PAST EVENTS
The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY
the John Oliver Killens Reading Series
Presents
A Book Signing and Discussion with
Author and Activist Randall Robinson
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
6:30 p.m. 8:00 p.m.
Edison O. Jackson Auditorium
Academic Complex Building (AB1)
Medgar Evers College
1638 Bedford Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11225
For more information, please call 718-804-8883 or visit
www.centerforblackliterature.org
Randall Robinson is an internationally recognized author and human rights and foreign policy activist. His latest work is the novel Makeda, published by Akashic Books/Open Lens. Robinson is the author of An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President and the national best-sellers Quitting America: The Departure of a Black Man from His Native Land. The Reckoning: What Blacks Owe to Each Other, The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, and Defending the Spirit: A Black Life in America. Robinson is a professor of law at Penn State Law School and is the creator, co-producer, and host of the public television human rights series World on Trial. His activism in regards to U.S. foreign policy has been recognized by the United Nations, the Congressional Black Caucus, Harvard University, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and the NAACP.
A Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event
The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY
Presents
“My Soul to Take”
A Literary Salon: Book Reading, Discussion,
Refreshments and Spirits
with Tananarive Due
Saturday, September 17, 2011
3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
MoCADA (Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art)
80 Hanson Place MAP
Brooklyn, New York 11217
Train: 2, 3, 4, 5, B, D, N, Q or R to Atlantic Ave., C to Lafayette Ave., G to Fulton St.
Donation:
$10 per person –general donation
$25 per person – includes book purchase
All are welcomed. This event is a fund raiser for the Center for Black Literature. Books available on-site. To make advanced (on-line) donations, please click here.
Tananarive Due is the American Book Award-winning novelist of nine books, ranging from supernatural thrillers to a mystery to a civil rights memoir. She is the author of “The Living Blood”, “Joplin’s Ghost”, “My Soul to Keep.” Her new novel, “My Soul to Take”, continues the conflict between mortals and immortals in a thoughtful near-future supernatural suspense tale, the fourth in the African Immortals series (after 2008's “Blood Colony”).
Learn more about the Brooklyn Book Festival – Sunday, September 18, 2011
http://www.brooklynbookfestival.org/BBF/Home
80 Hanson Pl. Brooklyn, NY 11217 MAP
T: 718.230.0492 | F: 718.230.0246 | E:
info@mocada.orgFind this event on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190971244298686
Celebrating Poetry Month
Adrian Matejka and Dorothea Smartt
Tuesday, April 12, 2011; 6:30 p.m.
Edison O. Jackson Auditorium; Medgar Evers College, CUNY
1638 Bedford Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11205
Poet Adrian Matejka, author of The Devil's Garden, which won the 2002 Kinereth Gensler Award from Alice James Books, and Mixology, winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series, and Dorothea Smart, author of Ship Shape and Connecting Medium (2001), which features a Forward Prize Award-winning poem, will be our guest for a reading of their works, a discussion and book signing.
National Black Writers Biannual Symposium
HONORING THE LIFE AND WORK OF AUGUST WILSON
Saturday, March 26, 2011; 10:am - 5 pm
Founders Auditorium; Medgar Evers College, CUNY
1650 Bedford Ave.
August Wilson
Brooklyn, NY 11225
A tribute with panels and presentations to celebrate Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson, who was a major contributor to the canon of American literature. His literary legacy consists of 10 powerful plays, including Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, that depict the African-American experience in the twentieth century. Dramatic readings by actors Jeffrey Wright and Tanya Wright. Speakers and panelists include Woodie King Jr., founder of New Federal Theatre; playwrights Thomas Bradshaw and Ed Bullins; Professor Dale Byam, director of the film August in April; scholars Kimberly C. Ellis, Donald Gagnon, Paul Carter Harrison, and Esmeralda Simmons.
The NBWC 2011 Biannual Symposium is co-sponsored by New York Council for the Humanities; Medgar Evers College, CUNY, Department of English; Jill Newman Productions; Barnes & Noble.
The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY,
and Jill Newman Productions Present
NATIONAL BLACK WRITERS CONFERENCE BENEFIT CONCERT
FEATURING MOS DEF, RUBY DEE & Guy Davis
Gary Bartz
Others TBA
Produced By Jill Newman Productions
Friday March 25, 2011
Highline Ballroom
431 W 16th St.
New York, NY 10011
(between 9th and 10th Ave.)
212-414-5994
Doors Open at 7 P.M.; Concert at 9:00 P.M. Tickets $35.00 Dinner served all night. For more information and to purchase tickets, please go to
http://www.highlineballroom.com/bio.php?id=1881; www.nationalblackwritersconference.org www.jillnewmanproductions.com
www.myspace.com/mosdef
www.garybartz.com
www.ossieandruby.com
www.guydavis.com
Walter Mosley
Discussion, Reading and Book Signing
Sunday, March 20, 1:30 p.m.
Dweck Center, Brooklyn Public Library
Brooklyn, New York 11228
Best-selling author Walter Mosley, creator of the Easy Rawlins mystery series, and the novels Walkin' the Dog; Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned; The Man in My Basement; and the recently published The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, will be the special guest for an afternoon reading and book signing presented by the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, and the Brooklyn Public Library.
The event begins at 1:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public. It will be held at the Dweck Center, the Brooklyn Public Library. For more information, please call the Center for Black Literature at 718-804-8883, www.centerforblackliterature.org or the Brooklyn Public Library at 718-230-2100, www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org.
Cheryl Wills, Reading and Book Signing
Thursday, March 3, 2011
6:30 p.m.
Two Steps Down
240 Dekalb Avenue
(between Clermont and Vanderbilt Aves.)
Brooklyn, NY 11205
718-399-2020
FREE & OPEN to the public.
Cheryl Wills, journalist, news anchor for NY1 News and author, will be reading from her book Die Free: A Heroic Family History. The book signing and discussion is part of the Chat-N-Chew Literary Series. Chat-N-Chew is a collaboration of the National Council of Artists New York Chapter and the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, and its goal is to promote emerging and underrepresented artists.
“Literary Activists of the Indignant Generation”
Thursday, February 10, 2011
6:30 p.m.
E.O. Jackson Auditorium
Academic Complex Building (AB1)
1638 Bedford Avenue
Medgar Evers College, CUNY
Brooklyn, New York 11225
FREE & OPEN to the public.
Discussion on African-American Writers including: John Oliver Killens, Richard Wright, Claude McKay, Dorothy West, Sterling Brown, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ann Petry, Chester Himes, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, and Amiri Baraka among others.
Professor Keith Gilyard, Penn State University
Professor Lawrence P. Jackson, Emory University
Moderated by Professor Shelly Eversley, Baruch College
Funding for this literary program is made possible with support from the Black, Latino and Asian American Caucus of the New York State Legislature.
In the News
Read Dr. Brenda Greene's Response to Dr. Laura
Commentary: The Myth of a "Post-Racial" Society
Monday, August 16, 2010
Dr. Laura Schlessinger's diatribe on the word n***** is symbolic of much larger problems in our society—that of the prevalence of institutionalized racism as an overriding factor in race relations and the dispelling of the myth of a "post-racial" society. Read More at: http://www.essence.com/news/commentary_2/