Writer, Washington, DC
Holtzbrinck Fellow - Class of Fall 2017
Thomas Chatterton Williams completed his BA in philosophy at Georgetown University and MA in the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University. In 2007, during his graduate studies, he wrote an op-ed entitled “Yes, Blame Hip-Hop,” for the Washington Post, which led to his memoir, Losing My Cool: Love, Literature, and a Black Man’s Escape from the Crowd (Penguin, 2010).
Williams is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, London Review of Books, New Yorker, Atlantic, Smithsonian Journeys, Le Monde, and Harper’s, among other publications.
Academy Activities
14
Sep
22
Special Event
Race and Identity: Thomas Chatterton Williams, Glenn Loury, Joyce Nyairo
The two scholars Glenn Loury and Joyce Nyairo will talk with the author and critic Thomas Chatterton Williams about topics such as racism, colonialism, state identity, and social movements.
06
Nov
17
US Embassy Literature Series
Race, Identity, and the Boundaries of Blackness
Thomas Chatterton Williams explores what it means to be a black man of mixed-race heritage with a white-looking daughter and white wife, in this reading and conversation with Rose-Anne Clermont.
30
Nov
17
Holtzbrinck Lecture
Self-Portrait of an Ex-Black Man
Writer Thomas Chatterton Williams will present his work-in-progress, Self-Portrait of an Ex-Black Man, the story of his American family’s multigenerational transformation from what is called “black” to what is assumed to be “white.”
26
Oct
17
Fellow Spotlight: Thomas Chatterton Williams
Thomas Chatterton Williams is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. At the Academy, he is working on his second nonfiction book, an exploration of and argument against the way race is defined in the United States. He draws on his own experience as “a black man of mixed-race heritag ...
01
Dec
17
Self-Portrait of an Ex-Black Man
Writer Thomas Chatterton Williams presents his work-in-progress, “Self-Portrait of an Ex-Black Man,” the story of his American family’s multigenerational transformation from what is called “black” to what is assumed to be “white.” He writes about the book: “I’ve spent my whole life ...