​UPDATE (posted Mon., March 25, 2024) ​—​ This event, which was originally scheduled for Wed., March 27, has been postponed and will be rescheduled for a TBD date/time in April. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and will make sure to share the updated event details as soon as they are available. Thank you!

With any questions in the interim, please contact Marc Dickinson, DMACC English Professor and Coordinator of the DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts, at (515) 964-6221 or madickinson@dmacc.edu.

  • Author Jamel Brinkley (above) will read from his work, participate in a Q&A and sign free copies of his books at 12:15 p.m. on Wed., March 27, at the DMACC Ankeny Campus.

  • Now in its 21st year, the DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts hosts a variety of prominent authors throughout the academic year.

  • All DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts events are FREE and open to the public.

The DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts is pleased to welcome award-winning author Jamel Brinkley to DMACC as its featured writer for the month of March 2024.

Brinkley, who currently teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, will read from his work, participate in an audience Q&A and sign free copies of his books at 12:15 p.m. on Wed., March 27, in the Bldg. 5 Student Center's Black Box Theatre at the DMACC Ankeny Campus.

The hour-long event will be FREE to attend and open to the public, as are all DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts events held throughout the year. The Celebration, now in its 21st year, spotlights a variety of local, regional and nationally known authors during the fall and spring semesters at DMACC, which is one of the largest undergraduate institutions in Iowa.

About the author: Jamel Brinkley

Jamel Brinkley, who grew up in the Brooklyn and Bronx boroughs of New York City, is frequently cited as one of the finest short-story writers of his generation. His most recent work, “Witness: Stories" (2023, Farrar, Straus and Giroux/4th Estate), is a collection of 10 stories that are each set in the changing landscapes of New York City and feature a range of characters – from children to grandmothers to ghosts – as they bear witness to the world around them and face the moral challenge of speaking up or taking action.

"Witness: Stories" has been recognized as finalist for the Kirkus Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Aspen Words Literary Prize.

In 2018, Brinkley's debut collection of short stories, “A Lucky Man: Stories" (Graywolf Press) also received widespread praise and recognition. The memorable stories, also set in New York City, explore themes of family, relationships, love, loss, complex identity and masculinity. Regarding the collection, NPR stated, “(It) may only include nine stories, but in each of them, Brinkley gives us an entire world."

“A Lucky Man: Stories" was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Story Prize, the John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and winner of a PEN Oakland Award and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.

Brinkley's writing has also appeared in A Public Space, Ploughshares, Zoetrope: All-Story, The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, The Yale Review, Guernica, The Threepenny Review, Gulf Coast, Glimmer Train, The Believer and Tin House, and has been anthologized twice in The Best American Short Stories. His work has also received support from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the Napa Valley Writers' Conference, the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Lannan Foundation. He was a Carol Houck Smith Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and has received an O. Henry Award and the Rome Prize.

Brinkley is a graduate of Columbia University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he now teaches.

Select writings by Jamel Brinkley:

For more information about the DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts, visit cla.dmacc.edu or contact Marc Dickinson, DMACC English Professor and Coordinator of the DMACC Celebration of Literary Arts, at (515) 964-6221 or madickinson@dmacc.edu.