Navigate Your Stars, Jesmyn Ward
Navigate Your Stars, Jesmyn Ward
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Navigate Your Stars

Author: Jesmyn Ward

Narrator: Jesmyn Ward

Unabridged: 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/14/2020


Synopsis

A revelatory, uplifting, and gorgeously illustrated meditation on dedication, hard work, and the power of perseverance from the beloved, New York Times bestselling, and two-time National Book Award–winning Jesmyn Ward.

For Tulane University’s 2018 commencement, Jesmyn Ward delivered a stirring speech about the value of hard work and the importance of respect for oneself and others. Speaking about the challenges she and her family overcame, Ward inspired everyone in the audience with her meditation on tenacity in the face of hardship. Ward’s moving words will inspire readers as they prepare for the next chapter in their lives, whether, like Ward, they are the first in their families to graduate from college or are preceded by generations, or whether they are embarking on a different kind of journey later in life.

Beautifully illustrated in full color by Gina Triplett, this gorgeous and profound book will charm a generation of students—and their parents. Ward’s inimitable voice shines through as she shares her experience as a Southern black woman and addresses the themes of grit, adversity, and the importance of family bonds. Navigate Your Stars is a perfect gift for anyone in need of inspiration from the author of Salvage the Bones, Men We Reaped, and Sing, Unburied, Sing.

About Jesmyn Ward

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Barbara

Having read Ward's two most recent novel, I was curious to read this commencement speech she delivered in 2018 at Tulane University. Just like in her novels, the honesty and raw beauty of her words are moving. Her message is vital for those about to enter the 'real' world; but just as important for......more

Goodreads review by Raymond

Jesmyn Ward has written a powerful commencement speech, now in book form, that teaches the reader about the importance of education, not just in the formal classroom sense but also the education that life experiences teach you. Ward uses her unique backstory of coming from Mississippi and the limits......more

Goodreads review by robin

Navigate Your Stars Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award in 2011 for her second novel, "Salvage the Bones". In 2017, Ward received a MacArthur "genius" grant together with her second National Book Award for her third novel "Sing, Unburied, Sing". Ward delivered the commencement address at Tulane U......more


Quotes

"Jesmyn Ward, the author of SING, UNBURIED, SING, performs the moving speech she delivered at Tulane University's commencement in 2018. Ward humbly recounts her belief that a college education would help her create a life not bound by poverty or the circumstance of her birth. With raw emotion, Ward describes her disappointment and disillusionment when, after graduation, she had no job offer or prospects for her passion, writing. These dark emotions were compounded by the loss of her brother in a car accident. Light musical accompaniment and Ward's weighty pauses underscore her grief and struggle to stay on course to become a writer. Persuasive and authentic, Ward proclaims a short and powerful message: Look beyond the horizon, set your sights on a star, and sail toward it."