Suzan lori parks biography of william

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    • Suzan-Lori Parks grew up in a military family in Fort Knox, Kentucky.
    • Moved to West Germany because of her father's job in which she describes as the place that “did not make her feel white or black, only foreign”
    • She feels her consistent relocation to different places influenced her writing
    • In high school, one of her professors discouraged her from pursuing literacy in school because she could not spell but ended up studying writing anyways.
    • She went to Mount Holyoke College received a B.A. in English and German Literature. Here she met James Baldwin, a writer, playwright and novelist of color, who in every interview Suzan has credited her success to him and his ideals and teachings.
    • She continued her education at the Drama School London where she studied acting.
    • She was the first female African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize for Topdog/Underdog in 2002.
    • She uses historical events as a means of a focal point to express what students in school may not learn abo
    • suzan lori parks biography of william
    • Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. Photo by Tammy Shell.
      Parks was born on May 10, 1963, in Fort Knox, Kentucky. From an early age, Parks was an energetic storyteller, but it wasn’t until she was in a college writing class taught by novelist James Baldwin that the idea of being a playwright crossed her mind. Baldwin saw how animated Parks was when she was reading her work for the class, and suggested she try writing plays. “And I was like, ‘What the fuck? Plays?’ I hated theater,” said Parks. “Just fake people doing bullshit. But James Baldwin said try it, so there I was.”

      In 1986, Parks moved to New York City, where she temped as a paralegal and searched for a home for her work. On a subway ride home, Parks approached Village Voicetheater critic Alisa Solomon and asked her where she could send her plays. “They’re kind of unconventional,” Parks told her. Solomon passed her manuscripts on to Mac Wellman, the literary

      Though a high school teacher discouraged her from writing because of her poor spelling, Suzan-Lori Parks went on to become one of the most successful playwrights in the United States. The first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for skådespel (2002) and a pionjär of historically conscious and linguistically complex theater, her work fryst vatten now taught at teaterpjäs schools across the country. 

      Parks was born on May 10, 1963 at Fort Knox in Kentucky to Donald and Francis McMillian Parks. Her father was a colonel in the United States Army, and Parks spent her early childhood in Odessa, Texas while her father served in Vietnam. The distinctive dialect she soaked in during her years in West Texas would influence her dialogue when she began writing for the stage. In 1974, Parks moved with her family to Germany where her father was stationed. She and her siblings attended local schools and became fluent in German. An early love for stories from mythology and folklore made Parks dream of