THE AUTHOR:
Percival Everett is the author of more than twenty books. He is the recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN Center USA Award for Fiction. He teaches at the University of Southern California and lives outside Los Angeles.
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THE INTERVIWER:
Keenan Norris is a novelist, essayist and scholar. His latest novel is The Confession of Copeland Cane, the winner of the 2022 Northern California Book Award. His essays have garnered the 2021-22 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award in Music, Theater and Performing Arts and the 2021 Folio: Eddie Award. His debut novel Brother and the Dancer received the James D. Houston Award in 2012.
In 2023, Keenan has published Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings, a non-fiction blend of essay, history and memoir, and he has published the novella Lustre.
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In January, Keenan served as Lannan Visiting Writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts and in fall 2021, he was Rea Visiting Writer at the University of Virginia. He is coordinator of the Steinbeck Fellows Program at San Jose State University and serves as California guest editor and contributing scholar to the Oxford African-American Studies Center.
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In 2013, Keenan edited the seminal Street Lit: Representing the Urban Landscape. His feature pieces and articles have appeared in numerous forums, including the Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, TED-ED, Stranger’s Guide and Alta, while his short fiction has been published in several anthologies of California literature. He is an Associate Professor at San Jose State University.
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