photo by: Contributed photo

Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward in New York City, March 29, 2017.

Award-winning author Jesmyn Ward will speak at two Lawrence events next week as part of the University of Kansas’ Hall Center Humanities Lecture Series.

Ward, the author of “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” which won a 2017 National Book Award, will deliver a lecture at 7:30 p.m. April 11 at Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St. She will also appear for a “Conversation with Jesmyn Ward” at KU’s Hall Center for the Humanities, 900 Sunnyside Ave., at 10 a.m. April 12.

Both events are free and open to the public.

Along with “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” Ward won a 2011 National Book Award for her novel “Salvage the Bones.” She is the first woman and the first person of color to win the fiction award twice.

Ward’s writing often focuses on life along the U.S. Gulf Coast, where she grew up and experienced the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She is expected to speak about her writing process and how her experiences growing up as poor and African American in the South inform her work.