Jesmyn Ward

Early life and education

Jesmyn Ward was born in 1977 in Berkeley, California. When she was three, her parents returned to DeLisle, Mississippi, where they were originally from. She reportedly 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.

The first in her family to attend college, Ward earned a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1999, and a Master of Arts in media studies and communication in 2000, both at Stanford University. 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 Ward had completed her master's degree. The driver responsible was not charged for her brother's death, only for leaving the scene of the car accident.

In 2005, Ward earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan.

Ward went on to work at the University of New Orleans, where her daily commute took her through the neighborhoods ravaged by the hurricane. Empathizing with the struggle of the survivors and coming to terms with her own experience during the storm, Ward was unable to write creatively for three years – the time it took her to find a publisher for her first novel, Where the Line Bleeds.

Career

In 2008, just as Ward had decided to give up writing and enroll in a nursing program, Where the Line Bleeds was accepted by Agate Publishing. It was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Starting on the day twin protagonists Joshua and Christophe DeLisle graduate from high school, Where the Line Bleeds follows the brothers as their choices pull them in opposite directions.

From 2008 to 2010, Ward had a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. She was the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi for the 2010–2011 academic year.

In her second novel, Salvage the Bones, Ward homed in once more on the visceral bond between poor black siblings growing up on the Mississippi Coast. Ward uses vibrant language steeped in metaphors to illuminate the fundamental aspects of love, friendship, passion, and tenderness. Explaining her main character's fascination with the Greek mythological figure of Medea, Ward told Elizabeth Hoover of The Paris Review: "It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghetto-ized as 'other'. I wanted to align Esch with that classic text, with the universal figure of Medea, the antihero, to claim that tradition as part of my Western literary heritage. The stories I write are particular to my community and my people, which means the details are particular to our circumstances, but the larger story of the survivor, the savage, is essentially a universal, human one."

On November 16, 2011, Ward won the National Book Award for Fiction for Salvage the Bones. Interviewed by CNN's Ed Lavandera on November 16, 2011, she said that both her nomination and her victory had come as a surprise, given that the novel had been largely ignored by mainstream reviewers.

Ward received an Alex Award for Salvage the Bones on January 23, 2012. The Alex Awards are given out each year by the Young Adult Library Services Association to ten books written for adults that resonate strongly with young people aged 12–18. Commenting on the winning books in School Library Journal, former Alex Award committee chair Angela Carstensen described Salvage the Bones as a novel with "a small but intense following – each reader has passed the book to a friend."

From 2011 to 2014, Ward was an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of South Alabama. Ward joined the faculty at Tulane in the fall of 2014.

In July 2011, Ward wrote that she had finished the first draft of her third book, calling it the hardest thing she had ever written. It was a memoir titled Men We Reaped and was published in 2013. The book explores the lives of her brother and four other young black men who lost their lives in her hometown.

In August 2016, Simon & Schuster released The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Ward. The book takes as its starting point James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, his classic 1963 examination of race in America. Contributors to The Fire This Time include Carol Anderson, Jericho Brown, Garnett Cadogan, Edwidge Danticat, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, Mitchell S. Jackson, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Kima Jones, Kiese Laymon, Daniel José Older, Emily Raboteau, Claudia Rankine, Clint Smith, Natasha Trethewey, Wendy S. Walters, Isabel Wilkerson, Kevin Young, and Jesmyn Ward herself.

In 2017, she was the recipient of a MacArthur "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Her third novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, was released in 2017

Set in Ward's fictitious Mississippi town, Bois Sauvage, the novel is narrated from three perspectives mainly within a rural family. Jojo, a young African-American boy, navigates a maturation from childhood to adulthood. His mother, Leonie, struggles with addiction and the challenges of raising children. Finally, Richie, a wayward ghost from the Mississippi State Penitentiary, haunts Jojo and pleads with his family to help him find closure.

The novel won the 2017 National Book Award for fiction.

Ward thus became the first woman and first Black American to win two National Book Awards for Fiction. The novel also won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

In 2018, Ward contributed her Prologue from Men We Reaped to a special edition of Xavier Review (Vol.38. No.2), which includes a foreword by Thomas Bonner Jr. an afterword by Robin G. Vander (both editors of the volume), a chronology, and fifteen essays by scholars, including Trudier Harris and Keith Cartwright. At the time this was the first book-length publication on Ward.

Ward is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

In 2020, Simon & Schuster published Ward's Navigate Your Stars, adapted from a speech the author made at Tulane's 2018 commencement.

Ward's personal essay, "On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic", about the death of her husband, her grief, the spreading of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement, appeared in the September 2020 issue of Vanity Fair, guest-edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

In 2022, the U.S. Library of Congress selected Ward as the winner of the Library's Prize for American Fiction. At age 45, Ward is the youngest person to receive the Library's fiction award for her lifetime of work.

