Writers@Grinnell Welcomes Danez Smith on Tuesday, Sept. 3, at 8 p.m.

Award-winning author and performer Danez Smith will read from their work and discuss writing on Tuesday, Sept. 3, as part of the Writers@Grinnell series at Grinnell College. The event, which is free and open to the public, will start at 8 p.m. at the Hotel Grinnell Auditorium in downtown Grinnell.

In addition, Smith will lead a roundtable discussion, which is free and open to the public, at 4:15 p.m. September 3 in the Joe Rosenfield '25 Center, Room 209.

Danez Smith is a black, queer writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017), winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award; they also wrote [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. They are the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, the Montalvo Arts Center, Cave Canem, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Smith's work has been featured widely, appearing on platforms such as BuzzFeed, The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, Best American Poetry, Poetry Magazine, and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Smith is a member of the Dark Noise Collective and is the co-host of VS with Franny Choi, a podcast sponsored by the Poetry Foundation and Postloudness. Smith’s third collection, “Homie,” will be published by Graywolf in Spring 2020.

This event is cosponsored by the Center for Humanities; Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies; and Writers@Grinnell.