Jerald Walker is an American writer and professor of creative writing and African American literature at Emerson College.[1]
Walker was born in Chicago, he received his MFA in Fiction Writing from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, as well as a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Iowa.[2]
Walker's essays have appeared in magazines such as The Harvard Review, The Oxford American, Creative Nonfiction, The New England Review, and Mother Jones, and they have been widely anthologized, including five times in The Best American Essays (2020, 2014,[3] 2011, 2009)[4] and twice in The Best African American Essays (2009, 2010). He has written book reviews for The New York Times and The Washington Post.
His first book, Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion and Redemption, was awarded the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for Nonfiction. How to Make a Slave and Other Essays, his third book, was a Finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction.[5] He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2022)[6] a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (2018),[7] the Massachusetts Book Award for Nonfiction (2021),[8] a Pushcart Prize (2021),[9] a James A. Michener Fellowship.[10] and a Massachusetts Cultural Council of the Arts Fellowship.[11]
Prior to joining Emerson College, Walker was an associate professor of American Literature at Bridgewater State University.[12] In addition to teaching at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA,[13] he has been the Ida Bean Distinguished Visiting Writer in the Nonfiction Program at the University of Iowa[14] and the Visiting Hurst Professor at Washington University.[15]