Recap: The National Book Awards After Party
A play-by-play of my trip to attend the biggest night in books (pinch me!), with pics
Hi, friends!
This past week, I went back to NYC to dance the night away and fangirl over my favorite authors at the official National Book Awards after party. I’m not cool enough to get invited to the actual awards ceremony (seats are super limited), but this was my third year attending the after party.
I will never get over how surreal it is to be able to go to this event. I grew up in rural Central New York, about 5 hours from NYC, with a graduating class of 180 kids. Until my husband and I moved to the tristate area in 2016, I didn’t really even know that events like this existed. The awe and gratitude I felt when I walked into Cipriani Wall Street this past Wednesday was just as poignant as it was back in 2022. My biggest, loudest thanks go out to the National Book Foundation for welcoming me into their world.
It’s become a night I wouldn’t miss for anything — as evidenced by me leaving my 4-month-old baby home with her dad to fly down (thanks babe!) — so I thought I’d share the play-by-play with all of you. (If you’re reading this in your inbox, you’ll need to click over and open it in your browser to read the whole thing — too many photos, sorry!)
Before the big event
Wednesday morning, I woke up bright-ish and early at 4:30 AM to catch a 6:30 AM flight from Syracuse to NYC. This was my first full week back at work after a ramp-up period from parental leave, so I didn’t want to take more time off. Plus, I work for a company headquartered in NYC, so it was a great chance to work from the office and see a bunch of coworkers in person. After I landed, I caught a Lyft to my friend’s apartment on the Upper West Side to use her shower (thanks Emily!), then zipped down to Flatiron to the office.
I knew I was never going to make it to 1 AM without a nap between work and the main event, so I left around 5 PM, grabbed Chipotle, and made my way down to my hotel, which was alllll the way downtown, right around the corner from the Charging Bull and the Staten Island Ferry. I didn’t quite manage to fall asleep before it was time to get dressed and made up (I’m not a good napper), but I did get some quiet time in the dark — and a big cup of hotel-lobby coffee.
I met up with my internet-turned-IRL friends Bernie (@bernie.lombardi), Chris (@christophermetts), and Hunter (@shelfbyshelf) outside the hotel just before 8 PM to make our (very windy) way over to the first stop of the night: the unofficial, invite-only ceremony watch party hosted by Meta/Threads at McNally Jackson Seaport, my favorite McNally. On the way, we went live with JC (@jcgrenn_reads) and said hi to all our Bookstagram friends!
The ceremony watch party at McNally Jackson
We got to McNally Jackson just after 8 PM, which is when the National Book Awards ceremony began. They had the bar open downstairs, plus a cute little popcorn station. Upstairs, they had the lights dimmed with folding chairs and a big screen playing the ceremony’s live stream.
Everything was lovely. It was especially good to have a place to meet up with other bookfluencers in a quieter, more intimate (but still very fun) place, because the after party itself is huge and loud. In retrospect, I think the organizers expected most people to want to sit and watch, but most people wanted to socialize instead, so we all ended up crowded into the downstairs area for the majority of the event. Maybe next year they’ll flip-flop things and use the bigger space for socializing and the smaller space for quiet, lights-off watching. But ultimately, this was great given that it was the first event of its kind!
I especially loved catching up with Nnena (@notesbynnena), who is one of my OG Bookstagram friends — we go back to at least 2019, maybe even before that. I also loved meeting Steph (@starry.steph), Ofelia (@ofe23), and Lupita (@lupita.reads) for the first time!
After a drink (or several) and plenty of shenanigans, it was almost time to head over to the venue, Cipriani Wall Street. We took some fun group photos, played a quick game of “who’s read the greatest number of books on the display tables” (Bernie for most tables, me for the genre fiction table, and Hunter for the staff picks wall), and headed out. The boys walked WAY too fast for me and Lupita, especially in our dress shoes, but we arrived (mostly) together.
The after party itself
When you walk up outside Cipriani, the first thing you see is the red carpet, where photos are not only expected, but encouraged. Obviously we indulged.
