Kiley Reid

1:30 p.m.

Writing Such A Fun Age.

1:30 pm

Historic Fifth Street School Auditorium

While her debut novel is not a work of auto-fiction, Reid drew inspiration from her six years as a nanny to the several children in Manhattan. Later, while at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, with time and clarity to draw upon the feeling of working in someone else's home, Kiley had the opportunity to research and analyze domestic work, the anxieties of the liberal elite, and how language and memory can work on the page. With a penchant for awkward moments and a dedication to depicting domestic in its complicated forms, Reid shares the experience of creating two very different perspectives approaching privilege, money, and precocious toddlers.

An Arizona native, Kiley Reid is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was the recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship. Her New York Times-bestselling debut novel, Such a Fun Age, is currently in development by Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions and Sight Unseen Pictures. The novel was longlisted for The 2020 Booker Prize and a finalist for the New York Public Library’s 2020 Young Lions Fiction Award, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. Kiley’s writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Playboy, December, Lumina, where her short story was the winner in the 2017 Flash Prose Contest, and Ploughshares, where her short story was the winner of the 2020 Ashley Leigh Bourne Prize for Fiction.

Moderated by Kelvin Watson, Executive Director – Las Vegas Clark County Library District

As executive director of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, Kelvin Watson oversees 25 branches run by 600+ employees, spanning 8,000 square miles, with a budget of $77 million and a collection of 3.2 million items. Regarded as one of the most highly respected thought leaders in the library industry, Kelvin has been credited with expanding his customer base through outreach efforts to underserved and diverse populations, and brought transformative change through ambitious and groundbreaking initiatives. Examples include the multi-award-winning partnership with the RTC of Southern Nevada, which enables digital library access to bus riders; and a cell phone lending program, which provides low-income and homeless residents with the lifeline that smart phones deliver.

His dedication to implementing new and innovative ways to meet new and existing customers “where they are” using non-traditional methods garnered Kelvin and his libraries numerous awards, including: American Library Association (ALA) Library of the Future (2022, 2019); RUSA Best Emerging Technology Award; ALA Ernest A. DiMattia Award for Innovation and Service to Community & Profession.

Kelvin earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a Minor in Military Science from Lincoln University in Missouri, where he is a member of the ROTC Hall of Fame. He earned his MLS Degree from North Carolina Central University. He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., and Beta Phi Mu Honor Society.