- William Melvin Kelley is a novelist, short fiction writer, and educator. Born in 1937 on Carpenter Avenue in The Bronx, New York, he attended Fieldston School and Harvard University. He has taught literature and writing at the New School for Social Research, the State University of New York at Geneseo, and the University of Paris, Nanterre.
Kelley has published four novels; "A Different Drummer," "A Drop of Patience," "Dem" and "Dunfords Travels Everywheres." He also published a book of short stories, "Dancers On The Shore." A fifth novel, "Dis//Integration," awaits publication. Several of his short stories and non-fiction essays have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, Playboy and more recently Harper's Magazine. He has appeared in numerous textbooks and anthologies of African American Writers.
William Melvin Kelley is also the recipient of a number of literary awards; the Dana Reed Literary prize, Harvard University, 1960; Bread Loaf Writers Conference grant, 1962; Whitney Foundation award, 1963; Rosenthal Foundation award, 1963; Transatlantic Review award, 1964; Black Academy of Arts and Letters award, 1970; Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement, 2008.
Kelley is a professor of creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Harlem.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jesi Kelley
- Race is what they give us to talk about, so we don't talk about the money.
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