Name: Kiese Laymon, Keynote
Start: 2019-09-26T19:30:00-04:00
Location: Chase Hall, Memorial Commons

Kiese Laymon, Keynote

Noelle Chaddock, VP Equity and Inclusion

<A HREF="https://granta.com/terrors/?fbclid=IwAR0CY9x4hkNpiUhpSF597OT6A5OUDGXvToOvaZo2mh-aYIVMNUFUs-x7QtQ" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">“Reckoning with Our Racial Past and Present in the Liberal Arts” </A>
Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. In his observant, often hilarious work, Laymon does battle with the personal and the political: race and family, body and shame, poverty and place. He is the author of the powerful and provocative memoir Heavy: An American Memoir (which won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the 2018 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose), the groundbreaking essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and the genre-defying novel Long Division.
Laymon’s debut novel, Long Division, combines elements of science fiction, satire, and social commentary.  In Long Division, 14-year-old City, a newly minted YouTube star, is sent to stay with family in rural Melahatchie, Mississippi. What happens next transgresses the boundaries of fiction and reality, present and past, as City travels through time. The novel was honored with the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing in 2014, and was shortlisted for a number of other awards.
 In addition to Gawker, Laymon has written for Esquire, ESPN The Magazine, NPR, Colorlines, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Ebony, Guernica, The Oxford American, Lit Hub, and many others. He was selected as a member of the Root 100 in 2013 and 2014 and the Ebony Magazine Power 100 in 2015. A graduate of Oberlin College, he holds an MFA in creative writing from Indiana University. He is a Professor of English and African-American Studies at the University of Mississippi. He is also at work on a novel, And So On, out in 2020.
  Here is a link to Laymon’s webpage. It includes, amongst other items, links to his essays and interviews. You may find these, along with his books, useful as you plan your courses for the fall semester.
<A HREF="https://www.kieselaymon.com/essays" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.kieselaymon.com/essays</A>
<A HREF="https://granta.com/terrors/?fbclid=IwAR0CY9x4hkNpiUhpSF597OT6A5OUDGXvToOvaZo2mh-aYIVMNUFUs-x7QtQ" TARGET="_blank" DATA-MSYS-CLICKTRACK="0" REL="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://granta.com/terrors/?fbclid=IwAR0CY9x4hkNpiUhpSF597OT6A5OUDGXvToOvaZo2mh-aYIVMNUFUs-x7QtQ</A>

Chase Hall, Memorial Commons

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