The Florida-raised rising star will arrive in St. Pete in June to work on her second novel.
“For sheer reading pleasure Ladee Hubbard’s original and wildly inventive novel is in a class by itself.” —Toni Morrison
Keep St. Pete Lit is overjoyed to announce the selection of novelist Ladee Hubbard as the third recipient of its annual LitSpace St. Petersburg Writing Residency. Hubbard’s first novel, the Florida-set The Talented Ribkins (Melville House, 2017), has garnered reams of effusive praise. She will be working on her second novel in St. Pete from June 6th through June 20th, and will host both a public reading and a workshop for local writers.
The Talented Ribkins is a cutting but humane satire that’s equal parts Colson Whitehead, Jonathan Swift, and The X-Men. Each member of the Ribkins family has an extraordinary ability, from scaling any wall to breathing fire. While W.E.B. Dubois’ might have placed them in the “talented tenth” of African-American leaders, they haven’t all lived up to that call. Now the family patriarch, Johnny Ribkins, finds himself entangled with mobsters and racing around Florida as he scrambles to pay off old debts.
The Talented Ribkins received the 2018 Ernest J. Gains Award for Literary Excellence, and was selected as one of the Best Books of 2017 by Kirkus Reviews. It received national attention, including garnering Hubbard a chat with Seth Meyers on Late Night [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzY9rHrMgPM].
“Naming Ladee as our 2018 Resident is a huge step forward for us,” said Keep St. Pete Lit founder and Executive Director Maureen McDole. “Our mission is to help connect Tampa Bay to the national literary conversation, and Ladee is very much at the center of that.”
More details about Ladee Hubbard’s reading and workshop schedule during the residency are coming soon. To stay informed, visit keepstpetelit.org and follow Keep St. Pete Lit on Facebook and Twitter.
About Ladee Hubbard: Ladee Hubbard teaches Africana Studies at Tulane University. She studied English at Princeton before earning an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin and a PhD in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA. Her short work has appeared in renowned journals including Callaloo and Guernica. She was born in Massachusetts and raised in Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. She is a recipient of a 2016 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award.
About Keep St. Pete Lit: Keep St. Pete Lit is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to promoting literacy and the literary arts in St. Petersburg, Tampa Bay, and beyond. Generous support comes from the Pruitt Foundation, the Morean Arts Center, the Clark Family Fund.