Omni Daily News

PEN/Faulkner shortlist: No appearances by multiple past winners Roth, Doctorow, and Jin among this year's PEN/Faulkner Award nominees, announced today. The winner will be announced on March 23 from these finalists: War Dances by Sherman Alexie, The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead, A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore, and Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories by Lorraine M. Lopez.

"We sat at a pavement table in the traffic fumes and drank cold beer": Hilary Mantel on the "happiest day of my life": returning to England and staking her claim as a professional novelist in 1986 after four years living under the constraints of Saudi Arabia.

"I boiled it, and then I ate it": John Wray and Zach Galifianakis try to out-deadpan each other (watch to the end to see Wray lose the battle) regarding Wray's novel Lowboy, just out in paperback. Am I presuming too much to assume this conversation took place in Brooklyn? I do like the binary typewriter!

Moving & shaking: A Morning Edition interview with Adam Haslett sends his debut novel, Union Atlantic, up our charts and onto this morning's Movers & Shakers list.