Kiese Laymon

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Kiese Laymon
Kiese Laymon 2018.jpg
Laymon at the 2018 Texas Book Festival
Born (1974-08-15) August 15, 1974 (age 47)
Jackson, Mississippi
Education
Occupation
  • Writer
  • editor
  • professor
Websitekieselaymon.com

Kiese Laymon (born August 15, 1974) is an American writer, editor and a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi.[1] He is the author of three full-length books: a novel, Long Division (2013), and two memoirs, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (2013) and Heavy (2018). Laymon's work deals with American racism, feminism, family, masculinity, geography, hip-hop, and Southern black life.[2][dead link] His blog, Cold Drank, features essays and short fiction as well as pieces written by guest contributors.[3] Laymon has written essays and stories for publications including Gawker, ESPN.com, The Washington Post, the New York Times, NPR, BuzzFeed, and The Guardian.[4][5]

Career[]

Born and raised in Mississippi, Laymon earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Oberlin College, and his Master's in Fine Arts at Indiana University.[6] He also attended Jackson State University, where his mother worked as a political science professor, and Millsaps College, where he was suspended for a year after taking a library book without checking it out. His suspension followed ongoing criticism from the administration, including president George Harmon, who believed his controversial pieces on race in the school newspaper adversely affected campus and alumni relations. Laymon detailed his experience of racism at Millsaps, and as a coming-of-age black man in Mississippi, in his essay for Gawker, "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America".[7] The essay was widely read and attracted both positive and negative comments on his portrayal of his racial experiences. "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others" was eventually included in his book of autobiographical essays by the same name.

His 2018 memoir, Heavy, deals with his difficult relationship with his mother—who instilled in him a love of reading and discipline and skill in writing, but who was in an abusive relationship and lived on very little money, and who beat Laymon with the justification that he needed to be tough enough for a white world that would treat him even more harshly—as well as his subsequent unhealthy relationships with food and gambling.[8] Heavy won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.[9]

Writing for NPR, Martha Anne Toll described Laymon as "a star in the American literary firmament, with a voice that is courageous, honest, loving, and singularly beautiful. Heavy is at once a paean to the Deep South, a condemnation of our fat-averse culture, and a brilliantly rendered memoir of growing up black, and bookish, and entangled in a family that is as challenging as it is grounding."[10]

While he was living and writing in upstate New York, as a professor at Vassar College, Laymon's refusal to omit explicit aspects of Long Division that explore racial politics prolonged negotiations with a major publishing group. His books were eventually picked up by the independent publisher Agate Publishing, which released his debut novel in June 2013.[11][12]

In addition to Laymon's satirical time-travel novel Long Division, his book of autobiographical essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, was published by Agate in August 2013.[13]

Laymon was an associate professor of English and Africana Studies at Vassar College, then became a professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi.[14][15]

Selected works[]

Novels
  • Long Division (2013), ISBN 978-1932841725
Memoirs
  • How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (2013), ISBN 978-1932841770
  • Heavy: An American Memoir (2018), ISBN 978-1501125652

References[]

  1. ^ "University of Mississippi M.F.A. Faculty". July 21, 2015. Retrieved October 23, 2016.
  2. ^ McCall, Jason (November 20, 2013). "The Past is Not Dead: Time and Race in Kiese Laymon's "Long Division"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
  3. ^ Pauley, Nick (July 14, 2013). "Keeping it 100". Wine and Bowties. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
  4. ^ "Kiese Laymon". The Root. November 4, 2013. Archived from the original on January 21, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  5. ^ "Essays". Kiese Laymon. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
  6. ^ Nave, R. L. (February 15, 2013). "Kiese Laymon". Jackson Free Press. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  7. ^ Laymon, Kiese (July 28, 2012). "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance". Gawker. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  8. ^ Simon, Scott. "'Heavy': Kiese Laymon's Memoir Examines How People Absorb Trauma". NPR. Retrieved October 14, 2018.
  9. ^ "'The Great Believers,' 'Heavy: An American Memoir,' receive 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction". News and Press Center. January 27, 2019. Retrieved January 29, 2019.
  10. ^ "'Heavy' Brilliantly Renders The Struggle To Become Fully Realized". NPR.org. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  11. ^ Shengold, Nina (September 1, 2013). "Kiese Laymon Keeps it Real | Notes from Underground". Chronogram.com. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  12. ^ Valentine, Genevieve (May 30, 2013). "BEA 2013: Kiese Laymon: Chasing the Narrative". Publishersweekly.com. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  13. ^ Bereola, Abigail (August 14, 2013). "First Time Author, Two New Books". The Rumpus.net. Retrieved January 15, 2014.
  14. ^ Nieman, Liam (October 17, 2018). "'I'd made a body disappear': Kiese Laymon debuts memoir about race, weight, family". The Daily Mississippian. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
  15. ^ Lijadu, Kemi; Leah Fessler (October 30, 2018). "#MeToo taught Heavy author Kiese Laymon that America encourages abuse — Quartz at Work". qz.com. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
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