Tayari JonesCharles Howard Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing

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.