Jewell Park Rhodes
Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes is the Founding Artistic Director and Endowed Chair of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, and the former director of the ASU Master of Fine Arts Program. Currently, she is the Piper Endowed Chair and Artistic Director for Piper Global Engagement. Professor Rhodes trains MFA students to teach creative writing to high school and college students in Singapore and China, as well as provides residencies for MFA students throughout the world. For the past two years, she has been training Sichuan University faculty to teach the first ever college-level “Introduction to Creative Writing” course in Sichuan province.
Dr. Rhodes is the author of five novels: Voodoo Dreams, Magic City, Douglass’ Women, Voodoo Season, Yellow Moon, and a memoir, Porch Stories: A Grandmother’s Guide to Happiness. Hurricane Levee Blues, a sixth novel, is forthcoming.
She has authored two writing texts: Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons for Black Authors and The African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Non-Fiction.
In 1995, Dr. Rhodes served as one of the contributing editors for the Heath Middle Level Anthologies. Her essay, “Block Party,” written for the Heath Anthologies has since 1995, been continuously in print in various middle school texts. “Block Party” is also used in the State of Maryland’s High School Assessment Test.
In 1974-77, Dr. Rhodes while still a college student, wrote and starred in Catercousins, a children’s show for WIIC-TV, an NBC-affiliate in Pittsburgh.
Rhodes’s play, Voodoo Dreams, was cited as “Most Innovative” Drama in the 2000-2001 Professional Theater Season by the Arizona Republic and she is currently at work on a play of Douglass’ Women and a screenplay of Voodoo Dreams.
Her novels have been reprinted in Germany, Turkey, Italy, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and reproduced in audio, including an excerpt for NPR’s “Selected Shorts.” Her short fiction and essays appear in numerous anthologies and journals. She has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, received a finalist citation for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, and has been a finalist for the PEN USA Award in Fiction.
Her literary awards include: a Yaddo Fellowship, the National Endowment of the Arts Award, two Arizona Book Awards (Outstanding Memoir and Best Multi-Cultural Book), the Black Caucus of the American Library Award for Literary Excellence, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for Outstanding Writing, and the American Book Award. In 2003, she was Author of the Year for Go On Girl! Book Club.
Her teaching awards include: the California State University Distinguished Teaching Award, Arizona State University’s Dean’s Quality Teaching Award, Outstanding Thesis Director (ASU Barrett Honors College), and the Outstanding Faculty Award from ASU’s College of Extended Education.
She received a Bachelor of Arts in Drama Criticism (Honors) a Master of Arts in English, and a Doctor of Arts in English (with Distinction) from Carnegie-Mellon University.