LibGuides: African American Women Writers: Nafissa Thompson-Spires

Born and raised in Southern California, Nafissa Thompson-Spires earned a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The White Review, Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, StoryQuarterly, Lunch Ticket, and The Feminist Wire, among other publications. She is a 2016 participant of the Callaloo Writer’s Workshop, a 2017 Tin House workshopee, and a 2017 Sewanee Writer's Conference Stanley Elkin Scholar. Her short story collection, Heads of the Colored People, is forthcoming in April with Simon and Schuster’s Atria/ 37 Ink imprints and later in the UK from Penguin Random House’s Chatto and Windus imprint. Her debut novel is under contract with the same publishers.*

Genre: Literary fiction; Short stories

More about Nafissa Thompson-Spires at ProQuest One Literature

*“About.” Nafissa Thompson-Spires, http://www.nafissathompsonspires.com/about-the-author.htmlt. Accessed 8 February 2022.

By Nafissa Thompson-Spires

Heads of the Colored People: stories by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
This collection of moving, timely, and darkly funny stories examines the concept of black identity in this so-called post-racial era. Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous--from two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids' backpacks, to the young girl contemplating how best to notify her Facebook friends of her impending suicide--while others are devastatingly poignant--a new mother and funeral singer who is driven to madness with grief for the young black boys who have fallen victim to gun violence, or the teen who struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with black culture.
The Old Doctor's Story, or The Haunting of Mill Creek Medical Facility by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
Ploughshares v47 n2 (Summer 2021) 164-173,192

About Nafissa Thompson-Spires

No more white- washing. The Crisis, 127, 43-45 by R. Stewart
Nafissa Thompson-Spires' debut short story collection, Heads of the Colored People, has earned a long list of accolades that would take some writers years, if not decades, to accumulate.