Each year since 1985, the Zale-Kimmerling Writer-in-Residence Program has brought a renowned woman-identified writer to campus. The Zale-Kimmerling Writer-in-Residence program was established by Dana Zale Gerard (NC ‘85), and made possible by an annual gift from the M.B. and Edna Zale Foundation of Dallas, Texas. In 2010, the program became fully endowed through a gift from Martha McCarty Wells (NC’63), and known as the Zale-Kimmerling Writer-in-Residence program.
Tayari Jones will be the 2025 Zale-Kimmerling writer-in-residence.
February 3-6, 2025
Uptown Campus
New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently An American Marriage. Published in 2018, An American Marriage is an Oprah’s Book Club Selection and also appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list as well as his year-end roundup. The novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize and an NAACP Image Award. It has been published in two dozen countries.
Jones, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Her third novel, Silver Sparrow, was added to the NEA Big Read Library of classics in 2016.
Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University.
Past Speakers:
- Tayari Jones 2025
- Rebecca Makkai 2024
- Min Jin Lee 2023
- Britt Bennett 2022
- Valeria Luiselli 2021
- Lauren Groff 2020
- N.K. Jemisin 2019
- Rebecca Solnit 2018
- Meg Wolitzer 2017
- Zadie Smith 2016
- Danielle Evans 2015
- Lorrie Moore 2015
- Susan Choi 2014
- Aimee Bender 2013
- Antonya Nelson 2012
- Valerie Martin 2011
- Amy Hempel 2010
- Clare Messud 2009
- Michelle Tea 2008
- Elizabeth McCracken 2007
- Curtis Sittenfeld 2006
- Julie Orringer 2006
- Ellen Gilchrist 2005
- Mab Segrest 2004
- Thisbe Nissen 2003
- Joanna Scott 2002
- Edwidge Danticat 2001
- Jessica Hagedorn 2000
- Ann Patchett 1999
- Octavia Butler 1998
- Deb Margolin 1997
- Ellen Bryant Voigt 1996
- Dorothy Allison 1995
- Lee Smith 1994
- Rosellen Brown 1994
- Linda Hogan 1993
- Sonia Sanchez 1992
- Ellen Douglas 1991
- E.M. Bronner 1989
- Gloria Naylor 1988
- Nancy Willard 1988
- Carolyn Forche 1987
- Alison Lurie 1986
