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Biographical Information:
Sean Enfield is a writer and educator from Dallas, Texas. His debut collection of essays, Holy American Burnout!, was published by Split/Lip Press in December 2023 and was a finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award and winner of the Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize in Nonfiction. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of Permafrost Magazine. Now, he serves as an Assistant Non Fiction Editor at Terrain.org. His own work has been published in Reed Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry, Witness Magazine, Terrain.org, Tahoma Literary Review, and The Rumpus, among others, and he was the 2020 recipient of the Fourth Genre’s Steinberg Memorial Essay Prize. In 2013, his story, “Claudia Who Found the F,” was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered as a part of their 3 Minute Fiction contest judged by Karen Russell, and his manuscript, “Holy American Burnout!,” was named a finalist for Red Hen Press’ Ann Petry award by Maurice Carlos Ruffin. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @seanseanclan.
Sean Enfield is a writer and educator from Dallas, Texas. His debut collection of essays, Holy American Burnout!, was published by Split/Lip Press in December 2023 and was a finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award and winner of the Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize in Nonfiction. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of Permafrost Magazine. Now, he serves as an Assistant Non Fiction Editor at Terrain.org. His own work has been published in Reed Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry, Witness Magazine, Terrain.org, Tahoma Literary Review, and The Rumpus, among others, and he was the 2020 recipient of the Fourth Genre’s Steinberg Memorial Essay Prize. In 2013, his story, “Claudia Who Found the F,” was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered as a part of their 3 Minute Fiction contest judged by Karen Russell, and his manuscript, “Holy American Burnout!,” was named a finalist for Red Hen Press’ Ann Petry award by Maurice Carlos Ruffin. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @seanseanclan.
Sean Enfield reading from Holy American Burnout!, May 10, 2024
Sean Enfield reading from Holy American Burnout!, May 10, 2024
Winner of the Discovery Prize for Nonfiction, Writers' League of Texas
Finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction
Named a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2024
Sean Enfield delves into the great American condition: burnout.
Threading his experiences both as a Texan student and later as a first-year teacher of predominately Muslim students at a Texas middle school, Holy American Burnout! weaves personal essay and cultural critique into the historical fabric of Black and bi-racial identity.
Enfield intersects examinations of which voices are granted legitimacy by virtue of school curriculum, the complex relationship between basketball and education for Black and brown students, his students’ burgeoning political consciousness during the 2016 presidential campaign, and cultural figures ranging from Kendrick Lamar to Hamlet.
These classroom narratives weave around Enfield’s own formative experiences contending with a conflicted bi-racial family lineage, reenacting the Middle Passage as the only Black student in his 7th grade history class, and moshing in both Christian and secular hardcore pits.
As Enfield wrestles with the physical, mental, and emotional burdens that American society places on educators, students, and all relatively conscious minorities in this country, he reaches for an education that better navigates our burnt-out empire.
The link to the event can be found here.
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