Theater video tags: Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward on Why Fiction Matters

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“I write toward what hurts. I write toward the truth, and I tell it again. I scribe the whole.” In this National Book Festival event, Jesmyn Ward, recipient of the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, speaks about how her grandmother influenced her work as a writer and joins Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in a conversation about her award-winning novels, grief writing, and cultural authenticity.

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Shelfie With CJ Hauser

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In this Waterstones video, CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays (Doubleday, 2022), talks about the books that have inspired them as a writer, which include Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward; I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins; and Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters.

Behind Book Covers

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“It’s going to be the first thing someone lays their eyes on before they read it.” Jaya Miceli, art director at Scribner, discusses her love of books covers and how the jacket designs were created for several popular novels, such as Rachel Lyon’s Self-Portrait With Boy and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied Sing.

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Jesmyn Ward

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“When you see yourself reflected in literature, it enlarges your ideas of what is possible for you.” MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient Jesmyn Ward takes PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown on a tour of her hometown in Mississippi and shares the parts of her life and community that inspire her writing. Ward is the winner of the 2017 National Book Award in fiction for Sing, Unbured, Sing (Scribner, 2017).

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Writing for a Broken World

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“I didn’t understand that I had to be ruthless. I didn’t understand that my job as a writer wasn’t to coddle my characters and create these fairy tales for them to live.” At Brown University's Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Jesmyn Ward and Edwidge Danticat discuss writing about their homes and the power of place.

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