What The Future Holds: A Conversation with Author Walter Mosley

May 15, 2018 | 7 – 8:30 pm
CEMEX Auditorium
Free and open to the public. General admission, no reservations required.

Novelist and social commentator Walter Mosley is one of the most powerful and prolific writers working in any genre today. He is the author of more than 40 books, ranging from the crime novel to literary fiction, nonfiction, political essay, young adult, and science fiction.

After a short reading by Mosley, he will be in conversation with Scott Hutchins, lecturer in Creative Writing. Topics will include Mosley’s views on writing, the state of the union, and his approaches for imagining the future. A Q&A will follow the conversation. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

Novelist and social commentator WALTER MOSLEY is one of the most powerful and prolific writers working in any genre today. He is the author of more than 40 books, ranging from the crime novel to literary fiction, nonfiction, political essay, young adult, and science fiction. The New York Review of Books called him “a literary master as well as a master of mystery,” and The Boston Globe declared him “one of the nation’s finest writers.”

Mosley’s fiction tracks the African American experience from the migration from the Deep South to post-Obama election-era New York City. His characters are the sorts of “fully formed, complex black men who have been absent from much of contemporary literature,” he says.

Several of Mosley’s books have been adapted for film and television, with new projects in development at FX, Cinemax, and HBO. To adapt his works for television and feature films, Mosley teamed up with producer Diane Houslin to create his own production house, Best of Brooklyn Filmhouse.  With over a dozen entries, his Easy Rawlins detective series began with Devil in a Blue Dress, which was made into a feature film starring Denzel Washington. His latest Rawlins mystery, Charcoal Joe, was released in June 2016.

His upcoming novel, Down the River Unto the Sea, centers on a former New York City police detective turned Brooklyn PI, and is slated for a February 2018 release.

The first African-American to serve on the board of directors of the National Book Awards, Mosley has received an O’Henry Award, The Sundance Risktaker Award, a Grammy, and two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work. In 2016, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Annual Edgar Awards and was named the first African-American “Grand Master” by the Mystery Writers of America.