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For book people, though, black tie includes canvas tote bags.
In2023, the lead-up to the National Book Awardswas fraught.
This year, despite an impending second Trump administration and arash of book bans, the mood is looser.
I dont know if its humor so much inJames its irony.
We need irony right now, Everett tells me later in the night.
ImobsessedwithColored Television, I hear someone say by the bar.
It seems like its Everetts prize to lose.
They inspire, they transport, they kill spiders when you cant find a shoe).
I am not an interpreter.
I prefer to let these voices speak to new generations for themselves, Coates says in his speech.
My mission is recovery.
(The Jewish Onslaughtwas removed from Black Classic Presss site not long after the backlash.)
I hope that every one of us can love ourselves enough to stand up and to make it stop.
Everyone sits up a little straighter when Lauren Groff, chair of the fiction judges, appears onstage.
On the balcony upstairs where a DJ is stationed, everyone is doing the Electric Slide.
Shes having a great time.
But Barbara Kingsolver is still around, holding court on the upstairs balcony in a long-sleeved red sequin dress.
I sidle up to her just after shes kicked off her heels.
Whats going through her mind, I ask?
When the Sugarhill Gangs Jump on It starts playing, she makes a beeline.
I hear someone squeal to a friend.
