Acclaimed author appearing for April 18 Visiting Writers Series

Northwest Missouri State University’s Visiting Writers Series is concluding its 2024-2025 lineup with award-winning fiction writer Jamel Brinkley.

Brinkley will visit Northwest and present his work from 5 to 6 p.m. Friday, April 18, in the J.W. Jones Student Union Boardroom. The event is free and open to the public.

Brinkley is the author of “Witness: Stories,” a collection of short stories published in 2023 and set in New York City. The 10 stories address universal experiences like grief, friendship and speaking up for others. The collection received the Maya Angelou Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Kirkus Prize, the Aspen Words Literary Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize.

His 2018 book, “A Lucky Man: Stories,” is a collection of short stories that explore complex ties between men whose mistakes threaten their relationships with friends, lovers and family members. The book was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Story Prize, the John Leonard Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. It also won a PEN Oakland Award and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.

Brinkley’s work has appeared in A Public Space, Ploughshares, Zoetrope: All-Story, The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, The Yale Review, Guernica, The Threepenny Review, Gulf Coast, Glimmer Train, The Believer and Tin House.

Raised in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Brinkley teaches at the University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop. He was a Carol Houck Smith Smith Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Brinkley has undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and comparative literature as well as a bachelor’s degree in African American studies, all from Columbia University.

To learn more about Brinkley and his work, visit www.jamelbrinkley.com.

The Visiting Writers Series is designed to enrich Northwest’s educational mission while promoting the values of community, civil discourse and self-expression. Kawasaki Motos Manufacturing Corporation, Green Tower Press and the Department of Language, Literature and Writing sponsor the series.

For more information about the Visiting Writers Series, contact Biegelson at dbiegel@nwmissouri.edu or 660.562.1266.