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Writers LIVE at the Library

Copies of the authors' books will be on sale at book signings following the programs.


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whitford summer_ver

Summer Whitford

talks about her book, Join Us at the Embassy.

join us at the embassy coverSummer Whitford provides an insider's view of how foreign ambassadors and embassies in Washington entertain and showcase their countries' food, wine, and culture. Included are fascinating tidbits about national dishes and regional foods, wines, dining customs, festivals and holidays, and protocol.

Summer Whitford is a professional chef, cooking instructor and wine educator. She is President of Chez Vous Productions, a food specialty and lifestyle company.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Terry McMillan

talks about her new novel, Getting to Happy, a sequel to Waiting to Exhale.

gettingtobehappy_picIn her bestselling novel, Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan introduced us to Bernadine, Savannah, Gloria, and Robin. Getting to Happy finds the four, 15 years later, still living in Phoenix, and still grappling to find professional fulfillment, personal contentment, and the love of a good man.

Terry McMillan's bestselling novels include Disappearing Acts, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and A Day Late and A Dollar Short. She has received an NAACP Image Award and the Essence Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Literature.

Barnes & Noble will have copies of Terry McMillan's books for sale at the program.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Paul Reyes

talks about his new book, Exiles in Eden: Life Among the Ruins of Florida's Great Recession.
Paul Reyeexilesinedens' father, a Cuban immigrant, made his living in Tampa's poorer neighborhoods by "trashing-out" foreclosed homes. In between jobs, cities, and writing gigs, Reyes worked alongside his father and his crew cleaning out the foreclosed properties and sometimes interviewing the former tenants. His new book, Exiles in Eden, takes us far from the machinations of Wall Street to the sun-baked side streets where the true costs of the national foreclosure crisis can be seen.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
  • Central Library   Tuesday, Sep 14, 2010 (6:30 p.m.)
      Wheeler Auditorium
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Daisy Lewellyn

talks about her book, Never Pay Retail Again: Shop Smarter, Spend Less & Look Your Best Ever
nepare_bookDaisy Lewellyn, the "queen of effortless chic," shows you how to maximize your personal style in this guide to smart shopping. You'll learn how to purchase on the cheap; befriend sales people to get access to the best merchandise, with discounts; transform or update pieces in your closet; and train your eye to recognize quality clothes and accessories for rock-bottom prices. Lewellyn's fashion and beauty expertise has been featured in Glamour, InStyle, and Essence, as well as on Good Morning America and Martha Stewart's XM Sirius Radio. 
The Ivy Bookshop will sell copies of Lewellyn's book at the program.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
  • Central Library   Wednesday, Sep 15, 2010 (7:00 p.m.)
      Wheeler Auditorium
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Peter Harnik

talks about his new book, Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities.

harnickFor years American urban parks fell into decay due to disinvestment, but as cities began to rebound -- and evidence of the economic, cultural, and health benefits of parks grew -- investment in urban parks swelled. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently cited meeting the growing demand for parks and open space as one of the biggest challenges for urban leaders today. It is now widely agreed that the U.S. needs an ambitious and creative plan to increase urban parklands.

In his book, Urban Green, Peter Harnik explores new and innovative ways for "built out" cities to add much-needed parks. He discusses why urban parkland is needed and then looks at ways to determine how much is possible and where park investment should go. When presenting the ideas and examples for parkland, he also recommends political practices that help create parks.

Peter Harnik is director of the Center for City Park Excellence at the Trust for Public Land. He is the author of Inside City Parks, a book about the park and recreation systems of the 25 largest U.S. cities. He co-founded the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to create a nationwide network of trails from former railroad lines.

 

Presented by the Friends of Patterson Park and the Southeast CDC, with support from the Goldseker Foundation and the Parks and People Foundation. Barnes & Noble will sell Harnik's book at this program.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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David Rakoff

talks about his new book, Half Empty.

Inhalfempty_pic Half Empty, a collection of witty, wise and poignant essays, David Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny contemporary culture and finds that the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won't come true. Ranging from the personal to the universal, the stories come from Rakoff's reporting and his own experiences.

