Written Arts News
The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry ’99 Wins Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction
“Winning it was just an astonishing thing. I felt incredibly grateful.”
The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry ’99 Wins Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction
Jedediah Berry ’99. Photo by Tristan Morgan Chambers
The Naming Song, also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, is a fabulist novel that takes place after an apocalyptic event makes names disappear. The novel’s protagonist works for “the Names Committee” as a courier, delivering names to their proper places. “I came to love these characters and the strange journey that they’re on in the book,” Berry said. “Living with that for so long and knowing that it’s finally out of the world is kind of a strange experience. It’s like finally introducing people to these old friends.”
Post Date: 10-07-2025
Robert Kelly and Charlotte Mandell ’90 Write About Pierre Joris ’69 for the Poetry Foundation
“He was never jealous of anybody,” said Mandell. “He was always happy for other people's success.”
Robert Kelly and Charlotte Mandell ’90 Write About Pierre Joris ’69 for the Poetry Foundation
Pierre Joris ’69. Photo by Guy Jallay
“He was never jealous of anybody,” said Mandell of Joris. “He was always happy for other people's success.” Speaking about his translations of Paul Celan, Kelly remembers “Pierre somehow intuited a movement [toward] the kind of free line, the importance of the line, long or short. I think Pierre felt that movement in Celan’s later work [and] made it evident in his translations.”
The Literature Program at Bard challenges national, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries that have often dictated the terms by which we understand the meaning and value of the written word, and has a long-standing commitment to fostering the work of writers and thinkers who expand the parameters of public discourse.
Post Date: 08-20-2025
Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu ’20 Reviewed in Several Publications
The New York Times writes, “The specificity of [Ruth]’s mind... makes Lonely Crowds exceptional.”
Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu ’20 Reviewed in Several Publications
Stephanie Wambugu ’20.
In her positive review, Lauren Christensen writes for the New York Times that “it’s the specificity of [Ruth]’s mind, the contours with which she draws the characters and environments around her, that make Lonely Crowds exceptional.” Interviewing Wambugu for Bustle, Greta Rainbow writes “At every turn, Wambugu upends conventions of class, race, and gender, pushing the female friendship story into secret corners where we must face our own shameful proclivities.”
Post Date: 08-05-2025
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