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"A
Diverse Gathering of Acclaimed Authors" |
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Tayari
Jones
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Tayari Jones
was born in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, and she spent most of her formative years in Atlanta. Jones attended Spelman College as an undergraduate, then went on to the University of Iowa to earn her Masters degree.
After serving as a remedial reading teacher in Prairie View, Texas, Jones decided to pursue her writing.
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Then, while attending a conference in Portland, she ran into one of her favorite authors, Jewell Parker Rhodes, who offered Jones the opportunity to study creative writing under her tutelage at Arizona State University.
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Photo by Douglas Kent Hall
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Three years later, Jones is celebrating the publication of her first novel,
Leaving Atlanta, which has already garnered a tremendous amount of praise. Jones received First Prize in the
Hurston/Wright Award for 2000, a prestigious national literary competition. She also received the Robert C. Martindale Award for fiction, the Arizona Council for the Arts Artist Fellowship, and the LEF Foundation Prize.
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