The Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University, Evie Shockley was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and holds a BA from Northwestern University, a JD from the University of Michigan, and a PhD from Duke University. Her collection suddenly we (Wesleyan University Press, 2023) was a National Book Award finalist and won the NAACP Image Award. semiautomatic (Wesleyan University Press, 2017) was a 2018 Pulitzer Prize finalist and won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her earlier collection the new black (Wesleyan University Press, 2011) also won a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. A Cave Canem Fellow, she has received the Shelley Memorial Award and the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.
