 5,000, on pain of the entire submission being disqualified from consideration for the award.

For questions about the award and submission process, e-mail the Balakian Committee chair, Gregg Barrios. Email: [email protected]

Please put Balakian Award in the subject line of your email. List of Balakian committee members and of all past Balakian winners here.

In the decade from 2003-2013, poet, critic and NBCC board member David Biespiel published a brief, dazzling essay on poetry every month in the book review of The Oregonian. It became the longest-running newspaper column on poetry in the United States. 

In April 2015, in anticipation of National Poetry Month, Antilever Press will publish David Biespiel's A Long High Whistle: Selected Columns on Poetry.

Collected for the first time, these essays, some of which were recirculated widely on the web, articulate a profound statement about the mysteries of poetry. A Long High Whistle provides a spirited meditation on reading and writing poetry — on how poets become inspired, how poems are fashioned and then experienced by readers, and how poetry situates itself in American life. 

Some moments from the book:

"Richard Wilbur can bring more psychic weight to a few syllables than some poets bring to their entire oeuvre. I bring this up, but I’m guessing, too, that Wilbur must be sick to death of hearing about it."--from "A Mumble to Invent" 

"Here’s something I never thought I’d write. Once I gave a lecture about Allen Ginsburg’s iconic poem, 'Howl,' to 70 undergraduates when a handful of them up and walked out on me. I was later told they objected to the poem’s foul language and mentions of sex. Foul language and mentions of sex offending college students!"--from "Walking Out on the Walkout."

"What you see everywhere these days in our little magazines and online quarterlies in early twenty-first century America is poetry of the addled and the disheveled. Everywhere you look, cosmetic indifference, fleetingness, manufactured distress, automated irony, and rank certainty substitute for emotion, insight, and thought. American poetry has become overexcited, hesitant, misgiven, and uncertain. It’s freaked-out, neurotic, and uptight. It’s full of distrust."--from "Poise"

David is the president of the Attic Institute in Portland, the author of nine books, most recently Charming Gardeners (poems) and the anthology Poems of the American South (Random House), and a contributor to Politico. He writes the Poetry Wire blog for The Rumpus. Excerpts from A Long High Whistle  here.

Your reviews seed this roundup; please send items to [email protected]. Make sure to send links that do not require a subscription or username and password.

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NBCC board member Karen Long reviews Christine Kenneally's "The Invisible History of the Human Race."

"Rediscovering Regina Derieva," by Cynthia Haven.

Michelle Newby reviews "A Distant Father" by Antonio Skarmeta.

NBCC board member Steven Kellman reviews Richard Ford's latest novel.

Julia M. Klein reviews Eric Lichtblau's "The Nazis Next Door" for the Chicago Tribune

"Angry Optimist: The Life and Times of Jon Stewart," reviewed by Barry Wightman.

Robert Birnbaum chats with George Scialabba about his 40-year struggle with depression and the mental health community.

In her latest Between the Lines column for BBC.com, NBCC board member Jane Ciabattari examines how the fall of the Berlin Wall and end of the Cold War changed spy fiction.

Alexis Burling reviews Malcolm Brook's "Painted Horses."

NBCC board member Colette Bancroft reviews Jill Lepore's book on Wonder Woman.

At the Daily Beast, Scott Porch interviews Harold Holzer on "Lincoln and the Power of the Press."

Kai Maristed reviews "F: A Novel" by Daniel Kehlmann. Maristed also examines the work of Patrick Modiano.

Your reviews seed this roundup; please send items to [email protected]. Make sure to send links that do not require a subscription or username and password.

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At Kirkus.com, Gerald Bartell interviews Lucy Worsley. At the San Francisco Chronicle, he reviews John Lahr's biography of Tennessee Williams.

Julia M. Klein also reviews Lahr's biography.

2013 Balakian winner Katherine A. Powers reviews the Library of America's "The Days Trilogy, Expanded Edition" by H.L. Mencken, edited by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers for the Barnes and Noble Review.

Priscilla Gilman reviews Stanley Plumly's "The Immortal Evening."

Bill Williams reviews "Slow Dancing with a Stranger" by Meryl Comer.

