Speaker

Best known for her American Book Award-winning novel about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, Fire in Beulah (Viking 2001), Rilla Askew is the author of five novels, a book of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction. She’s a PEN/Faulkner finalist, recipient of the Western Heritage Award, Oklahoma Book Award, and a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her essay collection, Most American: Notes from a Wounded Place, was long listed for a PEN America Literary Award. Askew’s most recent novel, Prize for the Fire, is about Early Modern English writer Anne Askew, who was burned as a heretic in 1546.