Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Author Interview - Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Author of Take My Hand
Inspired by true events that rocked the nation, a profoundly moving novel about a Black nurse in post-segregation Alabama who blows the whistle on a terrible wrong done to her patients, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench.
Author Interview - Mary Camarillo
Author I draw inspiration from: Tina McElroy Ansa, Margaret Walker, Toni Cade Bambara
Author Interview - Dolen Perkins-Valdez | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book: In the bed
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Eve Gardiner from Kate Quinn's The Alice Network
Author Interview - Dolen Perkins-Valdez | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: When I was a first-year in college and I published my first short story.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: All of the above!
The last book I read: The Personal Librarian by Victoria Christopher Murray and Marie Benedict
Author Interview - Dolen Perkins-Valdez | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer: Pencil
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: Professional crocheter
Favorite decade in fashion history: 1970s
Place I’d most like to travel: India
My signature drink: French 75
Favorite artist: Kara Walker
Number one on my bucket list: Learn to play the banjo
Find more from the author:
Twitter: @dolen
Instagram: @dolenperkinsvaldez
Facebook.com/writerdolen
Author Bio: Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the the New York Times bestselling author of Wench (2010), Balm (2015), and the forthcoming novel Take My Hand (Berkley Books 2022). Wench was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction. In 2017, HarperCollins released it as one of eight "Olive Titles," limited edition modern classics that included books by Edward P. Jones, Louise Erdrich, and Zora Neale Hurston. Dolen received a DC Commission on the Arts Grant for her second novel Balm which was published by HarperCollins in 2015. In 2013, Dolen wrote the introduction to a special edition of Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave, published by Simon & Schuster, which became a New York Times bestseller. Dolen is the current Chair of the Board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and is Associate Professor in the Literature Department at American University in Washington, DC.
