African American Literature Discussion Group: Evanston Literary Festival Starts This Week

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Evanston Literary Festival Starts This Week

Welcome to the 2nd annual Evanston Literary Festival! Co sponsored by the Chicago Book Expo, Northwestern University's Creative Writing program, Bookends and Beginnings bookstore and Evanston Public Library, the festival is bringing over 50 author readings, book discussions, exhibitions and other literary events to Evanston between May 4th and May 14th. Quite a few will be of interest to readers of African American themed literature...

"Writing American Race History Today"
Saturday, May 7, 3 to 4:30 pm Bookends and Beginnings Bookstore 1712 Sherman Ave., Alley #1,

Northwestern religion Professor Sylvester Johnson NU law professor and legal historian Steven Lubet discuss writing about America's racial past in light of today's controversies. How does an understanding of the past help us understand race relations in America today? And how do race relations today influence how historians research and write history? Professor Johnson's main area of study is African-American religion--see his African American Religions, 1500-2000 (Cambridge, 2015). Professor Lubet has written several books on slavery, abolitionism, and emancipation in mid-19th century America, among them Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial (Harvard, 2010). Their conversation will shed light on the turbulent past and the no less turbulent present in race relations in America.

"Writing From Life With Parneshia Jones, Megan Stielstra, and Ross Ritchell"

Saturday, May 7, 5 pm Bookends & Beginnings, 1712 Sherman Ave., Alley #1
The lines between “fact” and “fiction” are often blurred in literature, and the places where the two intersect can be both goldmine and minefield for writers. How do individual writers use life experiences in their work? Are some subject off-limits for publication? This event features a poet (Jones), a novelist (Ritchell), and an essayist (Stielstra) discussing these questions and reading from their works.

#LoveStories: A First Look Reading

Sunday, May 8, 3-4:30 pm, Community Meeting Room, Evanston Public Library
Join us for a special sneak peek! Inspired by #BLACKLIVESMATTER #LoveStories by Gloria Bond-Clunie, Marsha Estell and Tania Richard is a three part play exploring the breadth of love in a world of deadly conflict. This is a world premiere play commissioned by Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre.
Gloria Bond-Clunie is the founder of Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre and an internationally recognized playwright. Marsha Estell is an accomplished actor and playwright; FJT produced her hit play Heat and her critically acclaimed one-woman play Big Butt Girls and Other Fantasies/The Remix. Tania Richard’s brilliant one-woman play Truth Be Told was commissioned and produced by FJT; she too is an accomplished actor and playwright.
Read more: #LoveStories: A First Look Reading

Amina Gautier Reads from The Loss Of All Lost Things

Monday, May 9, 7 pm, Community Meeting Room, Evanston Public Library
The fifteen stories in The Loss of All Lost Things explore the unpredictable ways in which characters negotiate, experience, and manage various forms of loss. They lose loved ones; they lose their security and self-worth; they lose children; they lose their ability to hide and shield their emotions; they lose their reputations, their careers, their hometowns, and their life savings. Often depicting the awkward moments when characters are torn between decision and outcome, The Loss of All Lost Things focuses on moments of regret and yearning.

Amina Gautier, PhD., is the author of three short story collections: At-Risk, Now We Will Be Happy and the The Loss of All Lost Things. At-Risk was awarded the Flannery O’Connor Award, The First Horizon Award, and the Eric Hoffer Legacy Fiction Award. Now We Will Be Happy was awarded the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, the Florida Authors and Publishers Association President's Book Award and a USA Best Book Award. The Loss of All Lost Things was awarded the Elixir Press Award in Fiction.

An Evening of Storytelling and Sharing: Exploring Racism
Friday May 13th, 6 pm potluck, 7pm program Unitarian Church of Evanston, 1330 Ridge Ave

Professional storytellers Susan O'Halloran and Mama Edie Armstrong will tell their stories beginning at 7pm after a potluck supper in the Unitarian Church Sanctuary.

Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect: Police Violence and Resistance in the United States

Saturday, May 14, 4 pm Community Meeting Room, Evanston Public Library

Contributors to the new Truthout essay collection, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?: Police Violence and Resistance in the United States—including Kelly Hayes, Sarah Macaraeg, Page May, Maya Schenwar, and Monica Trinidad—read from the book.

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Welcome to the African American Literature Discussion Group blog!

Whether you are new to our group or a long-standing participant, feel free to check here for dates and locations of our book discussions, book reviews, commentary on African American literature, library issues, author events, or merely to share a post about an issue of interest. The AAL book group meets the third Tuesday of each month in the Evanston Public Library first floor Small Meeting Room and is open to the public. A list of upcoming titles is available on the Evanston Public Library website and you may register and pick up copies of each month’s titles at the library’s second floor Reader’s Services desk.

Here's a complete list of books we've discussed!

Check us out on GoodReads too!

Till our next post, happy reading!

Sincerely,

Lesley Williams
Book Discussion Facilitator

Evanston Public Library
1703 Orrington Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201
(847) 448-8620

What to Read Next...The Hanging Bridge

From guest reviewer Vaughan Jones: We all have had lessons in history in college, but being young, and never being in the Jim Crow environment, there was no real connection to the level of hate and white supremacy in the community. The book connected how the lynching and violence was used as a continuing campaign of subjugation to have a cheap and spiritually defeated labor force be brutalized for the slightest of infractions. It was like reading Theodore White's " Making of a President". It put the reader right there n Shubuta, Clark County MS. You felt like you were witnessing the barbarism and hate, at the scene. I can understand how the African Americans in Clarke County endured the environment and like the Jews of Europe, not all of them felt they had alternatives. They just had to endure. Just unbelievable. The book is completely readable for all levels and not making it as A. Bartlett Giamatti once called academic writing, "High Institutional". The focus was on the 2 separate lynchings of 6 young black residents (4 in 1918 and 2 in 1942), and how Clark County's continued to resist to any form of change. But your highlighting the work of Walter White and the early NAACP took so much courage, very few people understand the risks those people took in getting the story on the lynchings across the South. You also highlighted the real genocidal acts taking place outside of Mississippi in other areas, an example was the outright murder of the Black farmers in Arkansas. In a lot of ways, the US is not unlike other countries like Germany who want only to either brush over the barbarism and crimes. In the writing of "The Hanging Bridge, Prof. Ward transitioned and highlighted the work of the African Americans, who were able to get Early Childhood Care, through Head Start and the efforts of the county political leadership to manipulate and hinder any efforts to have any political or economic independence. This book would be a great addition to the curriculum of Evanston Township High School and surrounding high schools for the students to have the insight on why the language of demagogues is so dangerous. It is not unlike a virus that infects a population with the results being mob actions and murders.

African American Literature Discussion Group