Nafissa Thompson-Spires is the author of the award-winning, National Book Awardlonglisted short story collection, Heads of the Colored People. She earned a doctorate in English from ----Vanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from ------the University of Illinois. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The Paris Review Daily, New York Magazine's "The Cut," The Root, The White Review, Ploughshares,400 Souls: A Community History of African America 1619-2019, and The 1619 Project, among other publications. She is the recipient of a 2024 United States Artists Grant and a 2019 Whiting Award.
