fiction.wikisort.org - Writer

LaShonda Katrice Barnett is an American author, playwright, and former radio host. She has published short stories, edited books on African American music, and written a trilogy of full-length plays.[1]

Her 2015 debut novel Jam on the Vine[2] received a Stonewall Book Award by the American Library Association (2016).[3] The novel courses the life of African American journalist Ivoe Williams. The book was named a finalist in the lesbian fiction category at the 2016 Lambda Literary Awards.[4]

Barnett's short fiction appears in numerous anthologies and in literary journals such as The Chicago Tribune's Printer's Row, Callaloo, Gemini Magazine, Guernica Magazine, S/N Review, The New Orleans Review, Foglilfter Journal, the Peacock Journal, and Amherst College's Common Literary Magazine, among other publications.

Biography

LaShonda Katrice Barnett was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1974.[5] She grew up, one of five children, in Park Forest, Illinois.

Barnett received a B.A. in English Language and Literature and Linguistics (with language specialization in German and Russian) from the University of Missouri and an M.A. in Women's History from Sarah Lawrence College.[6] She earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William & Mary.[1] Barnett has been a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority since 1994. She lives in Chicago.

She has held residencies at the Noepe Center for Literary Arts-Martha's Vineyard, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Fine Arts Work Center.[1] In 2015, she was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize.^{[citation needed]} She has taught at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, Brown University, Northwestern University and Syracuse University on history and literature of the African diaspora and Women's Studies.[1] A lover and scholar of black music, especially jazz, she hosted her own jazz program, Mapping Jazz, for WBAI (99.5 FM, NYC).[1]

In 2007, Barnett's personal interviews on creative process with women musicians resulted in the book I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters On Their Craft and Off The Record: Conversations With African American & Brazilian Women Musicians in 2015.

Barnett has received grants for her work from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities; and awards from the New York Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the College Language Association (for best short fiction).[1]

Works

Books

• LaShonda K. Barnett, (ed.) I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters on Their Craft, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2007, ISBN 9781568583310
• Off the Record: Conversations with African American and Brazilian Women Musicians, Scarecrow Press, Incorporated, 2012, ISBN 9780810877467
• Jam on the Vine: A Novel. Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated. 3 February 2015. ISBN 978-0-8021-9157-1.[7]
• Callaloo and Other Lesbian Love Tales. New Victoria Publishers. October 1999 ISBN 978-1892281081.

Short stories

• "Callaloo" (2007)
• "Dear, dear Shay" (2012)
• "Road to Wingo" (2013)
• "Courage, Meine Freundin" (2013)
• "Hen's Teeth" (2013)
• "533" (2013)
• "Broken Shoes For Walking (Wings That Never Fit)" (2014)
• "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel" (2014)
• "Graf" (2014)
• "Waltz Me Once Again" (2015)
• "You're the Sweetest One" (2017)

See also

• American literature
• African American literature

References

External links

• Barnett on "Jam! On the Vine"
• Library Journal Q & A
• The Rumpus interview with Barnett

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