Stacy Alesi's BookBitch.com™

National Book Foundation and Miami Book Fair International Announce New Partnership to Bring National Book Award Winners and Finalists to the Miami Book Fair

 National Book Award honored authors will travel to Miami the day after the National Book Awards Ceremony in New York 

Miami, Aug. 19, 2014 – The National Book Foundation and Miami Book Fair International, presented by The Center for Literature and Theatre @ Miami Dade College, announced today that they will partner to invite all 20 of this year’s National Book Award Winners and Finalists to participate in the 2014 Miami Book Fair. The National Book Awards Ceremony will take place in New York on November 19 and the Winners and Finalists will travel to Miami the following day. National Book Award evenings at Miami Book Fair are made possible by support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

The partnership is an exciting step forward for both the Miami Book Fair, an internationally renowned and groundbreaking literary festival, and the National Book Awards, the United States’ foremost literary award. Having NBA authors in Miami to participate in the Fair’s literary programming will further expand the audience for National Book Award honored books and  highlight the central place of the National Book Awards in the country’s literary culture.

The National Book Awards are presented in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. Winners and Finalists are selected by independent panels of five writers and other experts in the category. A Longlist of ten in each category will be announced during the week of September 15.  Finalists will be announced on October 15.

The Miami Book Fair will take place from November 16 to 23 this year. The Fair presents over 500 authors a year during the eight-day event; audiences number over 200,000 each year.

“This is a wonderful partnership I envision carrying forward for many years,” said Mitchell Kaplan, chair of the Miami Book Fair Board of Directors. “It’s natural and makes sense on so many levels. The Fair has hosted many National Book Award Winners in its thirty-year history, we hope to do so for another thirty, and this partnership will just get stronger.”

“Our goal is to expand the audience for the best of American literature,” said Harold Augenbraum, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation. “Appearing in Miami right after the National Book Awards in New York represents an extraordinary continuation of our celebration and an opportunity for new and exciting relationships between this year’s Winners and Finalists and the avid readership that attends the Miami Book Fair.”

For regular updates on the Miami Book Fair, please visit www.miamibookfair.com, call 305-237-3528 or email wbookfair@mdc.edu. Find the Fair on social media at

https://twitter.com/miamibookfair

https://www.facebook.com/MiamiBookFair

http://instagram.com/miamibookfair

http://thecenteratmdc.tumblr.com/ 

The National Book Foundation’s mission is to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of good writing in America. In addition to the National Book Awards, for which it is best known, the Foundation’s programs include 5 Under 35, a celebration of emerging fiction writers selected by former National Book Award Finalists and Winners; the National Book Awards Teen Press Conference, an opportunity for New York City students to interview the current National Book Award Finalists in Young People’s Literature; NBA on Campus, a partnership that brings current National Book Award authors to Concordia College in Moorhead, MN; the Innovations in Reading Prize, awarded to individuals and institutions that have developed innovative means of creating and sustaining a lifelong love of reading; and BookUp, a writer-led, after-school reading club for middle- and high-school students, run in New York City and Bryan, Texas.

The National Book Award is one of the nation’s most prestigious literary prizes and has a stellar record of identifying and rewarding quality writing. In 1950, William Carlos Williams was the first Winner in Poetry, the following year William Faulkner was honored in Fiction, and so on through the years.  Many previous Winners of a National Book Award are now firmly established in the canon of American literature, such as Sherman Alexie, Louise Erdrich, Jonathan Franzen, Denis Johnson, Joyce Carol Oates, and Adrienne Rich.

Miami Book Fair International, widely considered the largest and finest literary event in the U.S., is the premier event of The Center for Literature and Theatre @ Miami Dade College, a part of MDCulture, the Cultural Affairs Department of the College. The Center promotes reading, writing and theater at locations throughout South Florida by consistently presenting activities open to all. Its Generation Genius programs for children and teens promote literacy and learning. Its creative writing program has national appeal, and courses are taught by local and visiting authors. It is also home to Prometeo Theatre, the nation’s leading Spanish language, conservatory-style program offering training for actors, and featuring performances throughout the year. In 2012, the Center celebrated its tenth year with a renewed commitment to the advancement of literary and theater arts.

Today is a sad day for me. One of my reviewers, Paul Lane, lost his wife and the funeral is this morning.

