Kiese Laymon

Kiese Laymon
Laymon at the 2018 Texas Book Festival
Born	(1974-08-15) August 15, 1974 Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.
Education	Oberlin College (BA) Indiana University Bloomington (MFA)
Occupations	Writer editor professor
Website	kieselaymon.com

Kiese Laymon (born August 15, 1974, in Jackson, Mississippi) is an American writer. He is a professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He is the author of three full-length books: a novel, Long Division (2013), and two memoirs, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (2013) and the award-winning Heavy: An American Memoir (2018). Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

Early life and education

Laymon was born and raised in Mississippi. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Oberlin College, and his Master's in Fine Arts at Indiana University. He also attended Jackson State University, where his mother worked as a political science professor, and Millsaps College, where he was suspended for a year after taking a library book without checking it out. His suspension followed ongoing criticism from the administration, including president George Harmon, who believed his controversial pieces on race in the school newspaper adversely affected campus and alumni relations.

Writing career

Laymon detailed his experience of racism at Millsaps, and as a coming-of-age black man in Mississippi, in his essay for Gawker, "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America". The essay was widely read and attracted both positive and negative comments on his portrayal of his racial experiences. "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others" was eventually included in his book of autobiographical essays by the same name.

His 2018 memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, deals with his difficult relationship with his mother—who instilled in him a love of reading and skill in writing, but who was in an abusive relationship, lived on very little money, and beat him with the justification that he needed to be tough enough for a white world that would treat him even more harshly—as well as his subsequent unhealthy relationships with food and gambling. It also deals with American racism, feminism, family, masculinity, geography, hip hop, and Southern black life. His blog, Cold Drank, features essays and short fiction as well as pieces written by guest contributors. Laymon has written essays and stories for publications including Gawker, ESPN.com, The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, BuzzFeed, and The Guardian.

Writing for NPR, Martha Anne Toll described Laymon as "a star in the American literary firmament, with a voice that is courageous, honest, loving, and singularly beautiful. Heavy is at once a paean to the Deep South, a condemnation of our fat-averse culture, and a brilliantly rendered memoir of growing up black, and bookish, and entangled in a family that is as challenging as it is grounding."

While he was living and writing in upstate New York, as a professor at Vassar College, Laymon's refusal to omit explicit aspects of Long Division that explore racial politics prolonged negotiations with a major publishing group. His books were eventually picked up by the independent publisher Agate Publishing, which released his debut novel in June 2013.

In addition to Laymon's satirical time-travel novel Long Division, his book of autobiographical essays, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, was published by Agate in August 2013.

Academia

Laymon was an associate professor of English and Africana Studies at Vassar College, then became a professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi.

As of 2022, he is professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University.

Awards and recognition

• 2013 & 2014: Member of The Root 100, a "list of the 100 most important black influencers between the ages of 25 and 45"
• 2018: Los Angeles Times Book Prize – Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, for Heavy: An American Memoir
• 2019: Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction for Heavy: An American Memoir
• 2022: MacArthur Fellows Program

Selected works

Novels

• Long Division (2013), ISBN 978-1932841725

Memoirs

• How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (2013), ISBN 978-1932841770
• Heavy: An American Memoir (2018), ISBN 978-1501125652