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You are here: Home / Books / Season 2, Episode 10: Award-winning Writer Kiese Laymon

Season 2, Episode 10: Award-winning Writer Kiese Laymon

October 8, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

kieselaymon11/17/14: I can’t tell you how ridiculously excited I was to talk to Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division.  He is the real deal!  His novel  nearly made my head explode it was so good.  It’s funny, and heart-breaking and inventive and one of the most important books I’ve read in a long time.  Don’t miss this episode in which he really breaks it down and talks candidly about the fiction of race and tackles the “What are you?” question!  You can also download this episode (and all past episodes) on itunes—Heidi Durrow

Here’s a link to the Guernica interview I mentioned during the podcast: Hey Mama, by Kiese Laymon.

Award-winning writer @kieselaymon interview on The Mixed Experience!

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Kiese Laymon is a black southern writer, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon attended Millsaps College and Jackson State University before graduating from Oberlin College. He earned an MFA from Indiana University and is the author of the novel, Long Division  and a collection of essays,  How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. Long Division was named one of the Best Books of 2013 by a number of publications, including Buzzfeed, The Believer, Salon, Guernica, Mosaic Magazine, Chicago Tribune, The Morning News, MSNBC, Library Journal, Contemporary Literature, and the Crunk Feminist Collective. Both of Laymon’s book are finalists for the Mississippi Award for Arts and Letters in the fiction and nonfiction categories. Long Division is currently a finalist for Stanford’s Saroyan international writing award. Laymon has written essays and stories for numerous publications including Esquire, ESPN, Colorlines, NPR, Gawker, Truthout, Longman’s Hip Hop Reader, The Best American Non-required Reading, Guernica, Mythium and Politics and Culture. Laymon is currently at work on a new novel “And So On” and a memoir called 309: A Fat Black Memoir. He is an Associate Professor of English at Vassar College.

Filed Under: Books, Episodes

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Host Heidi Durrow

Host Heidi Durrow

Heidi Durrow is the New York Times best-selling writer of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky and the founder of the original mixed roots film and book festival and now the founder of Mixed Remixed Festival , an annual film, book and performance festival, which will be held next on June 10-11, 2016 at … [Read More]

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