The 2019 Whiting Award recipients (clockwise from top left): poet Kayleb Rae Candrilli, poet Tyree Daye, novelist Hernan Diaz, playwright Michael R. Jackson, fiction writer Terese Marie Mailhot, nonfiction writer Nadia Owusu, playwright Lauren Yee, poet Vanessa Angelica Villarreal, novelist Merrit Tierce and fiction writer Nafissa Thompson-Spires. Courtesy of the Whiting Foundation hide caption
W.S. Merwin found inspiration in his conservation work and in his home on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Jill Greenberg/Courtesy of Copper Canyon Press hide caption
Evan Thomas breaks new ground with extraordinary access to Sandra Day O'Connor, her papers, journals — and even 20 years of her husband's diary. Mike Moore/WireImage/Getty Images hide caption
The 2019 Aspen Words Literary Prize shortlist (clockwise from top left): There There, by Tommy Orange; Friday Black, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah; An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones; Brother, by David Chariandy; and Gun Love, by Jennifer Clement. Courtesy of the publisher/Photo illustration by NPR hide caption
Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish-Iranian journalist and asylum-seeker, won two prestigious Australian literary prizes for his debut, a book composed in text messages sent from a detention center on Manus Island. Hoda Afshar hide caption
An excerpt of Sophie Blackall's Caldecott-winning Hello Lighthouse. Sophie Blackall/Courtesy of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers hide caption
North facade of the White House in Washington D.C. M. Borchi/De Agostini via Getty Images hide caption
Poet Mary Oliver speaks at the 2010 Women's Conference in California. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images hide caption
When the Gran Splendid Theater in Buenos Aires was converted into a branch of the Ateneo bookstore, the stage became a cafe. It was just named "the world's most beautiful bookstore" by National Geographic. Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
In Red Dead Redemption 2, you don't exactly level up. Courtesy of Rockstar Games hide caption
Robert Bly, pictured here in 1980, is known as the chief proponent of the Men's Movement of the 1990s. But in the poetry world, he's known for emotionally charged work about nature, the Vietnam War and personal unburdening. Alan Gilbert Purcell/Fairfax Media via Getty Images hide caption
In the story "The Mole and the Sun," Mole's mother is sick. A medical seer tells him she will recover if his friend Ya Sun can orbit the earth in the opposite direction that it's rotating. The sobering moral is that you can't go against the rules of nature. Pieter Henket hide caption
Blue flag blooming along Walden Pond in early fall. Screenshot courtesy of USC Game Innovation Lab hide caption
Author Glory Edim uses her literary society to signal boost emerging black women writers. Jai Lennard/Courtesy of Penguin Random House hide caption