A GOOD TIME FOR THE TRUTH
Shannon Gibney: "Fear of a Black Mother"
Her Life:
Shannon Gibney was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1975. She grew up with her adopted family and two siblings. Throughout high school and college she explored literature and writing. It has been one of her passions since a very young age.
She has lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota since 2002, with her husband and two children, Boisey and Marwein. They live in the Powderhorn neighborhood, close to her work as part of the English faculty at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC).
Works Cited
“Bio.” Shannon Gibney, 4 Nov. 2016, shannongibney.com/about/.
Fuller, Molly. “Lit Chat: Meet Shannon Gibney.” The Loft, The Loft Literary Center, 20 July 2016, writersblock.loft.org/2016/07/20/4780/lit_chat_meet_shannon_gibney.
Her Education:
Shannon Gibney grew in her love for writing during her time attending Community High.
Gibney graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1997, majoring in both Creative Writing and Spanish.
She then went on to Indiana University's Graduate Creative Writing Program to receive her M.A. and M.F.A. while she was there.
Her Works:
Gibney published her first novel, See No Color, in November 2015. This earned her a Minnesota Book Award in 2016, in the category of Young Adults.
In 2016, she wrote a short story for the book Sky Blue Water, a collection of stories surrounding youth in Minnesota. In addition to this, she wrote the essay "Fear of a Black Mother" for the anthology A Good Time For The Truth: Race in Minnesota. Part of this essay was later published in The Star Tribune.
Gibney is currently working on her second novel, Dream Country. It will encompass the story of five generations of an African-descended family crossing the Atlantic ocean, and is expected to be released in 2018.
Her Poetry:
Gibney uses poetry as a form of expression and activism.
This video shows Gibney reading one of her pieces exploring her miscarraige.