James Alan McPherson
April 19–20, 2004
- Reading: MP3 / Streaming video (59 minutes)
- Discussion: MP3 / Streaming video (1 hour, 5 minutes)
- See the Kelly Writers House calendar entry for more about this event
- 2004 Fellows seminar notes
Bio
James Alan McPherson is among the most revered authors living and writing
in the United States. He spent his early career writing short stories and
essays, almost without exception, for The Atlantic. At the age of
35, McPherson received a Pulitzer Prize for his collection of stories,
Elbow Room (1978); he was the first African-American writer to
receive the award. He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship
(1973) and the MacArthur Foundation Award (the so-called "Genius Award";
1981) and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in
1995. He is perhaps most often quoted for propounding this philosophy of
American citizenship: "I believe that if one can experience diversity,
touch a variety of its people, laugh at its craziness, distill wisdom from
its tragedies, and attempt to synthesize all this inside oneself without
going crazy, one will have earned the right to call oneself 'citizen of
the United States.'"