KELLY: You also wrote, I'm here because Mississippi loved me. But I think that also, like, stops you from feeling the joy and, like, you know, revisiting the wonder of how you got there.

And I get why that is some my impulse and some other people's impulse. And then my thing is to be like, let me talk about all the people who made it so hard for me. If I win anything, I'm always - you know, my thing is to be like, I don't deserve it. I just didn't think I needed to partake in any more self-sabotage, which is something I often do. The world is out to sabotage enough of us often. You know, the world is hard enough for everybody. LAYMON: Oh, I'm just sort of tired of undermining myself. And then you went on, and you wrote, not today. KELLY: You tweeted right after this was announced, my impulse when I get anything is to hate on the folks who made that getting hard while pinpointing the folks who deserve the get more than me. You know, if I look at my own work, I see that, and I maybe see a few other things. But, you know, I appreciate that they saw that in my work. And so I like the part of the description that talks about form and inventive forms because I'm definitely trying to use different forms in what I do. And, you know, most of my work is about Black Southerners and definitely Mississippi. I'm grappling with, like, you know, the paradoxes of intimacy. I think I'm definitely grappling with joy. I mean, I think I'm grappling with a lot more than violence. And, you know, as an author, you have to be thankful any time people see anything in the work. LAYMON: Well, I think they captured what they see in the work. Does that feel right? Did they capture it? Did you know that's what you were doing? KELLY: That description I just read to you - they're trying to encapsulate your life's work so far in that phrase. The foundation said Laymon is, quote, 'bearing witness to the myriad forms of violence that mark the Black experience in formally inventive fiction and nonfiction.' Kiese Laymon, welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, and congratulations. Writer Kiese Laymon is one of this year's 25 winners. There are honors and awards, and then there are the MacArthur Foundation Fellowships, the Genius Grants - no strings attached, big cash prize, $800,000 to pursue research or change careers or, really, do whatever you like.

Kiese laymon books