21 Facts About Arthur Flowers

Arthur Flowers's work is known for its focus on the African-American experience, particularly folklore, blues music, and hoodoo spiritualism.

Arthur Flowers has been a member of the faculty of Syracuse University since 1996.

Arthur Flowers was born in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was immersed in the American civil rights movement from an early age.

Arthur Flowers joined the US Army and was deployed to Vietnam as part of the American war effort there.

Arthur Flowers has described his participation in the war as helping to change his perception of history.

Arthur Flowers enrolled in writing workshops with John Oliver Killens, an influential figure in the Black Arts Movement, whom Flowers came to regard as his mentor.

Arthur Flowers joined the Harlem Writers Guild, an association for African-American writers that Killens co-founded.

Arthur Flowers eventually served as executive director of the Harlem Writers Guild.

Later, Arthur Flowers was a founding member, along with Doris Jean Austin and others, of the New Renaissance Writers Guild, a nonprofit organization based in New York City.

Around the time of the publication, Arthur Flowers struggled with drug addiction and homelessness.

Arthur Flowers has claimed that encountering a religious pamphlet in the late 1980s helped him to reorient his life.

In 1996, Arthur Flowers joined the faculty of Syracuse University, teaching in the Department of English's Creative Writing Program.

Arthur Flowers's writing is characterized by blues-inspired lyricism and the incorporation of dialects and African-American Vernacular English.

Arthur Flowers's work tends to open with a self-referential invocation, highlighting his interest in both oral storytelling tradition and hoodoo spiritualism.

Arthur Flowers has termed his approach to his work "literary hoodoo".

Arthur Flowers has credited the influence of John Oliver Killens on his work.

Arthur Flowers has spoken about the influence on his work of African oral storytelling traditions.

Arthur Flowers's work has been anthologized in Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction and Gumbo: An Anthology of African American Writing, among other anthologies.

Arthur Flowers has been a visiting professor or speaker at numerous institutions.

Arthur Flowers was a consultant for Spike Lee's 2020 film about Vietnam War veterans, Da 5 Bloods.

Arthur Flowers was hired after Lee encountered Flowers's first novel, De Mojo Blues.