Thurber House is a literary center for readers and writers located in Columbus, Ohio, in the historic former home of author, humorist, and New Yorker cartoonist James Thurber. Thurber House is dedicated to promoting the literary arts by presenting quality literary programming; increasing the awareness of literature as a significant art form; promoting excellence in writing; providing support for literary artists; and commemorating Thurber's literary and artistic achievements. The house is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and also as part of the Jefferson Avenue Historic District.
Rachel Cusk is a British novelist and writer.
The Thurber Prize for American Humor, named after American humorist James Thurber, recognizes outstanding contributions in humor writing. The prize is given out by the Thurber House. It was first awarded irregularly, but since 2004 has been bestowed annually. In 2015, the finalists were for the first time, all women. Winners of the Thurber Prize have included authors from an array of diverse backgrounds, from The Daily Show hosts Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah to The New Yorker staff writers Calvin Trillin and Ian Frazier, as well as university professors Julie Schumacher and Harrison Scott Key.
Hisham Matar is an American born British-Libyan writer. His memoir of the search for his father, The Return, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and the 2017 PEN America Jean Stein Book Award. His debut novel In the Country of Men was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Matar's essays have appeared in the Asharq al-Awsat, The Independent, The Guardian, The Times and The New York Times. His second novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, was published to wide acclaim on 3 March 2011. He lives and writes in London.
Simon Rich is an American humorist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has published two novels and six collections of humor pieces, several of which appeared in The New Yorker. His novels and short stories have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Shalom Auslander is an American novelist, memoirist, and essayist. He grew up in a strict Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Monsey, New York, where he describes himself as having been "raised like a veal". His writing style is notable for its existentialist themes, biting satire and black humor. His nonfiction often draws comparisons to David Sedaris, while his fiction has drawn comparisons to Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and Groucho Marx. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages and are published around the world.
Kathryn Schulz is an American journalist and author. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her article on the risk of a major earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific Northwest. In 2023, she won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or Biography.
Patricia Lockwood is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Beginning a career in poetry, her collections include Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, a 2014 New York Times Notable Book. Later prose works received more exposure and notoriety. She is a multiple award winner: her 2017 memoir Priestdaddy won the Thurber Prize for American Humor and her 2021 debut novel, No One Is Talking About This, won the Dylan Thomas Prize. In addition to her writing activities, she has been a contributing editor for the London Review of Books since 2019.
Pamela Erens is an American writer who appeared on a list compiled by the Reader's Digest of "23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read by Now". She has written three critically acclaimed novels for adults, a highly praised novel for middle schoolers, and the memoir/critical hybrid Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life. Her debut novel, The Understory (2007), was a fiction finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize,. Erens's second novel, The Virgins (2013), received accolades from many sources including The New York Times, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. It was a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Her third novel, Eleven Hours, was published in May 2016. It was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus. Erens's middle grade novel, Matasha, was published in June 2021. Erens has also written essays and critical articles for publications such as The New York Times, Vogue, Elle, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Los Angeles Review of Books.
Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian American poet, novelist, and editor. He is the author of the poetry collections Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Pilgrim Bell and of the novel Martyr!, a New York Times bestseller and one of Barack Obama's favorite books of the year.
Olivia Laing is a British writer, novelist and cultural critic. She is the author of five works of non-fiction, To the River, The Trip to Echo Spring,The Lonely City, Everybody, The Garden Against Time, as well as an essay collection, Funny Weather, and a novel, Crudo. In 2018, she was awarded the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for non-fiction and in 2019, the 100th James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Crudo. In 2019 she became an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? is a 2014 graphic memoir of American cartoonist and author Roz Chast. The book is about Chast's parents in their final years. Her father, George, died at the age of 95 and her mother, Elizabeth, who worked as an assistant elementary school principal, died at the age of 97. The author derived the book's title from her parents' refusal to discuss their advancing years and infirmities. Chast's cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker magazine since 1978. The book was appreciated for showcasing Chast's talent as cartoonist and storyteller. It received several awards and was a number 1 New York Times Bestseller.
The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between is a memoir by Hisham Matar that was first published in June 2016. The memoir centers on Matar's return to his native Libya in 2012 to search for the truth behind the 1990 disappearance of his father, a prominent political dissident of the Gaddafi regime. It won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, the inaugural 2017 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the 2017 Folio Prize, becoming the first nonfiction book to do so.
Sally Rooney is an Irish author and screenwriter. She has published three novels: Conversations with Friends (2017), Normal People (2018), and Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021). The first two were adapted into the television miniseries Normal People (2020) and Conversations with Friends (2022).
Conversations with Friends is the 2017 debut novel by the Irish author Sally Rooney, about two young women who become involved with an older couple in Dublin's literary scene. The novel was published by Faber and Faber and received critical acclaim. A television adaptation, also called Conversations with Friends, was released in 2022.
Normal People is a 2018 novel by the Irish author Sally Rooney. Normal People is Rooney's second novel, published after Conversations with Friends (2017). It was first published by Faber & Faber on 30 August 2018. The book became a best-seller in the US, selling almost 64,000 copies in hardcover in its first four months of release. A critically acclaimed and Emmy nominated television adaptation of the same name aired from April 2020 on BBC Three and Hulu. A number of publications ranked it one of the best books of the 2010s.
Outline is a novel by Rachel Cusk, the first in a trilogy known as The Outline trilogy, which also contains the novels Transit and Kudos. It was chosen by The New York Times critics as one of the 15 remarkable books by women that are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." The New Yorker has called the novel "autobiographical fiction."
No One Is Talking About This is the debut novel by American poet Patricia Lockwood, published in 2021. It was simultaneously released in the United States and United Kingdom via Riverhead and Bloomsbury, respectively. The novel focuses on an unnamed woman who is extremely active on social media. Her life changes focus after her family experiences an unexpected tragedy.
Jeannie Vanasco is an American writer. She is the author of Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl, a memoir about her former friendship with the man who raped her, and The Glass Eye, a memoir about her father and his deceased daughter, Vanasco's namesake. She teaches English at Towson University.
Julie Schumacher is an American novelist, essayist, short story writer and academic. She is a Regents Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Minnesota. Schumacher specializes in creative writing, contemporary fiction, and children's literature.
