Morgan Jerkins’ first love has always been fiction. As a teenager, the New Jersey native was creating characters and writing stories through which she could seek refuge. Her passion for storytelling followed her to Princeton University, where she graduated in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature, and then to Bennington College in Vermont, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2016.
She is the author of two nonfiction books: Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots (2020), and the New York Times bestseller This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America (2018). In April, Jerkins released her fiction debut with her highly anticipated novel Caul Baby.
Jerkins will discuss and read from her new book during the live virtual rolling out Sunday Stories event on May 16, from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET.
Describe the arc of your literary career and what has brought you to this point.
The short answer would be the internet. I had this idea in my mind when I graduated from college that I was going to get an entry-level job in a publishing house or literary agency and then someone would discover me and my manuscript in the mailroom and that I’d be off to literary success. I started writing op-eds. … So, really, I like to call myself, like, a quintessential millennial writer because, if it wasn’t for the internet, I probably would still be trying to make my way to [that] entry-level gig.
How did Caul Baby come about?
I started thinking of Caul Baby back in 2015 when I first moved to Harlem [in New York City]. One of my advisers —his name is Alex Chee — was at Bennington during the penultimate term. I had a draft of Caul, but it was first a short story. And I’m not a short story writer; I was just trying to explain it with form. He was the one that told me this needs to be a novel, and I’m really glad that I took his advice.
Discover the story behind the book’s title on the next page.