For her Between the Lines column on BBC.com, NBCC board member Jane Ciabattari picks top 10 November books, including NBCC and Nobel award winning Alice Munro's new Family Furnishings, NBCC winner Rebecca Solnit's new essay collection, Lydia Millet's new mermaid novel, and flash collaboration prompted by binge watching cult movies. Ciabattari also gets new perspectives on Stephen King from Harold Bloom and Peter Straub.

Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell examines the Sherlock Holmes style.

Jim Ruland reviews Damien Ober's extraordinary "Doctor Benjamin Franklin's Dream America" for The Floating Library in San Diego CityBeat.

Gregory J. Wilkin reviews the latest installment in the Best American Sports Writing series.

Meredith Maran on Kathryn Harrison's biography of Joan of Arc.

Buzzy Jackson reviews Jill Lepore's "The Secret History of Wonder Woman."

Julie Hakim Azzam interviews picture book duo Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen about their newest collaboration, "Sam and Dave Dig a Hole."

Mike Lindgren reviews ­"Horror Stories: Classic Tales from Hoffmann to Hodgson."

Karl Wolff reviews "By Way of Water," by Charlotte Gullick.

Your reviews seed this roundup; please send items to [email protected]. Make sure to send links that do not require a subscription or username and password.

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The 2014 Kirkus Prize winners were announced on Thursday. This was the inaugural year of the prize, which awards $50,000 to each winning writer.

Elaine F. Tankard reviews Haruki Murakami's latest novel.

Longtime NBCC board member Rigoberto Gonzalez has been awarded a $50,000 United States Artists fellowship in literature. He was honored earlier this month at an Academy of American Poets ceremony for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for his book "Unpeopled Eden." And in the summer "Unpeopled Eden" was honored with a Lambda Literary Award. He also explores "what it means to be a gay Chicano immigrant in the United States." Rigo has served the NBCC as treasurer, bringing that role into the digital age, and is currently Vice President/Awards. He writes the "Small Press Spotlight" series for Critical Mass. His latest interview is with Abayomi Animashaun.

Carl Rollyson reviews Daniel Schreiber's Susan Sontag biography. He also reviews Adam Begley's Updike bio.

Meredith Maran reviews Margo Howard's "Eat, Drink, and Remarry." She also reviews Oprah Winfrey's new collection, in addition to Jane Smiley's "Some Luck."

Dan Cryer also reviews the Smiley novel.

Adam Morris reviews Naomi Klein's new book, "This Changes Everything."

Erika Dreifus has a review essay, "Unmothers: Women Writing About Life Without Children," in the Missouri Review's Fall 2014 issue. The piece focuses on books by Melanie Notkin, Jen Kirkman, and Gail Caldwell as well as an anthology edited by Henriette Mantel.

Heller McAlpin reviews Azar Nafisi's "Republic of Imagination."

Julia M. Klein reviews Barbara Leaming's "Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis" for the Boston Globe.

Angie Jabine reviews Chuck Palahniuk's "Beautiful You."

"Elegy for Dracula," from Randon Billings Noble.

Brad Tyer reviews the new biography of the Flatlanders.

NBCC board member Steven Kellman reviews Ezra Greenspan's "William Wells Brown."

Karl Wolff reviews "Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution," by Richard Whittle for the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography.

Matthew Jakubowski interviews David Winters for the second installment of an ongoing series focused on the question, "What is a critic's role?"

Join us at the AWP Conference in Minneapolis next April!

A Reading and Conversation with Anthony Marra and Alice McDermott, Hosted by National Book Critics Circle Vice President/Online Jane Ciabattari, Sponsored by National Book Critics Circle
April 9, 2015
4:30:PM - 5:45:PM
Main Auditorium, Level 1, Minneapolis Convention Center (1301 Second Avenue South, Minneapollis, MN)

Your reviews seed this roundup; please send items to [email protected]. Make sure to send links that do not require a subscription or username and password.

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2013 Balakian winner Katherine A. Powers reviews Eimear McBride's "A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing" for the Barnes and Noble Review.

NBCC award winner Daniel Mendelsohn ponders the question, "Do we read differently at different ages?" for the New York Times Book Review: "When I reread 'Catcher [in the Rye]' a few years ago, I found myself totally unmoved by the emotional ferocity that had enthralled me in 1974."

Before the announcement of the 2014 winner, Richard Flanagan's "The Narrow Road to the Deep North," Susanna Rustin argued in The Guardian against new rules making Americans eligible for the Man Booker Prize:  "The American century may be over but American music, films, TV, books and games are everywhere. American publishing already has, in the Pulitzers and National Book Critics Circle, internationally prestigious awards."

