Description:

Hosted on Zoom, One Book, One Chicago author Eric Charles May will discuss his OBOC novel Bedrock Faith and his trajectory from Washington Post journalist to novelist and fiction-writing professor at Columbia College Chicago with SPS MW/MFA faculty director and fiction writer Christine Sneed. Q and A with attendees to follow Eric and Christine's conversation. 

Eric Charles May is an associate professor in the Creative Writing program at Columbia College Chicago and the author of the novel Bedrock Faith, the 2021 One Book, One Chicago selection by the Chicago Public Library, and a 2014 Notable African American Title by Publisher’s Weekly. A Chicago native and a former reporter for The Washington Post, May is a past recipient of the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award, the current president of the Guild Literary Complex, a member of 2nd Story, a curatorial board member of the Ragdale Foundation, and a selection committee member for the Harold Washington Literary Award. His fiction has also appeared in the magazines Fish Stories, F, Hypertext, Solstice, and We Speak Chicagoese. In addition to his Post reporting, his nonfiction has appeared in Sport Literate, the Chicago Tribune, and the personal essay anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck.

Christine Sneed is the author of the novels Paris, He Said and Little Known Facts, and the story collections Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry and The Virginity of Famous Men. She has two books forthcoming, Please Be Advised: A Novel in Memos and Love in the Time of Time’s Up: A Short Fiction Anthology (as editor.) Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, Ploughshares, New England Review, Glimmer Train, New York Times, and many other publications. She has received the Grace Paley Prize, the Chicago Writers’ Association Book of the Year Award, the Society of Midland Authors Award, the Chicago Public Library's 21st Century Award, among other honors, and has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She’s a fiction professor and the faculty director of Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies’ graduate creative writing program.