David Wright (writer)

David Wright (born 1964) is an American writer.

Early life and education
Wright grew up in Borger, Texas. His mother is a white Jewish woman who survived the Nazi occupation of Paris. Her parents were affluent, assimilated French Jews. His mother was a member of the French Communist Party; she immigrated to the US in the 1950s as the GI bride of an African-American soldier. He holds a BA from Carleton College and an MFA from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also studied at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Before he started teaching creative writing, he was a player/coach on various American football teams in Paris and London. He teaches at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but lives in Texas.

He has also published under the name "David Wright Faladé", in honor of his biological father. His father Maximien Faladé was a devout Catholic from Porto-Novo in Benin, the grandson of Béhanzin, the last King of Dahomey.

Books

 * Black Cloud Rising, Atlantic Monthly Press, February 2022.

Short stories

 * "The Sand Banks, 1861" (2020)

Documentary film

 * Rescue Men: The Story of the Pea Island Lifesavers (2010).

Television journalism

 * "The Pea Island Story", co-written and co-produced with Stephanie Frederic and David Zoby. Aired on BET Tonight, February 1999.

Awards

 * 2017: International Board on Books for Young People, grades 9–12, Away Running
 * 2011: Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil.
 * 2009: North Carolina Humanities Council, Large Grant, for production of Rescue Men: The Story of the Pea Island Lifesavers.
 * 2005: Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, University of Texas and the Texas Institute of Letters.
 * 2004: Tennessee Williams Scholar, Sewanee Writers’ Conference.
 * 1999: National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Institute for College and University Faculty Fellow, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University, "The Civil Rights Movement: History and Consequences".
 * 1997–1998: Chancellor’s Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship, Afro-American Studies and Research Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
 * 1994: Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award, the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, Fairfax, VA.
 * 1993: Paul Cuffe Memorial Fellowship, Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies, Mystic, Connecticut.