INFO ABOUT THE READING:
The first visitor in the fall's Creative Writing Reading Series hosted by the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English at Texas Tech is the author
DéLana R. A. Dameron. The novelist, poet, artist, and founder of Saloma Acres, an equestrian and cultural space in her hometown in South Carolina, will be on campus to meet with students and to give a public reading on
Thursday, September 19th at 7:30 p.m. (CST) in Humanities 001
(formerly the ENGL/PHIL building) and on Zoom (register for the Zoom link
here) followed by a Q&A and book signing. She will read from her acclaimed new novel,
Redwood Court (The Dial Press/Random House), which was published in February earlier this year. The reading is free and open to the public.
About DéLana R. A. Dameron
DéLana R. A. Dameron is an artist whose primary medium is storytelling. She is a graduate of New York University’s MFA program in poetry and holds a BA degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her debut poetry collection,
How God Ends Us, was selected by Elizabeth Alexander for the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize, and her second collection,
Weary Kingdom, was chosen by Nikky Finney for the Palmetto Poetry Series. Dameron is also the founder of Saloma Acres, an equestrian and cultural space in her hometown in South Carolina, where she resides.
About Redwood Court
The baby of the family, Mika Tabor spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and witnessing their struggles. On Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the all-Black working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, where her grandparents live, Mika learns important lessons from the people who raise her: her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs while still making sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow, who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on the Court in the 1960s, imagining it filled with future generations; and the many neighbors who hold tight to the community they’ve built, committed to fostering joy and love in an America so insistent on seeing Black people stumble and fall.
With visceral clarity and powerful prose, Dameron reveals the devastation of being made to feel invisible and the transformative power of being seen. Redwood Court is a celebration of extraordinary, ordinary people striving to achieve their own American dreams.
Reviews of Redwood Court, a Reese's Book Club Pick:
“A triumph . . . Redwood Court is storytelling at its best: tender, vivid, and richly complicated.”—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone
“Redwood Court exquisitely paints a portrait of Black Southern life, and in her debut novel, DéLana R.A. Dameron meticulously orchestrates a leading cast of characters that leap right off of the pages of this book! In this coming-of-age novel, readers get a glimpse of life through the eyes of the family’s youngest daughter. The writing is nuanced, succinct, and brilliant.”—Essence
“A generously transportive novel, one that thoughtfully renders not only each of its characters but also the nuances of its geographies . . . The language within it echoes, feels familiar and warm. This book carried me to a joyful elsewhere.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of National Book Award finalist A Little Devil in America
“Redwood Court is a beautiful and riveting novel of generational reckoning. DéLana Dameron offers with tenderness and a lyrical sensitivity, an insider’s insight into the “big love” of the abundantly rich black southern life of tribe, community, and family.”—Kwame Dawes, author of UnHistory
Additional Reads:
Interview: Jessica Lynne interviews DéLana Dameron for
Bomb Magazine