Jesmyn Ward

Winner of the 2011 National Book Award for her novel Salvage the Bones, the story of a poor black family in the days immediately surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

Ward, herself a survivor of Katrina, grew up and still makes her home in DeLisle, Mississippi, a town she fictionalized in both Salvage the Bones and her eloquent debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds.

Heralded by the Library Journal for her “fearless, toughly lyrical language,” Jesmyn Ward is a fitting heir to the rich literary tradition of the American South. She confronts poverty, racism, natural disaster, and community devastation with gravitas and grace.

Ward received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, where she won five Hopwood Awards for her fiction, essays, and drama. She held a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University from 2008-2010, and served as the Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi during the following year.

Ward currently teaches creative writing at the University of Southern Alabama in Mobile and will have a memoir entitled The Men We Reaped, published in the spring of 2013.