Celebrate the finalists in the 2022 Poetry Contest with the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Little Patuxent Review! The three finalists, Maryland's Poet Laureate, and LPR’s head editor read. Caitlin Wilson…
Join us for a reading by Lori Jakiela, who won the 2021 Wicked Woman Poetry Prize for her manuscript, How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?, and the contest judge, Nancy Naomi Carlson. Lori Jakiela is the…
Poets Sylvia Dianne “Ladi Di” Beverly, Patrick Washington, Diane Wilbon Parks, and Hiram Larew with Cliff Bernier on harmonica present and discuss poems, music, and artwork about America’s history…
Celebrate the finalists in the 2021 Poetry Contest with the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Little Patuxent Review! The three finalists, another contributor to the summer issue, and LPR’s head editor read…
Leslie Gray Streeter is in conversation with Melanie Hood-Wilson about her book, Black Widow. Looking at widowhood through the prism of race, mixed marriage, and aging, Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey…
Presented in partnership with the Reginald F. Lewis Museum. Annette Gordon-Reed is in conversation with Lawrence Jackson about her new book, On Juneteenth. In ON JUNETEENTH, Gordon-Reed combines her…
Join us for a virtual reading by Virginia Crawford, E. Doyle-Gillespie, Meg Eden, Brian Gilmore, Joseph Harrison, Christine Higgins, and Michael Salcman, seven local poets with recent books. Virginia…
Alec MacGillis is in conversation with Jesse J. Holland about his new book, Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America . Alec MacGillis is a senior reporter at ProPublica. MacGillis previously…
Presented in partnership with AARP Maryland. Justin Fenton is in conversation with Clarence Davis about his book, We Own This City: A True Story of Crime, Cops, and Corruption. In this urgent book…
Audrey Clare Farley is in conversation with Carrie Callaghan about her work and her newest book, The Unfit Heiress. For readers of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and The Phantom of Fifth Avenue…
Presented in partnership with CityLit Project. Morgan Jerkins is in conversation with Teri Henderson about her work. In this talk, Jerkins discusses her literary journey, culminating in the release of…
Join us for readings and discussion inspired by the Washington Writers' Publishing House's new anthology, This Is What America Looks Like: Poetry and Fiction from DC, Maryland, and Virginia, 111 works…
Do spirits return, and can we communicate with the dead? Baltimore’s Spiritualists thought so, but magicians worked to disprove them. Learn about spirit mediums, the Ouija Board, and Baltimore’s group…
Poets Joseph Ross and Michael Torres read from and discuss their new books. Joseph Ross is the author of four books of poetry: Raising King (2020), Ache (2017), Gospel of Dust (2013), and Meeting Bone…
CityLit Project joins the Enoch Pratt Free Library in presenting the CityLit Festival - Reimagined: a virtual celebration of the literary arts In an exhilarating tale of colliding worlds, Emily St. John’s…
Are you interested in getting your writing published? Do you want tips and tricks on how to become a published author of Africanfuturistic novels or short stories? Or learn how to self-publish in the genre?…
The event is also part of OSI-Baltimore’s Talking About Race Series. Lawrence T. Brown is in conversation about his book, The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America. Presented…
On the anniversary of Lucille Clifton’s passing, join Enoch Pratt Free Library and the Clifton House in a celebration of her generous spirit and writing. Our esteemed featured speaker is Natasha Trethewey…
Join us for a conversation about the life and legacy of Elijah Cummings between Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, book collaborator James Dale, and moderator Dr. Freeman Hrabowski. Presented in partnership…
Carl Phillips reads from his poetry and discusses it with Lia Purpura. Carl Phillips is the author of 15 books of poetry, most recently Pale Colors in a Tall Field (FSG, 2020). His other books include…
Join us for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Lecture featuring Eddie Glaude. Presented in partnership with the Reginald F. Lewis Museum and Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts. In…
Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical Corrections, will be in conversation with Laura van den Berg. Presented in partnership with CityLit Project. Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for…
This year's program features readings by Evie Shockley and Steven Leyva, and local Cave Canem fellows: Saida Agostini Abdul Ali Teri Cross-DavisHayes DavisRaina FieldsLinda Susan JacksonBettina JuddAlan…