David Rakoff is the author of Don't Get Too Comfortable and Fraud. He writes for GQ, New York Times Magazine, and other publications and is a regular contributor to Public Radio International's "This American Life."

The Ivy Bookshop will sell copies of Rakoff's book at the program.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Neela Vaswani

talks about her new book, You Have Given Me a Country: A Memoir.

Ccover_you have giveombining memoir, history, and fiction, Neela Vaswani follows the paths of her Irish-Catholic mother and Sindhi-Indian father on their journey towards each other and the biracial child they create. You Have Given Me a Country explores blurred borders, identity, and what it means to be bicultural.

Neela Vaswani has a Ph.D. in American Cultural Studies from the University of Maryland and teaches writing at Spalding University. She is the author of the short story collection, Where the Long Grass Bends, and received th O. Henry Prize in 2006.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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David Plouffe

talks about his book, The Audacity to Win: How Obama Won and How We Can Beat the Party of Limbaugh, Beck and Palin.
David Plouffe served as the manager for Barack Obama's historic presidential campaign and will play a key strataudacitytowinegy role for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections. Plouffe explains the secrets to winning elections in contemporary politics and shows how Democrats can build on the historic campaign of 2008. This paperback edition features a new chapter on the challenges of 2010.
The Ivy Bookshop will sell copies of Plouffe's book at the program.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
  • Central Library   Thursday, Sep 23, 2010 (6:30 p.m.)
      Wheeler Auditorium
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Deborah Rudacille

talks about her new book, Roots of Steel: Boom and Bust in an American Mill Town.

Whrootsofsteel_coveren Deborah Rudacille was growing up in Dundalk, Maryland, a worker at the local Sparrows Point steel mill made more than enough to comfortably support a family. Then came the decline of the American steel industry that put tens of thousands out of work. Through personal narrative, interviews with workers, and extensive research, Rudacille captures the history and character of communities around Sparrows Point and dissects the complicated racial, class, and gender politics that played out at the mill since 1889.

Deborah Rudacille is an independent journalist and science writer. Her first book, The Scalpel and the Butterfly, was named one of the year's best nonfiction books by the Los Angeles Times. Her next book, The Riddle of Gender, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.

 

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Michele Andrea Bowen

talks about her new book, More Church Folk.

morechurchfolk_picPicking up in 1986, twenty-three years after the events detailed in her bestselling novel Church Folk, Michele Andrea Bowen's inspirational novel, More Church Folk, uses humor, local color, and vividly descriptive language, demonstrating why she is the queen of African American Christian fiction.

Bowen is the author of four novels, including Church Folk and Second Sunday, which were Essence bestsellers. She graduated from the University of North Carolina with masters degrees in history and public health.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Sheri Parks

talks about her new book, Fierce Angels: The Strong Black Woman in American Life and Culture.

In Fierce Anfierceangelsgels, Dr. Sheri Parks explores the mythology of the "strong black woman" in both black and mainstream cultures and the ways in which it both empowers and burdens women today. In real life and fictionalized entertainment, black women are expected to embrace the dichotomy of the selfless caregiver and unstoppable crusader while neglecting their own needs.

Dr. Parks is an award-winning teacher and public speaker. She is associate professor and co-director of graduate studies of the American Studies Department at the University of Maryland College Park.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Jean McGarry

reads from her new collection of stories, Ocean State.

The stories of Ocean State roll over the reader like a wave. Family pleasures, marriage, the essential moments and mysteries of a seemingly ordinary world that break into magical territory before we can brace omcgarry_coverurselves -- Jean McGarry puts us in life's rough seas with what the New York Times has called a "deft, comic, and devastatingly precise" hand.

From Kirkus Reviews: "McGarry's prose is fresh, her plots unpredictable, her dialogue wry."

