Book Smart Tulsa Rides Literary Zeitgeist

by Jeff Martin

06/03/2010

Yesterday the New York Times broke the news that the New Yorker was announcing its list of the 20 best writers under 40.

We were thrilled to see that out of the 20 listed authors, 3 have already been to Tulsa and one is coming this September. One of our initial goals was to expose the Tulsa audience to new, emerging and important voices in contemporary literature. This list, for what it’s worth, shows that maybe we’re doing just that.

The list is as follows:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Chris Adrian – Daniel Alarcon – David Bezmozgis – Sarah Shun-lien Bynum – Joshua Ferris (coming Sept 27) – Jonathan Safran Foer – Nell Freudenberger – Rivka Galchen – Nicole Krauss – Yiyun Li – Dinaw Mengestu – Philipp Meyer – C. E. Morgan – Tea Obreht – Z Z Packer – Karen Russell – Salvatore Scibona – Gary Shteyngart – Wells Tower

While it’s an honor to have hosted 20% of this list, we will do our best in the coming year or two to bring even more of these fine, young writers to our fair city.

Check out the video to hear our interview with writer Rivka Galchen, or click here to catch a glimpse of author Wells Tower speaking at the Hotel Ambassador.