Emma Jacobs

Bancroft Prize winners celebrate in Low

One day, Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust missed a call from Columbia Provost Alan Brinkley. “He said he had good news,” Faust recalled. “I said I could use some good news.” So she e-mailed Brinkley, asking him to call her. Brinkley telephoned Faust late that night to inform her that she had won a Bancroft Prize for her latest book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, published in 2008.

By Emma Jacobs | Apr 30 01:57 am ET

D’Agata Defends Non-Fiction With History

According to John D’Agata, “Nonfiction is perceived to be the ugly stepsister to fiction and poetry ... there’s a suspicion of nonfiction as a vehicle of data.”

By Emma Jacobs | Feb 10 12:10 am ET

Semple, BC '86, Pursues Plot in Novels and Life

“I would have been horrified to start out writing a Hollywood novel,” Maria Semple said.
Her statement comes as no surprise, given the fact that Semple spent 15 years writing for television upon her graduation from Barnard College in 1986. But just last month, her debut novel, This One is Mine, was published by Little, Brown and Company.

By Emma Jacobs | Jan 23 05:57 am ET

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