Jean McGarry teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. Ocean State is her eighth book of fiction.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Sandra Evans Falconer

reads from her poetry collection, The Six o'clock Siren.
sixoclocksiren_coverSandra Evans Falconer's new book of poems is a first person account of her 2003 battle with breast cancer. A recipient of an Individual Artist Award in Poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council in 1999, Falconer is also a dancer and performer. Her poems have been published in national and international journals, and her work has also been adapted for the stage at the Washington, D.C. Playwrights Festival.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Michael Lisicky

talks about his book, Hutzler's: Where Baltimore Shops.

hutzlers_bookFor 132 years, Hutzler Brothers Company was a beloved part of the Baltimore retail and cultural scene. Michael Lisicky chronicles the rise of the family-run department store, its growth into Towson and other Maryland cities, and its eventual and much lamented passing. With his vivid prose and some classic Hutzler's recipes, Lisicky brings to life this lost Baltimore institution.

Michael Lisicky is an oboist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and a certified tour guide for the Preservation Society of Fell's Point and Federal Hill.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Brian Murray

talks about his book, The Bedside, Bathtub and Armchair Companion to Dickens.

Brian Murray takes a wide-ranging look at Charles Dickens' life and career, from his politics to his Christian faith to his pragmatic, yet hopeful, worldview. He sheds light on Dickens' role as both polemicist and journalist, considering his most persistent literary themes and analyzing how his politics provoked both admiration and scorn among his contemporaries.

Brian Murray is professor in the Writing Department at Loyola Universiity and the author of Charles Dickens.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Susan Fales-Hill

talks about her new novel, One Flight Up.

Sone flight up _ picusan Fales-Hill's new novel takes us on a comedic romp through the boardrooms, bedrooms and ballrooms of Manhattan and Paris. India, Abby, Esme, and Monique have been friends since their days at Manhattan's Sibley School for Girls. From the outside, these four women seem to be living ideal lives, yet each finds herself suddenly craving more.

Susan Fales-Hill graduated from Harvard, wrote for The Cosby Show, and A Different World, and was co-creator and executive producer for the series Linc's. She is the author of the memoir, Always Wear Joy.

 

Barnes & Noble will sell copies of Susan Fales-Hill's books at the program.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
  • Central Library   Sunday, Oct 17, 2010 (2:30 p.m.)
      Wheeler Auditorium
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Author Dinaw Mengestu

reads from his new novel, How To Read the Air.

coverhowtoreadthe airWith his first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, Dinaw Mengestu made one of the most impressive literary debuts of recent years. Translated into more than a dozen languages, it garnered awards from around the world, including a "5 Under 35" award from the National Book Foundation.

In How To Read the Air, Mengestu tells an even richer, more complex story of two generations of an African immigrant family and the America which they seek to make their home. Mengestu has drawn on his own background as an Ethiopian immigrant, as well as that of his family, to produce this compelling, multi-layered tale of identity, love, family, revolution, and reconciliation.

Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa in 1978 and came with his mother and sister two years later to join his father in Peoria, Illinois. He graduated from Georgetown University and received an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University. He is the receipient of a Fellowship in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a Lannan Literary Fellowship.

An excerpt from How to Read the Air appeared in the July 12, 2010 issue of The New Yorker, after Mengestu was selected as one of their "20 under 40" writers of 2010.

Presented in partnership with CityLit Project. The Ivy Bookshop will sell copies of Mengestu's books following the program.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Garry Wills

talks about his new book, Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer.

outsidelookingin_coverBookish and retiring, Garry Wills has been an outsider in the academy, in journalism, even in his church. With his journalist's eye for detail, he brings history to life, from the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War protests to the presidential campaigns of Nixon, Carter, and Clinton.

Professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University, Garry Wills has written many bestselling works, including Lincoln at Gettysburg, What Jesus Meant, and Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State.

 

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
  • Central Library   Wednesday, Oct 27, 2010 (7:00 p.m.)
      Wheeler Auditorium
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Buzz Alexander

talks about his book, Is William Martinez Not Our Brother? Twenty Years of the Prison Creative Art Project.

bookalexander_coverThe United States incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world. In Michigan, the number of prisoners rose from 3,000 in 1970 to more than 50,000 in 2008, a shift that Buzz Alexander witnessed firsthand when he went to teach at the University of Michigan.

