J.C. Hallman
Photo by Emily Blackshear
Bio
J.C. Hallman is the author of seven books, and the recipient of fellowships from the McKnight and Guggenheim Foundations. His occasional work has appeared in Harper’s, GQ,the Nation,the New Republic, Tin House,the Baffler, and other publications. In 2015, Hallman discovered the first evidence ever found that proved the existence of the young, enslaved woman known as “Anarcha,” the most consequential experimental subject of the diabolical “father of gynecology,” J. Marion Sims. Hallman’s latest book, Say Anarcha, emerged from this discovery.
I’m not very good with money—or rather, what I tend to do with it is recklessly invest in research and projects that may or may not become the next piece of writing for which I—like all writers—tend to be woefully underpaid. That was certainly the case with the work for which I have been honored to receive a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. The award will help get me back to an even keel— or close—but I will also likely use the money to explore a lost trove of interviews with Black Korean War soldiers that I managed to discover in a little-known archive. The work goes on.