AUTHOR TALKS
AUTHOR TALK: JOCELYN NICOLE JOHNSON
Thursday, March 21, 5:00 PM, PBK Hall Studio Theatre, Free
ABOUT JOCELYN NICOLE JOHNSON
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s debut novel, My Monticello, was called "a masterly feat" by the New York Times, and won the Library of Virginia Fiction Award, the Weatherford Award, the Balcones Fiction Prize, and the Lillian Smith Award, as well as being a finalist for the Kirkus Fiction Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Leonard Award, the LA Times Debut Seidenbaum Prize, and being long-listed for a Pen/Faulkner Fiction Award and the Story Prize. My Monticello was also chosen as the Route 1 Reads for Virginia. Johnson has been a fellow at TinHouse, Hedgebrook, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, The Guardian, Kweli Journal, Joyland, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. Her short story “Control Negro” was anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, guest edited by Roxane Gay and read live by LeVar Burton. A veteran public school art teacher, Johnson lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia.
AUTHOR TALK: WALTER HICKEY
Saturday, March 23, 1:00 PM
Tucker Theater, Free
ABOUT WALTER HICKEY
Walter Hickey (W&M ’12) is the Deputy Editor for Data and Analysis at Insider News. He supports the newsroom through data journalism. He was recently hired as Executive Editor for Sherwood, the media arm of the retail trading platform. In 2022, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting for his work on Business Insider’s “I Escaped A Chinese Internment Camp” documenting the plight of Uyghurs in China.
In 2023, his first book, You are What You Watch, was published. In it, he explains the power of entertainment to change our biology, our beliefs, how we see ourselves, and how nations gain power.
Employing a mix of research, deep reporting, and 100 data visualizations, Hickey presents the true power of entertainment and culture. From the decrease in shark populations after Jaws to the increase in women and girls taking up archery following The Hunger Games, You Are What You Watch proves its points not just with research and argument, but hard data. Did you know, for example, that crime statistics prove that violent movies actually lead to less real-world violence? And that the international rise of anime and Manga helped lift the Japanese economy out of the doldrums in the 1980s? Or that British and American intelligence agencies actually got ideas from the James Bond movies?
In You Are What You Watch, readers will be given a nerdy, and sobering, celebration of popular entertainment and its surprising power to change the world.
ABOUT KILEY REID
Kiley Reid is the instant New York Times-bestselling author of Such a Fun Age and Come and Get It, a new novel that portrays a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students. Named a Best Book of the Year by Vogue and Elle, and a Most Anticipated Book of the Year Book of the year by TIME and Entertainment Weekly, this tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and reckless abandon is a “blistering send-up of academia […] interlaced with piercing moral clarity” (Publishers Weekly [starred review]).
Reid’s debut, Such a Fun Age, was hailed for its candid look at the complexities of race and class through the lens of the relationship between a Black babysitter and her white employer. A spotlight for Reid’s talent at social satire, Such a Fun Age shines a bright light on the subtle, yet deeply impactful aspects of race and privilege in America.
An instant hit, acclaimed producer and actress Lena Waithe acquired the film rights to the story over a year before the book’s publication, Such a Fun Age was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award in Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author and for the 2020 Booker Prize. It was also a Reese’s Book Club pick, and was named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, NPR, Vogue, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal, among many more publications.
Reid earned her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been described as an exciting new voice in the literary scene. In honest and compelling talks, Reid weaves together insights into her craft with the process of writing about timely, relevant issues like race and class with unflinching honesty.
During her time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Kiley Reid was awarded the prestigious Truman Capote Fellowship and taught undergraduate creative writing workshops focusing on race and class. She has had work featured in The New York Times and TIME, and her short stories have appeared in several notable publications like Playboy, Ploughshares, December, New South, and Lumina. Reid lives in Philadelphia.