Critically acclaimed, award-winning Author Ira Sukrungruang talks the poetry of the memoir and This Jade World

On this episode of Playtime, Kerri Kendall with a Hidden History of the Song, featuring the Yardbirds. Ira Sukrungruang is a Memoirist, Essayist, Poet, and Fiction Writer. He was born in 1976 right here in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a suburb just south of Chicago. Ira is the author of three creative nonfiction) books, Buddha’s Dog and Other Meditations, Southside Buddhist, Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy, the short story collection The Melting Season, and the poetry collection In Thailand It is Night.

Ira earned his BA in English from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and his MFA from The Ohio State University. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of South Florida. And Ira is the president of Sweet: A Literary Confection, a literary nonprofit organization, and is the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College. 

 His book This Jade World is this year’s Book of the Year winner in Traditional Non-fiction. Ira’s website is: buddhistboy.com.