I’ve known Paul at least ten years and we worked together for most of those. When he retired from the library, which was his second career, his  “retirement” job, he started writing reviews for me.

In all the years I’ve known him, the one thing that was constant was his love for his wife. Anita was a beautiful woman, and Paul was head over heels about her. I don’t know how long they were married, but I would guesstimate over 40 years, and to be that much in love after so long really says a lot, about him and their marriage. Note: Just learned they were married 53 years!

Yesterday, one of my favorite library patrons came in. Eleanor lost her husband a few months ago. They were married over 60 years and she is just devastated. He was her best friend and she misses him terribly. It’s all she talks about now. She gets no pleasure from life anymore because she can’t share it with him.

All that has had me thinking. Today is an anniversary of sorts for me. Ten years ago today my husband had a heart attack, which saved his life.

Ten years this morning he woke me at 5:30 and said he felt funny, something was wrong. He had some achiness in his right shoulder, not the left, and his jaw felt achy too, enough that it woke him. He went online and searched until he found something that said it could be signs of a heart attack.

The EKG they did in the emergency room did not indicate a heart attack, but was odd – they said it looked like an EKG someone would have after taking a stress test.

It turned out to be a very minor heart attack, so minor that they had to wait 24 hours for his blood work to come back to determine that there had been damage, albeit “just a few cells.” But that prompted an angioplasty, which the doctor felt would indicate he needed a stent. A short while later, we found out he needed a bit more than a stent. He underwent a quadruple bypass at age 48.

The surgeon called him his “pediatric” patient. The cardiac ICU nurse assured me that we were incredibly lucky; most heart attacks in men in their 40’s are fatal. We were also lucky to have one of the best heart hospitals in the country, Delray Medical Center, nearby.

My husband is still here, half way to the 20 years they “guaranteed” his bypass surgery. Last weekend he went on a 30 mile hike through the Everglades. He walks almost every day and tries to eat right when I’m not cooking food that not’s good for him (or me!)

We’ve been married for 32 years. He’s been my best friend all these years and I can’t imagine a life without him. He’s put up with a lot over the years – from me, my family, his family, even our kids now and then. So when Eleanor complains she gets no joy from life anymore, I understand. And I know that Paul will be feeling that way too, at least for a while.

It’s a good day to reflect.

I always have a hard time narrowing down my favorite books each year, but it seems to be a rite of passage I force myself through. I found a way around doing just a top ten by creating different categories for my favorites. Maybe cheating, maybe not, but it works for me.

My reviewers are apparently more discerning than I am, all of them pretty much stick to a top ten. The lists are posted here, and there are no clear cut favorites among all of us, but there were a few that made two of our lists.

The book covers pictured here were all the titles that were duplicated among reviewers. No book made more than two lists, and I think that is the first time that there really wasn’t a true consensus.

The only thing I can clearly state is that there were a lot of really good books this year.

I hope you enjoy seeing our favorites, and that you’ll let me know if we missed some of yours!

Home is where the heart is. There’s no place like home. A home without books is like a room without windows…

For me, that is very true, so perhaps this is the best place to start.

Welcome to my new home, stacyalesi.com. But don’t worry, bookbitch.com will get you here, too.

The BookBitch is not gone, just re-imagined. It was time for a change. A kinder, gentler home. While my home may have changed, rest assured my opinions have not.

I am packing my bags, so to speak, and moving in here. Taking all my reviews with me, and some of my reviewers as well. This will be a process so please be patient if what you are seeking cannot be found here yet.

I am leaving the BookBitchBlog as it is for a while until the move is complete. Or as complete as I care to make it. We often use moving as an excuse to get rid of excess, to purge, to cleanse. I am hoping to have a clean house here, and the best way to do that is to start with a clean house.

Besides the opportunity to go mainstream, I wanted all the reviews to be more easily searchable and more easily found. I wanted to combine my blog with my website and just have one home instead of shifting between two. Hopefully this site will accomplish that.

My most heartfelt appreciation to xuni.com for this gorgeous design and making everything work the way it should. Sheer genius!

All comments, suggestions, and constructive criticisms are welcome.

I hope you’ll stop by often.

This is just to see Ramblings show up in the categories list, so pretend this is a rambling post which isn’t about book reviews, guest blogging or contests!  🙂