John Edgar Wideman is one of our country's leading, acclaimed literary voices.  He is the author of eleven novels, three memoirs (most recently Hoop Roots: Basketball, Race and Love) and scores of essays on American culture featured in such publications as the New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire and the New York Times magazine.
"Writing of any sort consists of setting down one word after another, making something that doesn't exist  until it's expressed with the medium of written language.  The effort of making is at some level play, like patting clay, beating a drum, or tapping your toes, singing, or spreading paint with your fingertips—play that's a gift to the artist the artist passes on, from the one to the many to the one. Serious play that reminds us we're all in this together, this life, and what we make goes into the collective project to brighten and lighten, to glorify and transform the unavoidable pain and burden of being alive." — From the introduction to the Drue Heinz Prize Anthology (2001)

Hosted by: Creative Writing Program, Department of English

In conjunction with: African American Cultural Program, Afro-American Studies and Research Program, Department of Educational Policy Studies, Department of Educational Psychology, Department of History, Department of Kinesiology, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, Office of Minority Student Affairs, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, University Library