Then the event team checked to make sure we were on the list and ushered us in the door. The space is huge and absolutely gorgeous. It’s a large open ballroom, with the stage and tables from the award ceremony in the main space and a dance floor up the stairs behind it. There are also approximately 5 bars set up throughout the room — it’s a party.
Obviously (if you know Hunter), Hunter made a beeline for Lauren Groff. But no complaints from me, because that meant I got an intro. And y’all, she is just as lovely and funny and relatable as she seems! (Also, she made a joke about having never seen that side of the podium when she got up on stage to announce the winner, and if that’s not queen sh*t, I don’t know what is.)
Next, a few of us decided to take photos on the stage while it was abandoned and the room was still (relatively) well lit. That said, Nnena and I were taking each other’s pics and still struggling with the lighting, when the event organizers must have noticed us and decided to flip them on right as Nnena struck a pose. It was very fun and the photos came out MUCH better. Thank you, NBA lighting people!!
From here on out, the order of events for everything else I’m about to tell you is a bit of a blur — the lights are low and the music is loud and there are smart, beautiful people everywhere! It’s all a wonderful, exciting blur.
The first thing I loved was getting to meet some long-time internet friends IRL for the first time.
(@fictionmatters) and I have talked more and more over the past year or so, and we hung out for a good chunk of time, bonding over having small daughters and how excited we were to be there. Matthew Sciarappa (@matthewsciarappa) and I also spent several long chunks chatting and discovered that we are actually soulmates. And I even managed to catch (@thestackspod) for a few minutes as she flitted from book celeb to book celeb like the networking butterfly she is.
New friends were to be had as well, particularly Yasmine (@yasminereads) and MJ Franklin (heyitsfranklin2).
This event is also a who’s-who of publishing. I got to reconnect with my friend Zack, an editor — I look forward to seeing him at this after party every year! Plus Hunter, Bernie and I spent a good 15 minutes chatting with the woman who heads up Riverhead Books, and if you don’t think I was squee-ing the whole time, you’re lying to yourself. I also chatted for several minutes with Peter Blackstock of Grove Atlantic, who edited Shuggie Bain. So many smart and lovely people!!
Speaking of which, I would be remiss not to mention the cool authors I met. First and foremost is Barbara Kingsolver, THE Barbara Kingsolver, Pulitzer winner, recipient of the night’s lifetime achievement award (watch her speech, it’s so good), and the only person to have won the Women’s Prize twice. I didn’t get a photo with her (sad!), but we talked about being from small towns and our love of books and she was just so kind and warm and real. That said, she DID dance with Chris and give him her medal for his outfit, and this photo exists. I told him he should just call it now; he’ll never take a better photo as long as he lives.
Two other big celeb highlights for me: Mychal Threets, the internet’s favorite librarian (he is so lovely and kind and was endearingly shy, very on brand); and Tomi Adeyemi, author of Children of Blood and Bone.
I didn’t do as much dancing this year as I would have liked, but this party is only three hours long and I had so many people to chat with and my postpartum feet were about to abscond from my body in protest. But I did do a bit of dancing, and let me just say that the DJ was AMAZING.
The event ended at 1 AM. There’s always an after-after party at a nearby bar, but ya girl had been up since 4:30 AM and by then, there was no way I was going to be able to stay vertical for a minute longer than necessary. We hobble-ran back to our hotel in the pouring rain and I gratefully discarded my formalwear. I was so tired that I accidentally put my night shirt on inside out AND backwards and didn’t even notice for the full 10 minutes it took me to take my makeup off, brush my teeth, and get ready for bed.
That’s it — all the memories in my brain, dumped into this newsletter for you. I hope you had fun reading!
How many days until next year?????
— Deedi (she/her)
Please get “networking butterfly” printed on my (nonexistent) business cards. So great meeting you!
So love getting these, Deedi, especially since I am taking an IG break! Looks like this was a blast!