Is William Martinez Not Our Brother? describes the University of Michigan's Prison Creative Arts Project, a pioneering program founded in 1990 that works with incarcerated youth and adults and helps them withstand and often overcome the conditions and culture of prison. The book is also a deeply personal account of Alexander's long commitment to confronting the continually rising numbers of prisoners in America, his dedication as an educator, and his attempts to provide a way to reach out on a practical and emotional level to inmates.

Buzz Alexander is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. He was Carnegie National Professor of the Year in 2005.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Bill German

talks about his recent book, Under Their Thumb: How a Nice Boy from Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with the Rolling Stones (and Lived to Tell About It).

In pic_undertheirthumbUnder Their Thumb, Bill German discusses his ups and downs with the "world's greatest rock and roll band." He chronicles how he befriended the Stones (while just a teenager) and how he became the band's official historian for almost two decades.He traveled the world with them, stayed at their homes, and witnessed their concerts, recording sessions, and in-fights. German will share some of his humorous Stones anecdotes, as well as some never-before-seen photos.

Bill German co-authored The Works with guitarist Ron Wood and wrote about the Stones for Rolling Stone and Spin.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Jazz musician Jimmy Heath

talks about his autobiography, I Walked With Giants.
iwalkedwithjimmyheathJimmy Heath, an NEA Jazz Master, is widely recognized as one of the greats in jazz. A saxophonist, composer, arranger, and educator, Heath has known and played with many jazz giants  throughout his career: Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie, to name a few. In his autobiography, written with Joseph McLaren, Heath creates an extraordinary "dialogue" with musicians and family members, including his equally legendary brothers, Percy and Albert (Tootie). Heath directed the Jazz Studies master's degree program in performance at Queens College (CUNY).
Presented in partnership with Jazz Artists' Management. Barnes & Noble will sell copies of the book following the program.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
  • Central Library   Thursday, Nov 18, 2010 (7:00 p.m.)
      Wheeler Auditorium
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Bernice L. McFadden

reads from her new novel, Glorious.

Sglorious_booket against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Civil Rights era, Glorious blends fact and faction in telling the story of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer. Her tumultuous path to success, ruin, and ultimately revival offers a candid and true portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.

Bernice McFadden is the author of six novels, including Sugar and Nowhere is a Place, which was a Washington Post Best Fiction title for 2006. She is a two time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist for fiction, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

 

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
your journey starts here

An Afternoon of Poetry

Readings by Thomas Sayers Ellis and Cave Canem poets
This annual Cave Canem poetry reading at the Pratt features Thomas Sayers Ellis reading from his new collection, Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems.
Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
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Frances N. Beckles

discusses her new novel, Hop the A Train.

hoptheatrain_coverThis historic novel is a compelling story about the complex and courageous lives of three young African American women who leave behind the racism and oppression of the South for a new life in Harlem. They work long hours at dangerous jobs in war plants and encounter war time espionage, death and betrayal.

Frances Beckles, editor, journalist, and retired college professor, grew up in Harlem. Hop the A Train is based on her family's vivid accounts of how their lives were indelibly changed by the events of World War II. Beckles is the author of Twenty Black Women: Profiles of African American Maryland Women.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  

 
ver_esauren phyer

Author Esauren Phyer

tahitian pearl_coverMeet Long Island, New York native Esauren Phyer. She's a prolific writer of fiction, short, stories, newsletter bylines and personal journaling. She graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and holds a degree in sociology and a certification in Christian counseling. By day she's an information technology specialist and a creative writer by night.

Her book, Tahitian Pearl, focuses on a young woman named Naiyah, whose life is fraught with personal traumas designed to keep her from the joy and blessings God has for her. The moment Naiyah is born, her grandmother knows that God is going to work in her life in a special way, but the enemy of God has other plans.

Schedule: (click on the location to see map)
Suggested Audience:
  • Adults
    •  
  • Seniors
    •  


 
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