An Afternoon with Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Autograph Series ticketed luncheon at the McNay Art Museum

PURCHASE TICKETS AND SPONSORSHIPS AT EVENTBRITE.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS. She also wrote four previous poetry collections including OCEANIC. Her most recent chapbook is LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. She is poetry editor for SIERRA magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program and her forthcoming book of food essays is called BITE BY BITE (Ecco, May 2024). 

Autograph Series with Terrance Hayes, with local high school students, 2019.

Autograph Series presents writers of national and international stature—many of them recipients of major prizes such as the Pulitzer or National Book Award—in free public performances followed by an audience Q&A and book signing. Ours is one of the few such series in the nation offered to the public at no cost. A ticketed luncheon with the visiting writer partially supports the Autograph Series. Local businesses also sponsor tables for high school students, cultivating a community of support and encouragement for the writing arts.

Previous Autograph writers include Margaret Atwood, U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, Ha Jin, Edward P. Jones, Tim O’Brien, Grace Paley, Philip Levine, Luis Alberto Urrea, Terrance Hayes, Ben Fountain, among others.