07College of Fine Arts and Communication Media Office
CONWAY — Tananarive Due, an award-winning author who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at the University of California, Los Angeles, will visit the University of Central Arkansas as artist-in-residence in September.
As part of her residence, Due will hold a public reading and book signing at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 5, in the UCA College of Business, room 107. On Friday, Sept. 6, she will participate in a Craft Talk and Q&A at 11 a.m. in Thompson Hall, room 331. These events are free and open to the public.
She will also hold a master class for Master of Fine Arts students from 4-5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 5 in Win Thompson Hall, room 331.
“Due brings decades-long writing experience in speculative fiction as well as historical fiction and screenwriting,” said M. Shelly Conner, assistant professor of creative writing in the Department of Film, Theatre and Creative Writing. “As such, she can provide valuable advice to students working in those specific genres as well as those who are developing multi-genre portfolios.”
A leading voice in black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award and the British Fantasy Award. She is the author of 12 novels and a civil rights memoir. Her novella “Ghost Summer,” published in the 2008 anthology “The Ancestors,” received the 2008 Kindred Award from the Carl Brandon Society, and her short fiction has appeared in best-of-year anthologies.
As a professor, she brought Jordan Peele of the Academy Award-winning movie “Get Out” to her UCLA class discussion of depictions of race and fear. She also is an executive producer on Shudder Network’s groundbreaking 2019 documentary “Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror” and discussed speculative fiction and horror in the recent HBO docuseries Eli Roth’s “History of Horror.”
For more information, contact Conner at (501) 450-3654 or email mconner3@uca.edu.
The artist-in-residence program is funded by UCA’s arts fee and is administered by the College of Fine Arts and Communication. For more information about the program, call the Office of the Dean, College of Fine Arts and Communication, at (501) 450-3293 or email iragne1@uca.edu.
The UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication includes the Departments of Art, Music, Film, Theatre and Creative Writing and the School of Communication. The college’s primary mission is the preparation of the next generation of artists, educators and communicators. For more information about CFAC, visit uca.edu/cfac or call (501) 450-3293.
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