Black American Writers Series
The Black American Writers Series is a partnership between Black American Studies, The Bert C. Bach Written Word Initiative, and the Department of Literature & Language. The interdisciplinary series is set in the heart of Black American Studies, a major interdisciplinary program in the College of Arts & Sciences. This series brings noteworthy essayists, poets, writers, journalists, historians, and others to the campus of East Tennessee State University to highlight and spotlight the contributions of Black American Writers.
Black American Writers Series Working Group
- Dr. Daryl A. Carter, Associate Dean, Director/Black American Studies, Professor of History
- Dr. Jesse Graves, Professor of Literature & Language, Director/Bert C. Back Written Word Initiative
- Dr. Jennifer Price, Assistant Dean/Outreach & Recruitment
- Dr. Alan Holmes, Associate Dean and Professor of Literature & Language
- Dr. Daniel Westover, Chair/Literature & Language and Professor of Literature & Language
- Dr. Heather Hoover, George and Janet Arnold Chair of Humanities, Milligan University
Black American Writers Series 2023-2024
The Black American Studies Program and Bert C. Bach Written Word Initiative are proud to present poet Major Jackson. Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, including Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems (2023), The Absurd Man (2020), Roll Deep (2015), Holding Company (2010), Hoops (2006) and Leaving Saturn (2002), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems. His edited volumes include: Best American Poetry 2019, Renga for Obama, and Library of America’s Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. He is also the author of A Beat Beyond: The Selected Prose of Major Jackson edited by Amor Kohli. A recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Major Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He has published poems and essays in American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, Orion Magazine, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Poetry London, and Zyzzva. Major Jackson lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review. Jackson will visit ETSU on Monday, September 18 at 2 pm in Forum Room 311, Culp Center and at 7 pm in the Brown Hall Auditorium. A Q&A and book signing will follow the reading. This event is free and open to ETSU community and the general public. For more information, contact Dr. Jesse Graves at gravesj@etsu.edu.
Black American Writers Series 2022-2023
The Black American Studies Program, Art & Design’s Slocumb Galleries, and Bert C. Bach Written Word Initiative are proud to present internationally recognized poet Nikki Giovanni. Her works, such as Black Feeling, Black Talk / Black Judgement, Bicycles: Love Poems, and Those Who Ride the Night Winds, have made her one of America’s most important voices on the Black experience since the late 1960s. Giovanni will visit ETSU on Tuesday, September 20 at 6 pm in the Brown Hall Auditorium. A Q&A and book signing will follow the reading. This event is free and open to ETSU community and the general public. For more information, contact Professor Daryl Carter at carterda@etsu.edu.
Black American Writers Series 2021-2022
Black American Studies presents Tyree Daye, poet and educator at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Daye will be joining us for a day of celebrating Black writers on September 8, 2021. He will begin with his craft talk on "Nina Simone and Tone" at 2 pm in the Cave and finish the day with a poetry reading from his latest book, Cardinal, in the Culp Auditorium at 7 pm. Both events are free and open to the public with a book signing to follow.Additional support provided by the Bert C. Bach Written Word Initiative and the Department of Literature and Language.
