Jeffery Renard Allen

Jeffery Renard Allen was born and raised in Chicago. He is an award-winning author of five books, including the novels SONG OF THE SHANK and RAILS UNDER MY BACK, which won the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for Fiction; the short story collection HOLDING PATTERN, which received The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence; and two collections of poetry. Allen holds a Ph.D. in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is an instructor in the graduate writing program at New School University. He has taught for Cave Canem, the Summer Literary Seminars program in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Nairobi, Kenya, and in the writing program at Columbia University. He's also a founder and director of the Pan African Literary Forum, a non-profit organization that serves writers His other accolades include The Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for Fiction, The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, a grant in Innovative Literature from Cre...