Join ASU’s TomorrowTalks with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, October 13th at 7pm AZ time. TomorrowTalks is a student-engagement initiative meant to put students in conversation with authors who explain how they use their writing to address society’s most pressing issues. It’s led by the Division of Humanities at ASU and hosted by ASU’s Department of English in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.
This event takes place over Zoom and is free, although registration is required. Johnson will be discussing her book My Monticello, published by Henry Holt and Company and winner of the Weatherford Award, the Balcones Fiction Prize, and the Lillian Smith Award. Set in the near future, her stories feature Da’Naisha—a Black descendent of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings—a university professor studying his son in secret, and a single mother grasping to purchase her first home. Johnson reckons with America’s past and present in this thrilling debut.
A badass debut by any measure—nimble, knowing, and electrifying.
Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys and Harlem Shuffle
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s work has appeared in Guernica, The Guardian, Kweli Journal, and elsewhere. To learn more about her, visit her website.
…’My Monticello’ is, quite simply, an extraordinary debut from a gifted writer with an unflinching view of history and what may come of it.
The Washington Post
To learn more about TomorrowTalks and register for the event, go here.
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I went to the TomorrowTalk with Jonathan Franzen last Wednesday and thought it was eye-opening to see inside the mind of such a great writer. That being said, I am definitely going to try my best to attend this one too! I visited Monticello back in 8th grade and was fascinated by its history, so I am quite interested in this book and what Jocelyn Nicole Johnson has to say!
I’m so glad to hear you went to the event! Johnson’s book has such an intriguing concept; even if I’m not able to go to her TomorrowTalks lecture, I definitely plan on picking “My Monticello” up to read some time.