Laureates in Conversation: Patricia Spears Jones and Jacqueline Woodson on May 28 in NYC
- NYS Writers Institute
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Join us for a conversation with our state laureates to take place in New York City on Wednesday, May 28
We're delighted to partner with The Center for Fiction to welcome State Poet Patricia Spears Jones and State Author Jacqueline Woodson, for a conversation with writer, playwright, and educator Mahogany L. Browne in New York City on Wednesday, May 28.
7 p.m. Wednesday, May 28
The Center for Fiction
15 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Tickets are $10 for the in-person event and $5 for the livestream. To purchase tickets visit https://centerforfiction.org/event/laureates-in-conversation-patricia-spears-jones-and-jacqueline-woodson/
About the writers
Patricia Spears Jones (New York State Poet Laureate 2023-2025) is a poet, playwright, anthologist, educator, and cultural activist. She is the winner of the 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers.
Her most recent book is The Beloved Community (Copper Canyon, 2023). She is also the author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems, Painkiller: Poems, Femme du Monde: Poems, and The Weather That Kills. Her work is anthologized in African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song; Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin; and BAX 2016: Best American Experimental Writing.
Her poems have been published in the New Yorker, the Brooklyn Rail, the Ocean State Review, Ms., and Cutthroat, A Journal of the Arts. She edited THINK: Poems for Aretha Franklin’s Inauguration Day Hat and Ordinary Women: An Anthology of New York City Women. Mabou Mines commissioned and produced her plays Mother and Song for New York: What Women Do While Men Sit Knitting.
Jacqueline Woodson (New York State Author Laureate 2023-2025) is the recipient of a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, and in 2015, she was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation.
She received the 2014 National Book Award for her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, which also received the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, the NAACP Image Award and a Sibert Honor. She also wrote the adult books Red at the Bone, a New York Times bestseller, and Another Brooklyn, a 2016 National Book Award finalist. She is the author of dozens of award-winning books for young adults, middle graders and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a four-time National Book Award finalist, and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner.
Woodson is also a recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and a two-time winner of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award.
About the moderator
Mahogany L. Browne is a California-born, Brooklyn-based writer, organizer, mentor, and curator. She has published several books of poetry and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country. She is an Agnes Gund, Cave Canem, AIR Serenbe, Poets House, Rauschenberg fellow, and the current artistic director of Urban Word NYC.
Her previous books for young readers include Woke Baby and Black Girl Magic. Browne was a featured guest at the NYS Writers Institute in 2020.