Men We Reaped: In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life—to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: Why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth—and it took her breath away.

Special Guest: Jesmyn Ward grew up in DeLisle, Mississippi. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan. A Stegner Fellow at Stanford, from 2008-2010, she has been named the 2010-11 Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. Her debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds, was an Essence Magazine Book Club selection and a Black Caucus of the ALA Honor Award recipient. Ward's second novel, Salvage the Bones, won the 2011 National Book Award.