Contemporary American Authors Lecture Series
Visiting Authors 2000-2009
2009 Elizabeth Alexander: Poet, Children’s Writer, Memoirist, Essayist
Winner of National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, the Jackson Poetry Prize,
the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Poet; Chancellor, Academy of American Poets, and the Anisfield-Wolf
Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry; Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Major works: The Venus Hottentot; Body of Life; Antebellum Dream Book; American Sublime; Miss Crandall’s Schoolfor Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color; The Black Interior; Power and Possibility; Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration; Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems, 1990-2010; The Light of the World; The Trayvon Generation
2008 Samuel R. Delany: Science Fiction Author, Essayist
Winner of several Nebula Awards, Hugo Award, Stonewall Book Award, and Eaton Award for Lifetime
Achievement
Major works: Babel-17; Empire Star; The Einstein Intersection; Nova; The Fall of the Towers; Driftglass;
The Tides ofLust; Dhalgren; Triton; Empire; Distant Stars; Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand; They Fly at
Ciron; Equinox; Aye, and Gomorrah; Phallos; The Jewel-Hinged Jaw; Heavenly Breakfast; Starboard Wine;
The Motion of Light in Water; Wagner/Artaud; Straits of Messina; Silent Interviews; The Mad Man; Atlantis;
Longer Views; Bread and Wine; Hogg; Shorter Views; Times Square Red, Times Square Blue; Dark Reflections;
Through the Valleyof the Nest of Spiders; Captives of the Flame; The Jewels of Aptor; The American Shore;
In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel R. Delany.
2007 Marilyn Nelson: Poet, Children’s Writer
Winner of two Pushcart Prizes, Newbery Honor, Frost Medal, the AnisfieldWolf Award for Non-Fiction, the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement; elected Chancellor, Academy of American Poets and Fulbright Fellow; NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children; NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature; Denise Levertov Award, The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.
Major Works: For the Body; Mama’s Promises; The Homeplace; Magnificat; The Fields of Praise; Carver: A Life
in Poems; Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem; The Cachoeira Tales; A Wreath for Emmett Till;
Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color; Sweethearts of Rhythm; Beautiful Ballerina; Snook Alone; Faster than Light: New and Selected Poems; How I Discovered Poetry; American Ace; Augusta Savage: The Shape of a Sculptor’s Life; A is for Oboe.
2006 Charles Johnson: Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Cartoonist
Winner of the National Book Award,Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, MacArthur Fellowship, and Lifetime Achievement in the Arts Award from the Corporate Council
for the Arts
Major works: Black Humor; Half-Past Nation Time; Faith and the Good Thing; Oxherding Tale; Middle Passage; Dreamer; The Sorcerer’s Apprentice; Being and Race: Black Writings since 1970; Pieces of Eight; Soulcatcher and Other Stories; Turning the Wheel: Essays on Buddhism and Writing; Dr. King’s Refrigerator and Other Bedtime Stories; Taming the Ox; Buddhist Stories, and Reflections on Politics, Race, Culture, and Spiritual Practice; The Words & Wisdom of Charles Johnson; The Adventures of Emery Jones, Boy Science Wonder; The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling; Grand: A Grandparent's Wisdom for a Happy Life
2004 Pearl Cleage: Novelist, Playwright
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction
Major works: We Don’t Need No Music; Dear Dark Faces: Portraits of a People; One for the Brothers; Mad at Miles: A Blackwoman’s Guide to Truth; The Brass Bed and Other Stories; Deals with the Devil: And Other Reasons to Riot; What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day; I Wish I Had a Red Dress; Hymn for the Rebels; Duet for Three Voices; The Sale; puppetplay; Hospice; Good News; Essentials; Banana Bread; Porch Songs; Come and Get These Memories; Chain; Late Bus to Mecca; Flyin’ West; Blues for an Alabama Sky; Bourbon at the Border; Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do; Babylon Sisters; Baby Brother’s Blues; Seen it All and Done the Rest; Till You Hear from Me;Just Wanna Testify; Things I Should Have Told My Daughter
2005 Edward P. Jones: Novelist, Short Story Writer
Winner of Pulitzer Prize, International Dublin Literary Award, PEN/ Hemingway Award, O. Henry Prize,
MacArthur Fellowship, the Anisfield-Wolf Award for Fiction, and PEN/Malamud Award
Major works: Lost in the City; The Known World; All Aunt Hagar’s Children
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Wikipedia page
2003 Cornelius Eady: Poet
Winner of Lamont Prize, Finalist for the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize in Drama
Major works: Kartunes; Victims of the Latest Dance Craze; Autobiography of a Jukebox; Boom Boom Boom;
The Gathering of My Name; You Don’t Miss Your Water; Brutal Imagination; Hardheaded Weather
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2002 Edwidge Danticat: Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Memoirist
Winner of the Pushcart Prize for Short Fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Award for Fiction, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and MacArthur Fellowship; Finalist for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award (2), The Story Prize, Vilcek Foundation Prize
Major works: Breath, Eyes, Memory; Krik? Krak!; The Farming of Bones; After the Dance; Behind the Mountains; The Dew Breaker; Anacaona, Golden Flower: Haiti, 1490; Brother, I’m Dying; Eight Days; Create Dangerously; Clair of the Sea Light; Mama’s Nightingale; Untwine, The Art of Death; Everything Inside: Stories
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2001 Toi Derricotte: Poet, Memoirist
Winner of the Pushcart Prize, Folger Shakespeare Library’s Poetry Committee Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Award for Non-Fiction, PEN/Voelcker Award, and Robert Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement
Major works: The Empress of the Death House; Natural Birth; Captivity; Tender; The Black Notebooks; Natural Birth; The Undertaker’s Daughter; I: New and Selected Poems
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2000 Lucille Clifton (1936-2010): Poet, Children’s Writer
Winner of the National Book Award, Chancellor, Academy of American Poets, Anisfield-Wolf Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, the Poetry Society of America’s Robert Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement (2010), and Emmy Award.
Major works: Good Times; Good News about the Earth; An Ordinary Woman; Generations; Two Headed Woman;
Good Woman; Next; Ten Oxherding Pictures; Quilting; The Book of Light; The Terrible Stories; Blessing the Boats;
Mercy; Voices; The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton
