Jesmyn Ward was born on April 1,1977 and is an American novelist and a Professor of English at Tulane University, where she holds the Andrew W Mellon Professorship in the Humanities.
18 Facts About Jesmyn Ward
2.
Jesmyn Ward won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for her second novel Salvage the Bones and won the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction for her novel Sing, Unburied, Sing.
3.
Jesmyn Ward received a 2012 Alex Award for the story about familial love and community in facing Hurricane Katrina.
4.
Jesmyn Ward is the only woman and only African American to win the National Book Award for Fiction twice.
5.
Jesmyn Ward moved to DeLisle, Mississippi, with her family at the age of three.
6.
Jesmyn Ward developed a love-hate relationship with her hometown after having been bullied by classmates both at public school and while attending a private school paid for by her mother's employer.
7.
Jesmyn Ward chose to become a writer to honor the memory of her younger brother, who was killed by a drunk driver in October 2000, just after Jesmyn Ward had completed her master's degree.
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In 2005, Jesmyn Ward received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan.
9.
Jesmyn Ward went on to work at the University of New Orleans, where her daily commute took her through the neighborhoods ravaged by the hurricane.
10.
In 2008, just as Jesmyn Ward had decided to give up writing and enroll in a nursing program, Where the Line Bleeds was accepted by Doug Seibold at Agate Publishing.
11.
On November 16,2011, Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for Fiction for Salvage the Bones.
12.
Jesmyn Ward received an Alex Award for Salvage the Bones on January 23,2012.
13.
From 2008 to 2010, Jesmyn Ward had a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University.
14.
Jesmyn Ward joined the faculty at Tulane in the fall of 2014.
15.
In July 2011, Jesmyn Ward wrote that she had finished the first draft of her third book, calling it the hardest thing she had ever written.
16.
Jesmyn Ward is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.
17.
At age 45, Jesmyn Ward is the youngest person to receive the Library's fiction award for her lifetime of work.
18.
Jesmyn Ward wrote about his death in an article for Vanity Fair.