In July 2024, she was one of only three authors (with Elena Ferrante and George Saunders) to have the most books (three) in "The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century", a New York Times survey of 503 literary figures.

Personal life

Ward lives in Mississippi and has three children. Her husband, Brandon R. Miller, died in January 2020 of acute respiratory distress syndrome at the age of 33. Ward wrote about his death in an article for Vanity Fair.

Recognition

Literary prizes

Other

• 2018 Time 100
• 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction

Works

Fiction

Nonfiction

References

References

1. Ward, Jesmyn. (2014). "Men We Reaped: A Memoir".
2. Cardé, Leslie. (May 18, 2018). "Meet Jesmyn Ward, the celebrated novelist speaking at Tulane's commencement". The Advocate.
3. Ed Lavandera (November 18, 2011). [http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/18/author-wins-prestigious-award-for-book-ignored-by-literary-world/ "Ignored by literary world, Jesmyn Ward wins National Book Award"] {{Webarchive. link. (November 22, 2011 , ''[[CNN]]''.)
4. Johnson, Judy (March 2014). "Jesmyn Ward", ''[[Current Biography]]''. Vol. 75, no. 3. p. 86. {{ProQuest. "The first in her family to attend college, Ward was admitted to Stanford University, where she earned both her bachelor's degree in English in 1999 and master's degree in media studies and communication in 2000."
5. link. (February 16, 2021 ". ''Stanford Magazine''. Stanford Alumni Association. March/April 2013. Retrieved September 3, 2017. Refers to "Jesmyn Ward, '99, MA '00" as the author of ''Salvage the Bones'', one of the titles chosen to be distributed at the university's World Book Night in April 2013.)
6. Jesmyn Ward (September 3, 2013). "[https://www.guernicamag.com/no-mercy-in-motion/ No Mercy in Motion] {{Webarchive. link. (September 4, 2017 ". ''[[Guernica (magazine)). Guernica]]''. guernicamag.com. Retrieved September 3, 2017.
7. Julie Bosman (November 16, 2011). [http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/celebratory-night-for-the-book-world/#more-244085 "National Book Awards Go to 'Salvage the Bones' and 'Swerve'"] {{Webarchive. link. (November 21, 2011 , ''[[The New York Times]]''.)
8. Staff and wire reports/Susan Whitall (November 18, 2011). [http://detnews.com/article/20111118/LIFESTYLE/111180376/1005/lifestyle/U-M-grad-takes-top-national-book-honor "U-M grad takes top national book honor"].{{dead link. (September 2017 ''[[The Detroit News]]''.)
9. Ward, Jesmyn. "On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic." Vanity Fair, 1 Sept. 2020, www.vanityfair.com/culture/2020/08/jesmyn-ward-on-husbands-death-and-grief-during-covid.
10. link. (March 22, 2016 , ''[[The Guardian]]''.)
11. Cohen, Noam (November 19, 2011). [http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/breakfast-meeting-nov-17/ "Breakfast Meeting, Nov. 17"] {{Webarchive. link. (November 23, 2011 , ''The New York Times''.)
12. BCALA Literary Awards Committee. (January 25, 2009). "BCALA Announces the 2009 Literary Awards Winners". Black Caucus of the American Library Association. bcala.org.
13. Staff (January 25, 2009). [http://novelist.library.vcu.edu/winners.html "Eighth Annual VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, 2009: Deb Olin Unferth for Vacation (McSweeney's)"] {{Webarchive. link. (December 6, 2011 , Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award.)
14. "Salvage the Bones".
15. Staff (BOMB 105/FAll 2008). [http://bombsite.com/issues/105/articles/3193 "Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward. Read by Jesmyn Ward. Podcast"] {{Webarchive. link. (November 10, 2011 , ''[[BOMB (magazine)). BOMB Magazine]]''.
16. Unwilling to leave the small rural town on the [[Gulf Coast of the United States. link. (December 19, 2011 , ''Publishers Weekly''.)
17. Stanford Creative Writing Program. [http://www.stanford.edu/group/creativewriting/fellows.html "Current and Recent Stegner Fellows"] {{webarchive. link. (November 13, 2011 , ''[[Stanford University]]''.)
18. English Department. [http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/english/mfa/WiR.html "John and Renée Grisham Writers in Residence"] {{Webarchive. link. (October 19, 2011 , ''[[University of Mississippi]]''.)
19. link. (January 17, 2014, ''[[PBS NewsHour]]''.)
