Background
Kalisha Buckhanon was born on April 1, 1977, in Kankakee, Illinois, the eldest of four raised Christian with working-class parents, grandparents and several great-grandparents.
The University of Chicago, Edward H. Levi Hall, 5801 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States
In 1999, Kalisha Buckhanon received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. In 2006, Buckhanon also studied as a humanities doctoral student at the University of Chicago, and obtained her Master of Arts in English from the program.
The University of Chicago, Edward H. Levi Hall, 5801 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States
In 1999, Kalisha Buckhanon received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. In 2006, Buckhanon also studied as a humanities doctoral student at the University of Chicago, and obtained her Master of Arts in English from the program.
The University of Chicago, Edward H. Levi Hall, 5801 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60637, United States
In 1999, Kalisha Buckhanon received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. In 2006, Buckhanon also studied as a humanities doctoral student at the University of Chicago, and obtained her Master of Arts in English from the program.
The New School, 72 5th Ave, New York, NY 10011, United States
At 24, Kalisha Buckhanon left Chicago for New York City to study Creative Writing at The New School University. Later, she received a Masters of Fine Arts (M.F.A) in Creative Writing.
Kalisha Buckhanon
Kalisha Buckhanon
(Upstate is a powerful story told through letters between ...)
Upstate is a powerful story told through letters between seventeen-year-old Antonio and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Natasha, set in the 1990s in New York. Antonio and Natasha's world is turned upside down, and their young love is put to the test, when Antonio finds himself in jail, accused of a shocking crime.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003J48BTQ/?tag=2022091-20
2005
(In the same vein of Kalisha Buckhanon's critically-acclai...)
In the same vein of Kalisha Buckhanon's critically-acclaimed debut novel Upstate, again she shares an emotionally beautiful story about today's youth that magnifies the unforgettable power of hope and the human spirit.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000V770OQ/?tag=2022091-20
2008
(Solemn Redvine is a precocious Mississippi girl who sense...)
Solemn Redvine is a precocious Mississippi girl who senses a nearby baby may be her half-sibling: the outcome of her father's mistakes with a married woman who lives in their trailer park. After Solemn witnesses a man throw the baby down a community well, she struggles to understand the event, leaving her forever changed.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01773WFD2/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(While struggling with infertility, Candy and Frankie, a m...)
While struggling with infertility, Candy and Frankie, a mixed-race couple living in Chicago, decide to adopt a Black child. Despite objections from their wildly different families, who beg the couple to go the more "traditional route," Candy and Frankie schedule an appointment with the Department of Child Family Services in the hopes of finding not an infant, but a toddler - a child "no one else wants." Beautifully rendered in a voice unlike any other in contemporary fiction, Pick Me grapples with notions of race, privilege, and ambition in the modern age - and the strain those forces can put on a relationship.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013W4BS06/?tag=2022091-20
2016
(Speaking of Summer is a literary thriller about one woman...)
Speaking of Summer is a literary thriller about one woman's desperate search for her missing twin sister, a multi-layered mystery set against the neighborhoods of Harlem.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GS67DZC/?tag=2022091-20
2019
(Negression collects some of the best writing from novelis...)
Negression collects some of the best writing from novelist Kalisha Buckhanon’s online blog of the same name. It includes two recent essays in response to mass public efforts to free Cyntoia Brown, sentenced to life in prison as a teenager, and scant mass efforts to remember Maria Schneider, a forgotten victim in Hollywood's #MeToo uprising.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JKKRHL9/?tag=2022091-20
Kalisha Buckhanon was born on April 1, 1977, in Kankakee, Illinois, the eldest of four raised Christian with working-class parents, grandparents and several great-grandparents.
In 1999, Buckhanon received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago.
At 24, Buckhanon left Chicago for New York City to study Creative Writing at The New School University. Later, she received a Masters of Fine Arts (M.F.A) in Creative Writing.
In 2006, she also studied as a humanities doctoral student at the University of Chicago, and obtained her Master of Arts in English from the program.
Kalisha Buckhanon's first published short story was Card Parties in 2003 in the Michigan Quarterly Review. Her first novel, Upstate, was published in 2005 by St. Martin's Press. The novel was sold in a publishing auction for a mid-six-figure sum. Upon its publication, Essence magazine named Buckhanon one of its "Three Writers to Watch".
The novel also was called "wild and beautiful" by novelist Sapphire, "heartbreaking and true" by writer Dorothy Allison, and "intimate, wrenching" by novelist and journalist Achy Obejas. Author Terry McMillian called the book "honest" and stated that Buckhanon "captured real emotion". The book became a popular favorite among youth and urban teachers.
In 2008, her second novel Conception was published, again by St. Martin's Press. The novel tells the story of four months in the life of a young Chicago woman who discovers she is pregnant and wants to abort her unborn child, who also narrates part of the story. School Library Journal wrote that librarians should "recommend this moving novel to readers who enjoyed Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Sapphire's PUSH".
On May 3, 2016, her third novel Solemn was released. The novel tells the story of Solemn Redvine, a troubled psychic girl in a Southern trailer park she attempts to escape for life in the North. Kirkus Reviews called it "a hypnotic tale."
Her next novel Speaking of Summer is due in stores on July 30, 2019. The novel pulls readers into a woman's quest for answers and justice about her sister's disappearance from Harlem, leading to revelations about women’s lives in America and the arduous task of survival.
Kalisha Buckhanon is a writer, speaker and commentator creating stories and media about African-Americans, women, love, and justice.
Buckhanon was a recipient of a 2001 Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Prose.
In 2006, Kalisha Buckhanon also was nominated for the Hurston-Wright Foundation Legacy Award for Debut Fiction.
(In the same vein of Kalisha Buckhanon's critically-acclai...)
2008(Solemn Redvine is a precocious Mississippi girl who sense...)
2016(Speaking of Summer is a literary thriller about one woman...)
2019(Upstate is a powerful story told through letters between ...)
2005(While struggling with infertility, Candy and Frankie, a m...)
2016(Negression collects some of the best writing from novelis...)
In 1999, Kalisha Buckhanon graduated top 2% from the University of Chicago, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.