Jim Grimsley, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and two-time Georgia Author of the Year will be speaking about his memoir, How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood, on Wednesday, March 23, at 7 p.m. in the University of West Georgia’s Campus Center Ballroom. There will be a question and answer session at the conclusion of the talk followed by a reception and opportunity to meet the author. This talk is presented as a part of the UWG Center for Diversity and Inclusion’s Multicultural Book Selection for Spring 2016. The public is invited and there is no admission fee.
Jim, a member of the creative writing faculty at Emory University, has been recognized with a multitude of awards during his decades-long career writing in a variety of genres including plays, short stories, novels, fiction, and non-fiction. In addition to being twice named Georgia Author of the Year, a sampling of other awards include the George Oppenheimer/Newsday Playwriting Award, the American Library Association’s Gay/Lesbian Literary Award, and the Sue Kaufman Prize for best first novel from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood, an autobiography published in 2015, revisits the author’s experience as an elementary school student growing up in rural North Carolina during the early years of school desegregation. As a child he describes himself as being “a good little racist” unaware of the racial attitudes he had unconsciously adopted as a white child growing up in the South. His memoir, How I Shed My Skin, provides a first-person account of a momentous era in America’s conflicted racial history and the path one person followed in leaving behind a legacy of bigotry.
“[B]eautiful and brilliant. . . How I Shed My Skin does more to explore the racially inspired shootings and hate crimes of our present time than anything I have read.”—Washington Missourian
“From the protests in Ferguson to the movie about Selma, race has been at the forefront of the national conversation recently. On the news and at our dinner tables, the country is discussing how far we still have to go. How I Shed My Skin, by Jim Grimsley, is a white writer’s story of that journey — where we’ve come from and how we move forward.”—The Washington Post
This program is sponsored by the University of West Georgia’s Presidential Committee on Campus Inclusion, Center for Diversity and Inclusion, Ingram Library, West Georgia Athletics, Housing and Residence Life, and Student Activities Council.
Special public parking will be provided in the Townsend Center gated lot, accessible from West Georgia Drive, beginning at 5:45 p.m.
For further information, visit www.westga.edu/diversity or www.westga.edu/library or contact Doris Kieh (678) 839-5403 or Craig Schroer (678) 839-6355.
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