Poet Evie Shockley & creative nonfiction writer Damon Young will read fresh work, share creative conversation, & participate in an audience Q&A. Together, in black study, they will work to close read the contemporary emergency. There will be a book-signing in partnership with White Whale Bookstore to follow.

Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, poet Evie Shockley earned a BA at Northwestern University, a JD at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in English literature at Duke University. The author of several collections of poetry, including a half-red sea (2006) and the new black (2011), Shockley is also the author of the critical volume Renegade Poetics: Black Aesthetics and Formal Innovation in African American Poetry (2011). Her poetry and essays have been featured in several anthologies, including Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009), Poets on Teaching: A Sourcebook (2010), A Broken Thing: Contemporary Poets on the Line (2011), and Contemporary African American Literature: The Living Canon (2013). Her new collection, suddenly we, will be published March 7, 2023 by Wesleyan University Press.

Damon Young is the author of “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays” -- a tragicomic exploration of the angsts, anxieties, and absurdities of existing while Black in America, and the winner of Thurber Prize for American Humor and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award.

He is also the co-founder of the culture blog VerySmartBrothas and was a contributing columnist for The Washington Post Magazine, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and a columnist for GQ. He has written for the Atlantic, Esquire, NY Mag, The Undefeated, Lit Hub, Ebony, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Currently, Damon is the creator and host of a podcast with Crooked Media, "Stuck with Damon Young."