Saeed Jones: Creative Nonfiction and the Art of Reality

The Oregon Humanities Center presents its 2026-27 endowed lectureship series centered on the theme of Reading. Modern life in America presents constant contradictions, asking individuals to navigate delicate balances of power and injustice, pain and pleasure, and expectations and actualization. An acclaimed poet and memoirist, Saeed Jones focuses on questions of the self, desire, fear, and vulnerability through a Black queer perspective. In his talk Creative Nonfiction and the Art of Reality, Jones will use the lens of his experience as a writer and reader to explore his--and the genre's--relationship to reality, morality, and systems of power. How does a nonfiction writer incorporate the raw material of life into work in a way that is not just factual, but artful, ethical, and compelling, and moves readers toward truth in a larger sense? How can we understand these works as functioning within systems of power, and how might this impact the way writers shape their material, and the way readers receive it? Jones's talk, the first in the OHC's 2026- 27 Reading lecture series, will include a book sale by J. Michaels Books and a book signing. This talk is free and open to the public, and will be livestreamed. Please register at ohc.uoregon.edu. Jones's books of poetry include Prelude to Bruise (2015; winter of the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry) and Alive at the End of the World (2023; AnisfieldWolf Book Award for Poetry). With stylistic nods to mythology and Black iconography, his poetry heightens surreal aspects of daily realities and asks readers to witness tragedy, triumph, and realization alongside the writer's own revelations. How We Fight For Our Lives, Jones's first memoir, won the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction and documents his journey of self-discovery as a young, Black, gay man from the South. As in his other works, Jones meditates on the self: from understanding his own identity to observing its various collisions and cohesions with the outside world. As Jones struggles to uncover his own identities, he never abandons his engrossing poetic tone. Following How We Fight For Our Lives, Jones is currently working on a forthcoming memoir entitled Home Out There. Jones was the 2024-2025 artist-in-residence at the Media, Health, and Medicine program at Harvard Medical School, lecturing on global health and social medicine. He also cohosts Vibe Check, a podcast focused on making sense of what's going on in news and culture--and how it all feels.