A Toni Morrison Writing Program will be established at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) in honor of the writer and her former student, MacKenzie Scott. The announcement came from PVAMU President Ruth J. Simmons. $3 million in donations will be designated to endow the Morrison Writing Program.
A Toni Morrison Writer-in-Residence will be part of the program. Whoever is selected as the Writer-in-Residence will have a one-year visiting appointment at PVAMU and will offer a seminar in writing. He/She will also hold public readings of his/her work and that of other writers in an effort to bring visibility to the importance of writing and the legacy of African American writers, especially those educated at HBCUs.
Morrison, a prolific essayist and novelist, was a graduate of Howard University, an HBCU in Washington, D.C. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Nobel Prize in Literature.
“Faculty and staff of both the University and area high schools will share in the activities of the program and benefit from the Writer-in-Residence and other artists representing the full range of literary genres,” said Emma Joahanne Thomas-Smith, the PVAMU provost emerita who will be overseeing the program.
The Toni Morrison Writing Program will also sponsor a high school writing contest and will award a scholarship to the winner.
