The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program will continue its 2016-2017 Writers in Camden series on Wednesday, January 25th, with readings by Melissa Fay Greene and Tyehimba Jess.
Melissa Fay Greene is the author, most recently, ofThe Underdogs: Children, Dogs, and the Power of Unconditional Love. Her earlier books, including Praying for Sheetrock (1991), The Temple Bombing (1996), andThere Is No Me Without You (2007) have been translated into 15 languages and have been honored with two National Book Award nominations, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and the ACLU National Civil Liberties Award, and Sheetrock was named one of the top 100 works of English-language journalism of the 20th century. Melissa is a 1975 graduate of Oberlin College, a 2013 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and a 2015-2016 Guggenheim Fellow. She and her husband live in Atlanta and are the parents of nine.
Detroit native Tyehimba Jess’ first book of poetry, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. The Library Journal and Black Issues Book Review both named it one of the “Best Poetry Books of 2005.” Jess, a Cave Canem and NYU alumnus, received a 2004 Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and was a 2004-2005 Winter Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. Jess is also a veteran of the 2000 and 2001 Green Mill Poetry Slam Team, and won a 2000 – 2001 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry, the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award, and a 2006 Whiting Fellowship. He exhibited his poetry at the 2011 TEDxNashville Conference. Olio, his second collection, is forthcoming from Wave Books in April 2016. Jess is an Associate Professor of English at College of Staten Island.
The event will begin at 7 p.m. Please note that the event has been moved to Walt Whitman Center, located at 2nd and Cooper Streets. This event is free and open to the public; registration is requested.
The Writers in Camden series is sponsored by the MFA in Creative Writing Program and the National Endowment for the Arts.