Dolen Perkins-Valdez is an American writer, best known for her

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

'' Wench: A Novel'' (2010), which became a bestseller. She is Chair of the Board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation Board of Directors.

Early life and education

She attended

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

as an undergraduate, earning a BA degree. She completed a PhD in English at

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

Career

Perkins-Valdez has published short fiction and essays in such magazines as ''

The Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, US, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. ' ...

'', '' StoryQuarterly'', ''

StorySouth ''storySouth'' is an online quarterly literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, criticism, essays, and visual artwork, with a focus on the Southern United States. The journal also runs the annual Million Writers Award to select the best sh ...

'', ''African American Review'', ''PMS: PoemMemoirStory'', ''North Carolina Literary Review'', ''Richard Wright Newsletter'', and ''SLI: Studies in Literary Imagination''. She is currently an Associate Professor at

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

in Washington, DC. Perkins-Valdez has said she was inspired to write her debut novel, ''Wench: A Novel'' (2010), after reading a biography of W.E.B. Dubois and coming across a brief reference to the founding of

Wilberforce University Wilberforce University is a private historically black university in Wilberforce, Ohio. Affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), it was the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans. It participates in t ...

. It was noted as first being based at the buildings and grounds of a former, privately owned resort called Tawawa House, named for the "yellow springs" in the area. The iron-rich waters were thought to have medicinal value. Among the regular summer visitors to the Ohio resort in the antebellum period were Southern white planters and their enslaved mistresses of color. ''Wench'' features Lizzie, a young enslaved woman, and her complicated relationship with her master. It also explores the lives of three other mistresses of color, whom Lizzie comes to know at the resort. They are influenced by spending time in a free state, and seeing free people of color there. It was published by

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...

in 2010 and in paperback the following year. The book received positive reviews and notice as a debut novel. The paperback edition became a bestseller. The novel was selected by NPR in 2010 as one of five books published that year that was recommended to book clubs, for "something to talk about".

Other works

In 2013, Perkins-Valdez was invited to write an introductory essay to the 37th edition of

Solomon Northup Solomon Northup (born July 10, 1807-1808) was an American abolitionist and the primary author of the memoir ''Twelve Years a Slave''. A free-born African American from New York, he was the son of a freed slave and a free woman of color. A far ...

's autobiography ''

Twelve Years a Slave ''Twelve Years a Slave'' is an 1853 memoir and slave narrative by American Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York state, details himself being tricked to go to Washington, D. ...

''. Her second novel, ''Balm: A Novel'', was published in May 2015. The novel is set in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

during the

Reconstruction Era The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...

. It explores a Tennessee black healer named Madge, who was born free; a white widowed

spiritualist Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century The ''long nineteenth century'' i ...

named Sadie; and a

freedman A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom a ...

called Hemp from Kentucky, who gained freedom by fighting with the Union Army. Each migrated to Chicago after the war, along with thousands of others working to rebuild their lives and to explore new kinds of freedom. Perkins-Valdez said that she wanted to "move the story out of the battlegrounds of the war into a place like Chicago ..taking it out of those traditional spaces such as the South or even thinking of Virginia or Pennsylvania... and putting it somewhere that was absolutely affected by the war but was still, in some ways, peripheral." Dolen's third novel Take My Hand will be published by Berkley Books/Penguin Random House in Spring 2022.

Honors

* 2002-2003, she was a president's postdoctoral fellow at the Center for African American Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. * 2009, finalist for the

Robert Olen Butler Robert Olen Butler (born January 20, 1945) is an American fiction writer. His short-story collection '' A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain'' was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993. Early life Butler was born in Granite City, Illin ...

Fiction Award. * 2011, finalist for two

NAACP Image Award The NAACP Image Awards is an annual awards ceremony presented by the U.S.-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to honor outstanding performances in film, television, theatre, music, and literature. Similar to ...

s and the

Hurston-Wright Legacy Award The Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards program honors Black writers in the United States and around the globe for literary achievement. Introduced in 2001, the Legacy Award was the first national award presented to Black writers by a national organizatio ...

for fiction, for her novel ''Wench'' * Perkins-Valdez received the First Novelist Award in 2011 for ''Wench'' by the Black Caucus of the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

. * She received a DC Commission on the Arts Grant to aid in completion of her second novel, ''Balm''.

Bibliography

*'' Wench: A Novel'' (2010) *'' Balm: A Novel'' (2015) *''Take My Hand'' (2022)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Perkins-Valdez, Dolen 21st-century American women writers Living people African-American novelists American women novelists American historical novelists Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American novelists Women historical novelists Harvard University alumni Columbian College of Arts and Sciences alumni Writers from Memphis, Tennessee Novelists from Tennessee University of Memphis alumni University of Mary Washington faculty University of Puget Sound faculty American University faculty and staff