Acclaimed African American Authors to headline Fifth Annual NOMMO Authors Series at University of Minnesota
What: Fifth annual NOMMO African American Authors Series
When: Wednesday, Nov. 5 (Sonia Sanchez); Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009 (John Edgar Wideman); Thursday, April 23, 2009 (Ntozake Shange). All events begin at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Cowles Auditorium, Hubert H. Humphrey Center, 301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis
Contacts: Marlo Welshons, University Libraries, welsh066@umn.edu, (612) 625-9148
Ryan Mathre, University News Service, mathre@umn.edu, (612) 625-0552
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (10/21/2008) -- The Givens Foundation for African American Literature and the Friends of the University of Minnesota Libraries are pleased to present the NOMMO African American Authors Series, a three-event series featuring three widely acclaimed contemporary African American writers: Sonia Sanchez, John Edgar Wideman and Ntozake Shange. Each event features a writer reading from his or her work and engaging in dialogue with host Alexs Pate, U of M professor and author of the novel Amistad. The events take place on Wednesday, Nov. 5, (Sanchez), Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009 (Wideman), and Thursday, April 23, 2009 (Shange), 7 p.m. at Cowles Auditorium in the Hubert H. Humphrey Center, 301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis.
The Givens Foundation has presented the NOMMO African American Authors Series annually since 2004. This is the second year the series has been co-presented by the Givens Foundation and the University of Minnesota Libraries. Tickets are $10 per event or $25 for the three-event series. Complimentary tickets are available to U of M students and Friends of the University of Minnesota Libraries.
For more information on tickets call 612-624-2345 or visit http://www.tickets.umn.edu
"When I was asked by the Givens Foundation to list the writers I would love to talk with about writing and the state of African American literature, Sonia Sanchez, John Edgar Wideman and Ntozake Shange were at the top of the list," said Pate. "It is an honor to have the opportunity to engage these writers in a public discussion that will explore issues of excellence in the craft of writing and in the nature and significance of African American expression. Each of these writers has made monumental contributions to our culture and will bring vast experience, knowledge and wisdom as well as exuberance to our discussion."
Sanchez is the author of over 16 books, including the 1985 American Book Award winner "Homegirls and Handgrenades" and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist "Does Your House Have Lions?" She has received other prestigious honors including the Langston Hughes Poetry Award in 1999, the Poetry Society of America's 2001 Robert Frost Medal and was named a Ford Freedman Scholar from the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Sanchez was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University, where she held the Laura Carnell Chair in English.
Wideman is the author of more than 18 books of fiction and nonfiction. He was the first writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Award twice, in 1984 for "Sent for You Yesterday" and in 1990 for "Philadelphia Fire." His memoir, "Brothers and Keepers" received a National Book Critics Circle nomination, and his memoir "Fatheralong" was a finalist for the National Book Award. In addition, he has won the Rea Award for the Short Story, the Lannan Foundation Fellowship for Fiction and the MacArthur grant. Wideman's articles on Malcolm X, Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, Michael Jordan, Eminem, Thelonious Monk and others have appeared in The New Yorker, Vogue, Esquire, Emerge, and the New York Times Magazine. Wideman is on the faculty of the African Studies department of Brown University.
Shange is author of the play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf: a Choreopoem," which won an Obie and was nominated for Tony, Grammy and Emmy awards. Shange has also published four novels including Pen-Faulkner nominee "Indigo." Her poetry collections include: "A Daughter's Geography," "Nappy Edges," "Ridin the Moon in Texas," and "The Space Love Demands." Among her many awards are a Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, and a Pushcart Prize. She has taught at California State College, the City College of New York, the University of Houston, Rice University, Yale, Howard and New York University.
