This lecture will traverse the valences of writerly relevance. Rising out of the vexingly uneven reception to the presenter’s debut novel, made starker by the (arguable) pinnacle of recognition by a former president, it will walk attendees through a writer’s journey of sense-making, including musings on books that were once relevant but have been devoured by time; books that made little impact upon publication but were devoured by readers with time; and what exactly it means to be a “writer's writer.”

DK Nnuro is a Ghanaian-born writer. His debut novel, What Napoleon Could Not Do (2023), was one of Barack Obama’s 2023 Summer Reading List picks, winner of the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) New Writers Award in Fiction, and shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.