Hes also author of prelude to cruise which is winner of the penn joyce author award for poetry and at the 2015 stonewall literature award. Poetry collection is also a finalist for the 2015 National Book critics circle award as well as awards lambda literary and the publishing triangle in 2015. Saeed jones served as cohost of buzzfeeds morning show and served as buzzfeeds lgbt and culture editor. He grew up in lewisville texas and earned a ba at Western Kentucky University and an mfa at Rutgers University in newark. He lives in new york city and tweets at the ferocity. Thank you for being here saeed jones. As a side note, the southern festival of books remains completely free because of Strong Community support and we want to keep it that way. So you can donate on the web. Humanities tennessee. Org or by the southern festival of books or by the collection plate thats been passed around. Saeed is going to read for us. We will have a q a and when we get to the q and aplease use the microp