The National Book Critics Circle makes a cameo appearance in NBCC board member Ron Charles' essay on the proliferation of contests (and announcing a new $25,000 award funded by former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent).

Meanwhile, Matthew Specktor mentions the NBCC's "bolder choices" in his evaluation of the "conservative"  National Book Award finalists.

In her books column on Dylan Thomas for BBC.com, Jane Ciabattari talks to NBCC award winning poet Philip Levine, who saw the Welsh poet read at Wayne State and twice at the 92nd Street Y: "“I had only seen pictures of him, the young Dylan Thomas in a turtleneck sweater with a lot of blond hair blowing in the wind," says Levine. "He comes out and he looks like a miniature WC Fields. Sort of round and very rumpled. He staggers out, gets up there and is in complete command. His voice was melodious and powerful and nothing was slurred.”

In Guernica,Grace Bello talks to Jess Row about coming of age in dichotomous Baltimore and being warned against writing about race in his new novel, "Your Face in Mine."   

Julia M. Klein reviews Bettina Stangneth's "Eichmann Before Jerusalem" for the Jewish Daily Forward. She also reviews Martin Amis's "The Zone of Interest" and Alan Cumming's memoir, "Not My Father's Son," for the Chicago Tribune. And she reviews Jake Halpern's "Bad Paper" for the Boston Globe.

Leanne Shapton, winner of the NBCC autobiography award, has published "Women in Clothes," co authored with Sheila Heti and Heidi Julavits.

Princeton has acquired the papers of Toni Morrison, whose Song of Solomon won the NBCC fiction award in 1977, and who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Morrison taught in Princeton's Creative Writing program from 1989 to 2006, when she retired.

Dan Cryer reviews Edward O. Wilson's "The Meaning of Human Existence" for the Boston Globe: "...beneath Wilson’s calm and measured prose lies, in effect, a battle cry. His aim is to win the culture wars that progressive thinkers believed were won long ago."

Lisa Levy offers 7 things she learned talking over coffee with NBCC award winner Katha Pollitt about her new book, "Pro," for Bustle.

Harvey Freedenberg calls David Mitchell's "The Bone Clocks" "a frequently entertaining, if flawed, work," in his review for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He also reviews Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See" for Harrisburg Magazine.

Marion Winik reviews Bill Roorbach's 'The Remedy for Love' , Lena Dunham's "growing-up-weird essays" in "Not That Kind of Girl," and talks to Seinfeld writer Peter Mehlman about "It Won't Always Be This Great," his novel set on Long Island, all for Newsday.

Sarah Ruhl's play "Dear Elizabeth" is based on the thirty-year correspondence between NBCC poetry award winner Elizabeth Bishop and NBCC poetry award winner Robert Lowell, "who remain influential forces, especially among local poets,"  Jan Gardner notes in the Boston Globe.

Isabel Wilkerson talks to Boise State Public Radio about her 2010 NBCC nonfiction award winning book, "The Warmth of Other Suns" in advance of her Thursday, October 23, speaking engagement at the Idaho Humanities Council’s 18th Annual Distinguished Humanities Lecture and Dinner.

Michele Raffin is "on a mission" in her new book, "Birds of Pandemonium," points out Heller McAlpin in her NPR.org review.

Linda Simon calls out Hilary Mantel's quirkiness in her review of 'The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher,' the NBCC fiction award winner's short story collection, for the Kansas City Star: "The title story is the best: Margaret Thatcher has had an eye operation in a clinic in a quiet, shady neighborhood in Windsor where the narrator has a third-floor flat."

David Abrams reviews Christian Winans'  debut collection, "Naked Me," at his blog (The Quivering Pen).

Megan Labrise interviews NBCC fiction award winner  Jane Smiley and rogue taxidermist Robert Marbury for Kirkus Reivews.

Julie R. Enszer reviews Erika Meitner’s “Copia" for The Rumpus. 

Robert Birnbaum blogs about Paul Krassner, the "Prince of Gadflies," and his new booka about the Patty Hearst kidnapping and Dan White's Twinkie defense.

Ron Slate reviews Italo Calvino's final book of essays, "Collection of Sand."

David Cooper reviews Assaf Gavron's "The Hilltop" for the New York Journal of Books.