Victor LaValle

Victor LaValle was raised in Flushing and Rosedale, Queens . He graduated from Cornell University with a degree in English and received his M.F.A. in Fiction from Columbia University . His first book, Slapboxing with Jesus  received the 2000 PEN/Open Book Award and The Ecstatic was a finalist for the 2003 PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award.  LaValle has been described by the Chicago Tribune as "a writer of darkly humorous tales full of haunting beauty, astonishing leaps of imagination and language that crackles and hums" ( Chicago Tribune).  He has been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and has taught creative writing at Mill College and Columbia University .