SEEING OURSELVES IN THE RIVER, IN THE MIRROR, IN THE WORLD: DC'S AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY HISTORY ON TOUR

Award-winning author of children's literature Joy Jones and famed poet, memorist and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller join forces to present an afternoon exploring DC's rich literary history and the role played by Black writers in building canon and fortifying community.

Presented by Esther Productions Inc., The Institute for African American Writing,  and The Black Student Fund, SEEING OURSELVES IN THE RIVER, IN THE MIRROR, IN THE WORLD: AACL ON TOUR, is an offshoot of African Americans and Children's Literature, the unprecedented successful event held earlier this year that received a grant from Humanities DC with additional support from Kerry S. Pearson LLC and Busboys and Poets. 

Each author will read original work and discuss their role over the past three decades in building and strengthening DC's African American literary community.  The afternoon promises to be filled with creative energy and provocative conversation amplified by an original exhibition that focuses on select writers from the late 1960s to the present.

DON'T  MISS IT. REGISTER NOW!

While each writer will share their own background, as a summary, JOY JONES is a popular speaker, trainer, and author of several books for adults and children. Her most recent are Fearless Public Speaking, a how-to for teens, and Jayla Jumps In, a novel that received a starred review on Booklist and was chosen as one of the best sports books for children by the American Library Association. Her novel in progress, Walking the Boomerang, won the 2022 Pen America/ Phyllis Naylor Grant for Children's and Young Adult Novelists. Joy's next book is The Sky Is Not Blue which debuts Summer  2024. She works for the DC Public Library.

E. ETHELBERT MILLER is a literary activist and author of two memoirs and several collections of poetry. He hosts the WPFW-FM Thursday morning radio show, On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller, and hosts and produces The Scholars on UDC-TV, which received a 2020 Telly Award. He is associate editor and a columnist for The American Book Review.  U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin presented Miller with a congressional award in 2020 in recognition of his literary activism. In 2022, he received the Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Peace and Justice Studies Association. The next year, Miller was named a 2023 Grammy Nominee Finalist for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album. For 40 years Miller served as the director of Howard University's Afro-American Resource Center, touching the lives of hundreds of established writers of color, particularly African Americans, while serving as mentor for some of the country most well known literary and cultural leaders. 

Ethelbert’s latest book is How I Found Love Behind the Catcher's Mask (City Point Press).

NOT ONLY IS THIS A PROPER WAY TO CELEBRATE POETRY MONTH, IT IS A PERFECT WAY TO SPEND A SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND LEARN ABOUT DC'S RICH LITERARY HISTORY.

Register Now!