"Victor LaValle & Kian Kelley-Chung (UMD BA '19): A Conversation"
"Victor LaValle & Kian Kelley-Chung (UMD BA '19): A Conversation"
Author Victor LaValle discusses storytelling with UMD alum Kian Kelley-Chung.
Co-sponsored by the University Libraries and the Graduate School's Office of Graduate Diversity and Inclusion.
Bios
Victor LaValle is the author of the short story collection Slapboxing with Jesus, four novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, The Devil in Silver, and The Changeling and two novellas, Lucretia and the Kroons and The Ballad of Black Tom. He is also the creator and writer of a comic book Victor LaValle's DESTROYER. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the World Fantasy Award, British World Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, Whiting Writers' Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Shirley Jackson Award, American Book Award, and the key to Southeast Queens. He was raised in Queens, New York. He now lives in Washington Heights with his wife and kids. He teaches at Columbia University.
Kian Kelley-Chung, born and raised in Columbia, MD, is an activist by heart and artist by trade. His work combines the powerful forces of storytelling, visual media, technology and social activism to provide insight on typically overlooked issues of marginalized communities. He has been published in the Washington Post twice for his photography of the DC Black Lives Matter movement. He is a documentary filmmaker, an author and creator of an in progress Graphic Novel titled, BLACKGUARD, which addresses police brutality. He is the founder of an artist collective titled RXNIN LIFE (pronounced Ronin), and a recent graduate from the University of Maryland with a degree in English, Language and Literature (2019).
Q&A moderated by Rion Amilcar Scott.
Follow the Conversation @UMDEnglish
