In 2017, Jesmyn Ward (1977– ), born in DeLisle, Mississippi, won the National Book Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize for fiction for her novel Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel. For Salvage the Bones: A Novel, she won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2011 and the Alex Award in 2012. She is an associate professor of creative writing at Tulane University, where she teaches creative writing. At Stanford University, she earned a bachelor's degree in English, completed a master's degree in media studies and communication, and held a Stegner Fellowship from 2008 to 2010. She later earned a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of Michigan, where she won five Hopwood Awards for fiction, essay, and drama. In 2011, she was the Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi and, in 2016, she won the Mildred and Harold Strauss Livings Award, which the American Academy of Arts and Letters awards every five years for literary excellence. Jesmyn's other works include Men We Reaped: A Memoir, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race, and Where the Line Bleeds: A Novel.