20. Staff (May 23, 2011). [http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-60819-522-0 "Fiction Review: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward"]. {{Webarchive. link. (February 2, 2014 , ''Publishers Weekly''.)
21. [[Ron Charles (critic). Charles, Ron]] (November 9, 2011). [https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/jesmyn-wards-salvage-the-bones-reviewed-by-ron-charles/2011/10/31/gIQAuLni3M_story.html "The turmoil before the storm"] {{Webarchive. link. (February 16, 2021 , ''[[The Washington Post]]''.)
22. Hoover, Elizabeth (August 30, 2011). [http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/08/30/jesmyn-ward-on-salvage-the-bones/ "Jesmyn Ward on 'Salvage the Bones'"] {{Webarchive. link. (February 21, 2012 , ''[[The Paris Review]]''.)
23. Carstensen, Angela (January 24, 2012). [http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/adult4teen/2012/01/24/the-alex-awards-2012/ "The Alex Awards, 2012"] {{Webarchive. link. (January 27, 2012, ''[[School Library Journal]]''.)
24. Staff (January 23, 2012). [http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/alex "YALSA's Alex Awards"] {{Webarchive. link. (May 4, 2016 , ''[[Young Adult Library Services Association]]''.)
25. Xu, Jennifer (November 15, 2011). [http://www.michigandaily.com/arts/jesmyn-ward-article "'U' MFA alum Jesmyn Ward nominated for National Book Award for 'Salvage the Bones'"] {{Webarchive. link. (November 19, 2011 , ''[[The Michigan Daily]]''.)
26. "Jesmyn Ward, School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University".
27. Ward, Jesmyn (July 7, 2011). [https://jesmimi.blogspot.com/2011/07/nearly-there.html "nearly there"] {{Webarchive. link. (December 19, 2011 , ''Jesmimi''.)
28. "MacArthur Foundation".
29. [http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Sing-Unburied-Sing/Jesmyn-Ward/9781501126062 "Sing, Unburied, Sing"] {{Webarchive. link. (December 26, 2016 at Simon & Schuster.)
30. (October 4, 2017). "2017 National Book Award finalists revealed". CBS News.
31. Rogo, Paula, [https://www.essence.com/culture/jesmyn-ward-second-national-book-award-sing-unburied-sing "Jesmyn Ward Wins Second National Book Award for 'Sing, Unburied, Sing{{'"] {{Webarchive. link. (December 1, 2017 , ''Essence'', November 18, 2017.)
32. Canfield, David. "Jesmyn Ward is the first woman to win two National Book Awards for Fiction".
33. "2017 National Book Awards".
34. Canfield, David. "Jesmyn Ward is the first woman to win two National Book Awards for Fiction".
35. "Sing, Unburied, Sing".
36. [[Kevin Le Gendre. Le Gendre, Kevin]] (March 2019), ([https://echoesmagazine.co.uk/2019/04/29/daughters-of-africa/ "Daughters Of Africa"], ''Echoes'' magazine. {{Webarchive. link. (November 6, 2020 .)
37. (April 7, 2020). "Navigate Your Stars". Simon and Schuster.
38. (September 2020). "On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic". Vanity Fair.
39. "Jesmyn Ward".
40. Garner, Dwight. (July 12, 2024). "Our Critic's Take on the 100 List: Books That 'Cast a Sustained Spell'". [[The New York Times]].
41. "Brandon's obituary".
42. (October 21, 2023). "Novelist Jesmyn Ward: 'Losing my partner almost made me stop writing'". [[The Guardian]].
43. Ward, Jesmyn. (2020-09-01). "On Witness and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic".
44. "Announcing the Goodreads Choice Winner in Best Fiction!".
45. "2017".
46. "2018 {{!}} Fiction {{!}} Sing, Unburied, Sing".
47. Weisman, Jonathan. (2018-03-06). "Awards: CWA Diamond Dagger; Aspen Words Shortlist".
48. Dwyer, Colin. (March 5, 2018). "Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalists 'Capture The Messiness Of Reality'".
49. "2018 – Dayton Literary Peace Prize".
50. Hipkins, Audrey. (2018-10-22). "2018 Legacy Award Winners Announced".
51. "2018 Indies Choice Book Awards and the E. B. White Read-Aloud Awards".
52. (April 4, 2018). "Announcing the Winner of the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction! {{!}} The PEN/Faulkner Foundation".
53. Passmore, Lynsey. (2018-04-25). "Revealing the 2018 Women's Prize shortlist...".
54. (April 24, 2019). "Jesmyn Ward's 'Sing, Unburied, Sing' Wins Mark Twain American Voice In Literature Award".
55. Daniels, Lee. (2018). "Jesmyn Ward is on the 2018 Time 100 List".
56. Wilson, Jennifer. (2023-10-20). "In Jesmyn Ward's New Novel, Slavery Is Hell and Dante Is Our Guide". The New York Times.
57. (2023-10-21). "Novelist Jesmyn Ward: 'Losing my partner almost made me stop writing'". The Guardian.