Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s fiction and essays have appeared in Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2009, The Kenyon Review, PMS: PoemMemoirStory, North Carolina Literary Review, and Richard Wright Newsletter. A novelist and short story writer, Dolen has also been a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow.  She is a former University of California postdoctoral fellow and graduate of Harvard.

Perkins-Valdez is the author of theNew York Times bestselling novel Wench. USA Today called the book “deeply moving” and “beautifully written.” The Oprah Magazinechose it as a Top Ten Pick of the Month, and NPR named it a top 5 book club pick of 2010. Dolen’s fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Story Quarterly, Story South,and elsewhere. In 2011, she was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction. She was also awarded the First Novelist Award by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and has received a DC Commission on the Arts Grant. Dolen teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program. Dolen lives in Washington, DC with her family.