Reginald McKnight (born 26 February 1956) is an American short story writer and novelist. Life McKnight was born 26 February 1956 in Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany, to an Air Force family; therefore, he moved around a lot in childhood, although he calls Colorado home. He earned degrees from Pikes Peak Community College (A.A.), Colorado College (B.A.) and University of Denver (M.A.); he is also Phi Beta Kappa and received an honorary doctorate from Colorado College. As a teacher, McKnight has been a professor of 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 left when he learned that other faculty told racist jokes about black people when he wasn't in their presence. As of 2002, he is the Hamilton Holmes Professor of English at the University of Georgia in Athens; he was also the first person to hold that position. McKnight has had two extended stays in Africa, teaching English in Dakar, Senegal, from 1981 to 1982, and another in 1985 as part of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. He says that "he didn't truly consider himself a writer until he went to Africa", partly because that he was writing intensely for several hours a day while he was there, and also because, as he states, "when I left that place I had done something to myself in a really profound way--imprinted myself with the written word in ways that I hadn't prior to that". He also states that after a few weeks there, he became more aware of what he calls his "Africanness" by recognizing the same cadences in the voices of Senegalese women that he knew listening to his mother and his aunts growing up. Awards O. Henry Award 1988 Drue Heinz Literature Prize 1995 Whiting Award Works (reprint) Editor Anthologies References External links Profile at The Whiting Foundation 1956 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists African-American novelists American male novelists Writers from Colorado Springs, Colorado University of Georgia faculty University of Michigan faculty American male short story writers African-American short story writers 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American short story writers 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from Michigan Novelists from Colorado Novelists from Georgia (U.S. state) 20th-century African-American writers 21st-century African-American writers African-American male writers