In this episode we are pleased to share an interview featuring J. Drew Lanham, author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature (Milkweed Editions, 2016), in conversation with guest host Michael Kleber-Diggs. The interview was recorded at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis in 2017.
J. Drew Lanham is an American author, poet and wildlife biologist. Raised in Edgefield, South Carolina, Lanham studied zoology and ecology at Clemson University, where he earned a PhD and where he currently holds an endowed chair as an Alumni Distinguished Professor. The Home Place is the Winner of the 2017 Southern Book Prize and Winner of the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center, as well as a finalist for the John Borroughs Medal
Michael Kleber-Diggs is a Twin Cities based poet and essayist whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including McSweeney’s Humor Anthology. He is a past winner of the Loft Mentor Series in Poetry and a past Fellow with the Givens Foundation for African American Literature. He lives in Saint Paul and teaches Creative Writing in prisons. Learn more about Kleber-Diggs and his work at his website.
Join us in this episode of Black Market Reads as we learn of this scientist’s birth into creative writing and explore themes of nature, race, and fact versus truth.