Award-winning author and Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English and African American Studies at Penn State University, Dr. Keith Gilyard, will join us via Zoom. Dr. Gilyard is the author of over 100 publications, including more than 20 books. Dr. Gilyard will discuss the history of his scholarship within African American Studies, Creative Writing, as well as Rhetoric & Composition Studies. He will share his own process of telling his life story and writing his new memoir. Dr. Gilyard will explain why he believes that writing memoir/storytelling is especially important for Rhetoric & Composition as a discipline.