Next Big Voice: With multiple Hopwood prizes from Michigan, coveted Stegner and Grisham Fellowships, and accolades from the ALA, the Hurston-Wright Foundation, and Essence, Ward has set herself up for her first publication with a mainstream trade publisher. Her dazzlingly distinctive voice can now speak to more readers.

Salvage the Bones is a novel that will make readers wince at times and tear up at others. Ward gives voice to the forgotten families of the Gulf Coast through lyrical imagery and the type of uncensored authenticity that can only be delivered through the eyes of a child... it is a true testament to the realities of rural poverty. Once the storm hits, you'll find yourself tearing through the book and finishing it with a better sense of Katrina's impact. - Bust

Jesmyn Ward grew up in DeLisle, Mississippi. She received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won five Hopwood Awards for essays, drama and fiction. She has been a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and a Grisham Visiting Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of South Alabama. Her debut novel, Where the Line Bleeds, was an Essence Book Club selection, a Black Caucus of the ALA Honor Award recipient and a finalist for both the Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.