Jerald Walker

associate professor, creative writing, Emerson College

Jerald Walker is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Emerson College. His work has appeared in *The Best American Essays*, *Best African American Essays*, *The Missouri Review*, and *The Iowa Review*, among others. His new book, *Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption*, diagrams his life – growing up with his parents, both of whom were blind and members of a religious cult, and six siblings in a Chicago housing project, his history with drug addiction, and his struggle against racism when he returned to school as a young adult. Robert Atwan calls *Street Shadows*, “a daring, evocative, and unflinchingly honest memoir by an extraordinary writer with an extraordinary story to tell.”