Stephen Graham Jones, 2023 Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence, Reads at CalArts and REDCAT

New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, CalArts’ 2023 Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence, delivers two public readings next week at CalArts and REDCAT. Organized by the MFA Creative Writing Program in the School of Critical Studies, the Katie Jacobson Writer in Residence Program is designed to bring a prestigious writer to CalArts for a public reading and meetings with students. 

On Thursday, Jan. 19, Jones visits the CalArts campus to give two workshops for students, as well as an open evening lecture. On Friday, Jan. 20, Jones takes the REDCAT stage in downtown Los Angeles for a public reading of his works. A streaming option for the REDCAT reading is available for online audiences. 

“Coming out of the terrain of literary horror, Stephen Graham Jones has been cutting his own singular—often exuberantly bloody—path through American literature for some time now,” says Anthony McCann, the director of CalArts’ Creative Writing MFA Program. “We’re so thrilled to have him join us this January to share his work and his perspectives on writing with our students, the CalArts community, and the wider public.”

Jones is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of My Heart is a Chainsaw, The Only Good Indians, and 30 other books. An important figure in contemporary Native American literature (Jones is a member of the Blackfeet Nation), his work is widely known and loved for its innovative approach to genre, particularly horror.

His readings at CalArts and REDCAT are in advance of his highly anticipated sequel to My Heart is a Chainsaw: Don’t Fear the Reaper (part two of The Indian Lake Trilogy) will be released on Feb. 7, 2023, by Simon & Schuster.

Jones’ fiction adroitly remixes the conventions of literary horror fiction to construct disturbing, funny, and moving depictions of contemporary American life, especially as it is lived at the rural margins of the American West. In his work, the past is always alive and lurking somewhere in the dark just beyond the beams of our headlights.

He is the Ivena Baldwin Professor of English and a professor of distinction at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the recipient of many literary awards, including the Ray Bradbury Award from the Los Angeles Times, the Bram Stoker Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.