Getting the South Right: an Interview with Jesmyn Ward
by Nico Berry
From the Archives: Nico Berry talks to Jesmyn Ward in 2009 about her debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds.
From the Archives: Nico Berry talks to Jesmyn Ward in 2009 about her debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds.
Jesmyn Ward grew up in DeLisle, Mississippi. Her first novel, Where the Line Bleeds (Agate, Nov. 2008), is about twin brothers navigating life after high school in a small Gulf Coast town. Where the Line Bleeds is an Essence Book Club Selection, a 2009 Honor Award recipient from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, and a nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Jesmyn Ward’s essays and fiction have been published in Oxford American, A Public Space, and Bomb magazines. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, and she is currently entering her second year as a Stegner Fellow at Stanford.
Nico Berry spoke to the author by phone as she soaked up the summer heat back home in DeLisle, Mississippi.
I’m excited to hear Jesmyn Ward read from her beautiful debut novel Where the Line Bleeds. Her reading tonight is part of “Rear Windows,” a BAM Cafe event presented in partnership with A Public Space. This last installment of the Between the Lines series also features a reading by Ian Chillag, films by Félix Dufour-Laperrière and Eva Weber, and a multimedia performance by Dark Hand and Lamplight. Go here for directions and more information.
