Join us for a reading by Allison Hedge Coke, 2023 Thomas Wolfe Prize Recipient. The reading is free and open to the public.
For the whole of her astonishing literary career, memoirist, poet, and activist Allison Adelle Hedge Coke has embodied a deep commitment to the land and the people who are often overlooked as they work its fields, fish its waters, and try to make a life amidst seemingly impossible obstacles. Having worked in manual labor until she was 30 years old—in fields, factories, commercial fishing, construction, and cleaning—Hedge Coke brings a compassionate and unflinching perspective on the lives of everyday people in her poems, nonfiction, and activist work. “This is a time we must unravel what would otherwise surely choke us,” she says as an invitation to all who read her work and, through it, hope to find a way into their own hard-fought stories.
Among several awards and honors, Allison Hedge Coke is a 1998 American Book Award winner, a 2022 National Book Award Finalist, and a 2023 Emory Elliott Book Award winner.