Tayari JonesCharles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing, Director of Creative Writing Program

Tayari Jones is the author of the novels Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage, which was a 2018 Oprah’s Book Club Selection. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The Believer, The New York Times, and Callaloo. 

A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, she has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Silver Sparrow was named a #1 Indie Next Pick by booksellers in 2011, and the NEA added it to its Big Read Library of classics in 2016.

Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, the University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She joined the faculty of Emory’s Creative Writing Program in Fall 2018.