Jeff Boyd
Novelist and former Chicago public school teacher, author of The Weight (2023) and Hard Times (2026); discusses his new social-realist novel set in Chicago and themes of fate, truth, and education.
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Mar 17, 2026 • 33min
Hard Times Again? Jeff Boyd on Chicago, Charles Dickens and Curtis Mayfield
Jeff Boyd, novelist and former Chicago public school teacher, discusses his new social-realist novel Hard Times. He explains the title’s Curtis Mayfield roots and how fiction can make sense of surreal headlines. He talks about setting the book in South Side Chicago, teaching’s toll, police complexity, class and varied Black experiences, and the tension between fate and agency.
