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Kiese Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of Creative Writing and English at Rice University's Department of English and Creative Writing. A prominent Black Southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi, his works critically examine race, identity, and family through a lens of personal and societal exploration. Laymon is renowned for his bestselling memoir Heavy: An American Memoir (2018), which won numerous accolades including the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and his novel Long Division (2019), which earned a 2022 NAACP Image Award.
His research and creative interests span African American Studies, Southern Literature, and the intersections of race, body politics, and cultural critique. Laymon's academic contributions are complemented by his roles as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Oxford American, and his co-hosting of Reckon True Stories, a podcast exploring nonfiction narratives. He also founded the Catherine Coleman Literary Arts and Justice Initiative, fostering literary engagement among youth in Jackson, Mississippi.
Recipient of the 2022 MacArthur Fellowship and the Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard, Laymon’s work bridges personal memoir with broader sociopolitical analysis. Current projects include Good God, a long poem, and film adaptations of his works, further solidifying his influence in contemporary literary and cultural discourse.
