Reginald McKnight Biography
Reginald McKnight is an American short story writer and novelist. McKnight served in the United States Marine Corps until his honorable retirement in 1976.
Reginald McKnight Age
McKnight was born 26 February 1956 in Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany. He is 68 years old as of February 2024.
Reginald McKnight Education
He holds degrees from Pikes Peak Community College (A.A.), Colorado College (B.A.), and the University of Denver (M.A.); he is also a Phi Beta Kappa and has received an honorary doctorate from Colorado College.
Reginald McKnight Family- Parents
He was born and raised in Germany the son of Frank and Pearl McKnight. Reginald’s father Frank was a career Air Force sergeant.
Reginald McKnight Partner- Spouse
He is happily married to his wife, author, Sabrina Orah Mark.
Reginald McKnight Career
McKnight has taught English at the University of Maryland, College Park; Carnegie Mellon University; and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He also taught at the University of Pittsburgh, but quit after discovering that other faculty members made racist remarks about black people when he wasn’t present. He has been the Hamilton Holmes Professor of English at the University of Georgia in Athens since 2002; he was also the first to occupy that position. McKnight has had two extended stints in Africa, teaching English in Dakar, Senegal, from 1981 to 1982 and again in 1985 as part of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.
McKnight then went to Senegal to teach English as a second language at the American Cultural Centre in Dakar. He spent a year there before returning to the United States to further his studies at the University of Denver, where he received his M.A. in creative writing in 1987. McKnight had previously written but was unpublished, and he credits his experiences in Senegal with transforming both himself and his work. His debut book, Moustapha’s Eclipse (1988), features short stories set in Senegal and won the Drue Heinz short fiction award in 1988. McKnight’s other notable pieces are I Get on the Bus (1990), The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas (1992), White Boys (1998), and He Sleeps (2001). He was also an editor for the non-fiction works African American Wisdom (1994) and Wisdom of the African World (1996).
Reginald McKnight Awards
McKnight has won many other awards for his literary works. They include an NEA fellowship, an O. Henry Award, the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Excellence, the PEN Hemingway Special Citation, the Pushcart Prize, a Thomas J. Watson Foundation Fellowship, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Literature.
Reginald McKnight Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of 500 thousand dollars.