Nikky Finney
A native of Conway, Finney grew up in a household in which the importance of heritage and the issues of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s were of equal importance. Her father—attorney and then judge Ernest Finney, Jr.—played an important role in a number of important South Carolina desegregation cases. She began writing at age ten in response to her parents’ involvement in the Civil Rights movement. Finney graduated from Talladega College in Alabama (B.A., 1979) and studied at Atlanta University from 1979-1981. Her mentors include the writers Richard Long, Toni Cade Bambara, Nikki Giovanni, and the actress Ruby Dee.
From 1984 to 1986, she worked as a writer, editor, and photographer for Vital Signs Magazine, and she has taught at the University of Kentucky and Berea College. She became a Professor Emeritus at the University of Kentucky in 2013 and is currently the John H. Bennett, Jr. Endowed Professor of Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina. She has published a collection of short stories, Heartwood (University Press of Kentucky, 1998) and four volumes of poetry: On Wings Made of Gauze (William Morrow, Inc., 1985), Rice (Sister Vision Press, 1995), The World is Round (InnerLight, 2002), and Head Off and Split (Northwestern University Press, 2011). Rice, in particular, is a collection notable for its interweaving of the rice culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry with the lives of those who worked in the rice fields and their descendants. Finney’s poetic voice has been compared to “cool jazz” by the Library Journal.
From 1984 to 1986, she worked as a writer, editor, and photographer for Vital Signs Magazine, and she has taught at the University of Kentucky and Berea College. She became a Professor Emeritus at the University of Kentucky in 2013 and is currently the John H. Bennett, Jr. Endowed Professor of Creative Writing and Southern Letters at the University of South Carolina. She has published a collection of short stories, Heartwood (University Press of Kentucky, 1998) and four volumes of poetry: On Wings Made of Gauze (William Morrow, Inc., 1985), Rice (Sister Vision Press, 1995), The World is Round (InnerLight, 2002), and Head Off and Split (Northwestern University Press, 2011). Rice, in particular, is a collection notable for its interweaving of the rice culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry with the lives of those who worked in the rice fields and their descendants. Finney’s poetic voice has been compared to “cool jazz” by the Library Journal.
