Grimsley to read at Greenville Museum of Art
Grimsley
Award winning novelist and playwright Jim Grimsley will read from his fiction at the Greenville Museum of Art at 7:30 p.m. July 15. The reading is free and open to the public.
Born in Rocky Mount, Grimsley attended UNC-Chapel Hill. He lives in Atlanta, Ga., where he is on the faculty at Emory University. Grimsley will be introduced by Dr. Gary Richards, a professor at the University of Mary Washington who interviewed Grimsley for the 2009 issue of the North Carolina Literary Review.
Grimsley’s first novel, Winter Birds, published by Algonquin Books, won the American Academy of Arts and Letter’s 1995 Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and also received a special citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation as one of three finalists for the PEN/Hemingway Award.
His second novel, Dream Boy, also published by Algonquin, won the 1996 Stonewall Prize given by the American Library Association for GLBT Literature. It has been adapted for the stage by Eric Rosen; the play premiered at About Face Theatre in Chicago. It has also been adapted into a film.
Grimsley has written several other novels and numerous plays, and in 1988 he was awarded the George Oppenheimer Award for the Best New American Playwright for his play Mr. Universe. In 1993, Grimsley was awarded the first-ever Bryan Prize for Drama, presented by the Fellowship of Southern Writers for distinguished achievement in playwriting. His latest book is a collection of short stories called Jesus Is Sending You This Message.
Grimsley is in Greenville in July conducting research at ECU’s Joyner Library conducing research for his next novel on the Civil Rights era in eastern North Carolina.
The Greenville Museum of Art is located at 802 South Evans Street in Greenville. Grimsley’s books will be available for purchase from The University Book Exchange. Issues of the North Carolina Literary Review featuring Jim Grimsley’s fiction and drama will also be available for purchase.
For additional information, contact Margaret Bauer, editor of NCLR, at 328-1537 or bauerm@ecu.edu.