Kratz Center for Creative Writing Presents Edward P. Jones

Release date: October 15, 2007 |

Groundbreaking fiction writer Edward P. Jones will read from his works, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Known World, at 8 p.m. on Monday, October 15, in Goucher College’s Kraushaar Auditorium.

This reading — presented by the college’s Kratz Center for Creative Writing — is free and open to the public. Tickets must be reserved in advance, however, by calling 410-337-6333 or e-mailing boxoffice@goucher.edu. A reception and book signing will follow the reading.

Until as recently as 2002, Jones’ writing life centered on a weekly publication called “Tax Notes,” where he compacted press articles on tax policies into bite-size summaries.

Jones held down this job for 20 years while working on his first two books. Published in 1992, Lost in the City is a collection of short stories about the African-American working class in 20th-century Washington, D.C. The book, which Jones came to see as his version of James Joyce’s Dubliners, won the Pen/Hemingway Award and the Lannan Foundation Grant and was short-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

His second book, The Known World, is a richly imagined novel set before the Civil War in Virginia. It examines issues regarding the ownership of black slaves by free black people, as well as by whites. It won not only the National Book Award, but also the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction — a rare double feat. Jones was subsequently honored with a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation.

Jones’ third book, All Aunt Hagar's Children, was published in 2006. Like Lost in the City it is a collection of short stories that deal with D.C.’s modern African-American working class. Several of the stories had been previously published in The New Yorker magazine.

Established in 1999, the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College brings nationally recognized authors to campus for lectures and readings as well as semester-long residencies. These authors work closely with students and provide them with a stimulating environment in which the highest quality of writing is encouraged. The Kratz Center functions cooperatively with the undergraduate creative writing program, enhancing and expanding the curriculum with distinguished guest writers and new course offerings.