Recorded Tuesday June 14, 2022
In the first episode of Bookforum’s latest series, Off the Page: Authors Meet Their Critics, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and critic Margo Jefferson is joined by writer and filmmaker Blair McClendon for a conversation about Jefferson’s memoir Constructing a Nervous System (Pantheon), which McClendon reviewed for Bookforum. McClendon and Jefferson discuss the myths and stereotypes of Black divas, borrowing prose, the critic’s ability to challenge established hierarchies, and respond to a live Q&A.
BLAIR McCLENDON is a writer, editor, and filmmaker. His writing has appeared in n+1, the New Republic, the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, and elsewhere. His film work spans documentary and fiction and has played at Sundance, Cannes, Toronto, and other festivals around the world. He lives in New York City.
The winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, MARGO JEFFERSON previously served as book and arts critic for Newsweek and the New York Times. Her writing has appeared in, among other publications, Vogue, New York magazine, The Nation, and Guernica. Her memoir Negroland received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. She is also the author of On Michael Jackson and is a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts.
