The U of A Program in Creative Writing and Translation in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is proud to welcome novelist Kelli Jo Ford as its 2024-25 Walton Visiting Writer in Fiction.

Ford will give a free public reading of her work at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 14, at the Pryor Center. A Q&A and book signing will follow.

Masks are encouraged at this event.

Ford's novel-in-stories debut, Crooked Hallelujah, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, The Story Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, The Dublin Literary Award and The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. She is the recipient of honors and awards such as an NEA Literature Fellowship, The Paris Review's Plimpton Prize, a Creative Capital Award and a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship. She teaches writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts and is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. 

Each year, the Walton Visiting Writers series in the Program in Creative Writing and Translation brings esteemed authors in poetry, fiction and literary translation to the U of A to give free public readings and to work with graduate students in the creative writing M.F.A. program.

Past Walton Writers include Natalie Diaz, Chris Abani, Caryl Phillips, Franz Wright, Esther Allen and Karen Tei Yamashita.

This event is made possible by the Program in Creative Writing and Translation, the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English, the Walton Family Foundation and the James E. and Ellen Wadley Roper Professorship in Creative Writing.