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The acclaimed novelist and memoirist discusses his work, including his newest book, Briefs, Stories for the Palm of the Mind, a collection of microstories that unveils an original voice and structure, which the author has chosen to self-publish. Portions of the collection have already been selected for the O. Henry Prize Stories 2010 and Best African American Fiction 2010 anthologies.

About John Edgar Wideman

John Edgar Wideman is the author of more than eighteen books of fiction and nonfiction.  He was the first writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Award twice, in 1984 for Sent for You Yesterday and in 1990 for Philadelphia Fire. His memoir Brothers and Keepers received a National Book Critics Circle nomination, and his memoir Fatheralong was a finalist for the National Book Award. In addition, he has won the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Foundation Fellowship for Fiction, and the MacArthur “genius” grant. Wideman’s articles on Malcolm X, Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Michael Jordan, Eminem, Thelonious Monk, and others have appeared in The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Emerge, and the New York Times Magazine. Wideman is on the faculty of the Africana Studies Department of Brown University.

Read an article about Wideman's decision to self-publish from Publishers Weekly.