Tayari Jones
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Subscriptions go on sale to new subscribers on June 26.
Library Leadership Circle members have presale access to new subscriptions on June 25.
Tickets to individual events go on sale in August.
Proceeds from this event benefit Hennepin County Library.
Our friendships are the other love stories in our lives.
—Tayari Jones
Women's Prize for Fiction Winner
A native of Atlanta, Tayari Jones evokes her settings as vividly as her characters in her coming-of-age stories set in the New South. She is the author of five novels including the instant New York Times bestseller An American Marriage, which explores the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African American couple. The novel earned the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), the Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award. Her other novels include Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, and Silver Sparrow.
Jones shares her exuberant and emotionally rich writing in her newest unforgettable work. Kin is the tale of two motherless daughters—best friends and neighbors since early childhood—who are fated to live starkly different lives. The Wall Street Journal writes “Jones captures the systemic racism of the Jim Crow era in the years when the civil rights movement was gaining momentum. . . . Loyalties and fortitude are repeatedly tested in this immersive drama. Resilience abounds.” Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by People and Time, Kin has received rave reviews from more than a dozen publications.
A graduate of Spelman College, the University of Iowa, and Arizona State University, Jones is currently the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University and an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She is also a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and has earned fellowships from United States Artists, Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
All in-person Pen Pals programs are held at the Hopkins Center for the Arts—offering great sound and sight lines for the entire house. Just 15 minutes from downtown Minneapolis and 28 minutes from Saint Paul, Hopkins Center for the Arts offers free convenient parking as well as numerous nearby restaurants. Please click the button below to download a detailed directions and parking guide.
Hopkin Center for the Arts
1111 Mainstreet
Hopkins, MN 55343
Ticket holders to both sessions of this event will automatically receive access to a virtual live stream of the evening lecture via Zoom. A personalized link will be sent to the email provided during purchase at least 24 hours prior to the evening event. In addition, a link to an on-demand recording will be sent to ticket holders via email the day following the evening event and will be available for viewing for three days. If you plan on joining the livestream event and have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.
Accessible parking and seating is available at all Pen Pals events. Captions are available for both in-person and virtual events, and assistive listening devices are available at in-person events. Read more about accessibility at Pen Pals here.
Books by Tayari Jones at Hennepin County Library
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