Part of the 2006-2007 Literature and Spirituality Series
Yale Divinity School Book Store - 409 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT
Refreshments for mind, body, and spirit will be served. Free and open to the public.
Nikky Finney was born by the sea, in the small fishing and farming community of Conway, South Carolina. Daughter of a civil rights attorney and a teacher, Finney has been writing for as long as she has memory. Poetry has always been her favorite language: lavishly visual, plain-as-day lyrical, and passionately portrait-yielding.
Finney received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Talladega College in Alabama. While in graduate school at Atlanta University, she dedicated herself to crafting a body of original work.
In 1985, Finney published her first book of poems, On Wings Made of Gauze. In 1995, Finney published Rice, a collection of stories, poems, and photographs, which won the PEN American Open Book Award in 1999. Finney’s 1998 volume of short stories, Heartwood, was written to assist adult literacy students across the country. Her latest poetry collection, The World Is Round, was published in 2003, and won the 2004 Benjamin Franklin Award for Poetry.
Finney is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Kentucky. Her contagious energy and passion for writing extend beyond academia. She travels extensively, as she puts it, “reading to listeners, staying connected and engaged, and maintaining her commitment to the risky business of creativity.”