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Keenan Norris

Keenan Norris is a novelist, essayist and scholar. He has been the recipient of the 2022 Northern California Book Award in Fiction, the 2021-22 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award in Music, Theater and Performing Arts, the 2021 Folio: Eddie Award for Best Overall Article and the 2012 James D. Houston Award. His novels include The Confession of Copeland Cane and Brother and the Dancer. In 2023, Keenan published the book of essays Chi Boy: Native Sons and Chicago Reckonings and the novella Lustre.

Keenan has served as 2023 Lannan Visiting Writer at the Institute of American Indian Arts and 2021 Rea Visiting Writer at the University of Virginia. He is coordinator of the Steinbeck Fellows Program at San Jose State University and serves as California guest editor and contributing scholar to the Oxford African-American Studies Center. Keenan’s feature pieces and articles have appeared in numerous forums, including the Los Angeles Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, TED-ED and Alta, while his short fiction has been published in several anthologies of California literatureHe is an Associate Professor at San Jose State University.

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