News

Selected stories from the Beinecke Library, YaleNews, and external media outlets (the latter noted by source in parentheses after title of article).

  • 2020 Yale College Poets Reading Now Online

    April 21, 2020

    The annual Yale College Poets Reading sponsored by Yale Collection of American Literature (YCAL) reading series, cosponsored by the Creative Writing Program in...

  • Knit to This: A Pivot, in the Basement (Mason Dixon Knitting)

    April 18, 2020

    One of my more hopeful thoughts during this time is that we are going to get art out of this. Maybe the musicians, artists, and writers are going to give us amazing things. And maybe it won’t be the art they have done in the past.

  • 10 Highlights from Pace Gallery’s Virtual Saul Steinberg Exhibition (Interior Design)

    April 2, 2020

    Similar to Proust, artist Saul Steinberg was a homebody, creating a body of work­—which exceeds 8,000 drawings—about the whimsy and potentials of life indoors. “Imagined Interiors,” a virtual exhibition on Pace Gallery’s Online Viewing Room, offers a visit to interiors Steinberg illustrated with a post-World War II humor, imagining the new order forming before him with a bitterly joyous and tirelessly curious pen.

  • Zambian writer Namwali Serpell wins $165,000 Windham-Campbell Prize (Face2Face Africa)

    March 25, 2020

    Zambian author Namwali Serpell has been awarded one of the world’s most lucrative literary awards – Yale’s Windham Campbell Prizes 2020. Serpell is one of the eight recipients of the annual prize. The rest of the recipients are; in fiction, Yiyun Lee (the United States/China) alongside Serpell; in nonfiction, Maria Tumarkin (Australia) and Anne Boyer (United States); in poetry, Bhanu Kapil (United Kingdom/India) and Jonah Mixon-Webster (United States); and in drama, Julia Cho (United States) and Aleshea Harris (United States).

  • Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence Mo Willems Presents LUNCH DOODLES! (Princeton Magazine)

    March 25, 2020

    Mo began his career as a writer and animator on Sesame Street, where he garnered six Emmy Awards. His work has been exhibited around the world, including solo retrospectives at the High Museum in Atlanta and the New York Historical Society. Over the last decade, Mo has written three musical theater works based on his books, two of which were commissioned and toured by the Kennedy Center. His papers reside at Yale University’s Beinecke Library.

  • Yale leaders talk about COVID-19: Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Tamar Szabó Gendler

    March 23, 2020

    Faculty who are used to writing notes on a chalkboard are instead using digital whiteboards. Faculty teaching laboratory-based courses have made films using remote-controlled webcams to let students watch experiments up close. In the absence of access to the Yale library, faculty are taking advantage of the rich digital archival collections available through the Beinecke. At the Center for Language Study, over 230 faculty and graduate students participated in online practice sessions on running language classes using Zoom.

  • Eight writers honored with Windham-Campbell Prize (Yale Daily News)

    March 23, 2020

    The international literary community, unable to gather in London as originally planned, tuned into the live-streamed announcement of Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize recipients on March 19. Yale’s Windham Campbell Prizes, one of the world’s most lucrative literary awards, come with a $165,000 award for each of eight winners. “All around the world, governments are taking action, closing libraries, theatres and schools,” said host Damian Barrs in his pre-recorded remarks. “People are afraid. Now more than ever, stories have the power to unite us to open hearts and minds, to provide company, to comfort and to console.”

  • Eight authors share $1m prize as writers face coronavirus uncertainty (The Guardian)

    March 19, 2020

    The day before British-Indian poet Bhanu Kapil learned she had won a Windham Campbell prize, she had been wondering about how to balance writing, teaching and caring for her elderly mother. The next day, she received an email from the prize’s director, Michael Kelleher, informing her that she had been awarded $165,000 (£141,000). “Sitting in bed, wondering about the future, I’d said, aloud, ‘Help’,” said the 51-year-old, who had never won a poetry prize before. “The moment Michael told me I’d won, I felt as if what I’d called out had been received. And I am not a religious person.”

  • Maria Tumarkin on winning the 2020 Windham Campbell: 'It feels like a complicated gift' (The Guardian)

    March 19, 2020

    Maria Tumarkin learned she was one of eight writers around the world to win the world’s richest literary prize, the US$165,000-per head Yale-administered Windham Campbell, on the same day the World Health Organisation declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic. For those familiar with her work, the devastating synchronicity of these two events is unsurprising. The writer and cultural historian’s atmospheric, unclassifiable non-fiction blends commentary, reportage and memoir, traversing the difficult grounds of trauma, grief, friendship, memory and war. Her body of work demonstrates an exceptional ethical rigour and profound empathy – qualities of great literature necessary for a world in crisis.

  • Women’s voices dominate the 2020 Windham-Campbell Prizes

    March 19, 2020

    Yale University today announced a female-dominated slate of recipients for the 2020 Windham-Campbell Prizes. The eight writers, including seven women, were honored for their literary achievement or promise and will receive $165,000 each to support their work. This year’s prize recipients are: in fiction, Yiyun Lee (United States/China) and Namwali Serpell (Zambia); in nonfiction, Maria Tumarkin (Australia) and Anne Boyer (United States); in poetry, Bhanu Kapil (United Kingdom/India) and Jonah Mixon-Webster (United States); and in drama, Julia Cho (United States) and Aleshea Harris (United States).

  • 14 Beautiful London Libraries That Will Bring Out The Bookworm In Everyone (Secret London)

    March 10, 2020

    The British Library. No self-respecting list of London libraries is complete without it, really. The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, boasting a whopping 170 million items – including artefacts from every age of written civilisation, which is damn impressive. The library doesn’t rest on its laurels, either, as three million new items join the collection each year. Anyone is welcome to visit (although the Reading Rooms are for members only), and the library’s inner six-storey glass tower, which was inspired by Yale University’s Beinecke Library, has become a rather photogenic addition. The tower is home to the the King’s Library, accommodating 65,000 printed volumes, 19,000 pamphlets, and manuscripts and maps collected by King George III between 1763 and 1820. Cheers George!