Top of page

Category: Writers

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Just in Time for the National Book Festival, it’s Leslie Jordan!

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Leslie Jordan, the Emmy Award winning comic actor turned Instagram star turned author, brings his "How Y'all Doing?" to the National Book Festival. His short video riffs on being short, Southern and gay have charmed millions of viewers since he started posting them during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 67-year-old has more than 100 film and television credits, including turns on hit series such as "Will and Grace" and "American Horror Story." He's currently starring in "Call Me Kat" with Mayim Bialik.

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Ada Limón, the Nation’s New Poet Laureate

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden today announced that Ada Limon will serve as the nation's 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2022-2023. She is the author of six poetry collections and is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

The Neil Simon Collection: Now Playing at the Library of Congress

Posted by: Neely Tucker

The Library now has the papers and collected works of Neil Simon, the most commercially successful playwright in American history and one of the most honored. "Barefoot in the Park," "The Odd Couple," "The Sunshine Boys," "Biloxi Blues," "Plaza Suite," "Lost in Yonkers." By the time he died at age 91 in 2018, he his career included 28 Broadway plays, five musicals, 11 original screenplays and 14 film adaptations of his own work. The Library's collection includes more than 180 titled works that Simon began, many of them completed but never published or produced.

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

Mississippi Author Jesmyn Ward: Winner of the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction

Posted by: Neely Tucker

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today that the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction will be awarded to Jesmyn Ward. The 45-year-old Mississippian is the two-time winner of the National Book Award for the novels "Salvage the Bones" and "Sing, Unburied, Sing" among other major literary awards.

Image of an ornate clock showing 2:05 with sculpted male figures sitting on each side of the clock face

George Chauncey, Kluge Winner

Posted by: Brett Zongker

Historian George Chauncey, whose work has focused on LGBTQ issues for four decades, is the 2022 John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. The Kluge Prize awards $500,000 to scholars for distinguished work in fields outside those covered by the Nobel Prize. Previous winners include political historian Danielle Allen, philosopher Jurgen Habermas, former president of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and John Hope Franklin, the renowned scholar of African American history.