Paul Beatty and Bernadette Mayer

Introduced by Ethan Nosowsky (Consultant for Literature at Creative Capital and Editor at Large for Graywolf Press)
Paul Beatty is the author of two volumes of poetry, Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce, and three novels, Tuff, The White Boy Shuffle and Slumberland. He is also the editor of Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor. His essays have appeared in Village Voice, The New York Times and other publications. He is the recipient of a Jasper Johns Fellowship and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

Bernadette Mayer has published more than 20 collections of poetry. She began her career as a conceptual artist, experimenting with time-based works that combined photography and writing, and editing and publishing the magazine 0 TO 9 with artist Vito Acconci. She created the book-length work Midwinter Day (written in one day) and A Month Of Noons. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.