THE CONVERSATIONALISTS
EVIE SHOCKLEY
(B. 1965, Nashville, TN) Evie Shockley is the author of Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (Iowa, 2011), and several collections of poetry, most recently The New Black (Wesleyan, 2011), winner of the 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry, and semiautomatic (Wesleyan, forthcoming 2017).
Shockley's poems and essays have appeared internationally in such journals and anthologies as Boston Review, boundary 2, American Periodicals, Poetry, Best American Poetry 2015, Best American Experimental Writing 2015, Callaloo, Contemporary Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books, pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Art & Culture, and What I Say: Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America. Her honors include the 2015 Stephen Henderson Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Poetry and the 2012 Holmes National Poetry Prize, and her work has been supported by fellowships from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the American Council of Learned Societies, as well as residencies from Hedgebrook, the MacDowell Colony, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Shockley serves as creative writing editor for Feminist Studies. Her current book project is “Graphic Subjects: Slavery, Colorblindness, and Contemporary Black Aesthetics.” She is also Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. |
KARA WALKER
(B. 1969, STOCKTON, CA) New York-based artist Kara Walker is best known for her candid investigation of race, gender, sexuality, and violence through silhouetted figures that have appeared in numerous exhibitions worldwide.
Walker was raised in Atlanta, Georgia from the age of 13. She studied at the Atlanta College of Art (BFA, 1991) and the Rhode Island School of Design (MFA, 1994). She is the recipient of many awards, notably the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award in 1997 and the United States Artists, Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship in 2008. In 2012, Walker became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work can be found in museums and public collections throughout the United States and Europe, including The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Tate Gallery, London; the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (MAXXI), Rome; and Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt. Kara Walker currently lives and works in New York City and is the Tepper Chair in the Visual Arts at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts. |