Join us for a conversation and short tour with C. Fraser Smith. C. Fraser Smith was a reporter for the Jersey Journal and the Providence Journal before his decades-long affiliation with the Baltimore…
Join us for a conversation and short tour with Ron Cassie to launch his book, If You Love Baltimore, It Will Love You Back: 171 Short but True Stories. The conversation will be moderated by Rafael Alvarez…
Join us for a conversation and tour with Kate Wyer, Girl, Cow & Monk, and Kate Reed Petty, True Story. Kate Reed Petty's debut novel, True Story, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her short…
As a novelist who wrote and published in a time when authorship for women was frowned upon, Jane Austen knew from experience what it was like to be highly talented and constrained by circumstances. Her…
Virtually celebrate the Senator Barbara A. Mikulski Room in the Central Library with Senator Barbara Mikulski and Ambassador Wendy Sherman in conversation, moderated by Meghan McCorkell. The people…
Join us for a discussion with Erica Green, Tawanda Jones, Brandon Soderberg, and Baynard Woods. Presented in partnership with OSI Baltimore. They discuss overlapping themes in Five Days and I Got a Monster…
Anthony Ray Hinton is in conversation with Jenny Egan about his book and the Equal Justice Initiative. Anthony Ray Hinton survived for 30 years on Alabama's death row. His story is a decades-long journey…
Firmin DeBrabander is in conversation with columnist Dan Rodricks. With Life after Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society, Professor of Philosophy at Maryland Institute College of…
Mary Rizzo is in conversation with Wesley Wilson and Melvin Brown. In Come and Be Shocked, Mary Rizzo examines the cultural history and racial politics of these contrasting images of the city. From the…
Join us for a talk by Michael J. Wilson in honor of National Voter Registration Day on Tuesday, September 22. The right to vote has been a continuing journey of expanding civic rights. In the beginning…
Dapper Dan is in conversation with Mykel Hunter of WEAA about his life and work. With his eponymous store on 125th Street, Dapper Dan pioneered streetwear in the early 1980s, co-opting luxury branding…
Happy 100th birthday, Ray Bradbury! Bring your own dandelion wine to this virtual celebration. Justina Ireland, Michael Swanwick, Sam Weller, and David Wright share readings of Bradbury and join in…
Featuring artists Valeria Fuentes, Phaan Howng, and Kate Reed Petty. Moderated by Sheri Parks.Celebrate the Year of the Women with a conversation looking to the future of women’s lives and work.…
Join us for an evening with Evelyn from the Internets: humor writer, digital storyteller, and host of Say It Loud, a PBS Digital Studios series that celebrates Black culture, context, and history. She…
Canadian-American poet James Arthur is the author of The Suicide’s Son (Véhicule Press, 2019) and Charms Against Lightning (Copper Canyon Press, 2012). His poems have also appeared in The New…
From the creator of Elle’s “Eric Reads the News,” a heartfelt and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding unexpected hope, and experiencing every awkward…
Presented in partnership with OSI-Baltimore. Jerry Mitchell is in conversation with Morgan State University professor E. R. Shipp.In Race Against Time, Jerry Mitchell takes readers on the twisting…
Black History month is often relegated to a time when significant Black figures are highlighted and that Black people’s struggle for equality in America is emphasized. This rendering of Black History…
On the 10th anniversary of Lucille Clifton’s passing, join Enoch Pratt Free Library, the Clifton House, and Zora’s Den in a celebration of her generous spirit and writing. Writers will share poems…
Join Dr. Neal Barnard for a talk and demonstration of hormone balancing foods for the family inspired by his new book, Your Body in Balance: The New Science of Food, Hormones, and Health.Hidden in everyday…
Caitlin Doughty is in conversation with author Sheri Booker.In Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?, Caitlin Doughty blends her mortician’s knowledge of the body and the intriguing history behind common…
At once tragic and hopeful, The Birds of Opulence is a story about another time, rendered for our own. The Goode-Brown family, led by matriarch and pillar of the community Minnie Mae, is plagued by old…
Featuring special guest, Reverend Al Hathaway from Union Bapist Church.Baltimore’s airport is named after Civil Rights giant Thurgood Marshall, and plaques in Fell’s Point show where Frederick Douglass…
In their new book, The New Localism, urban experts Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak reveal where the real power to create change lies and how it can be used to address our most serious social, economic, and…
The panel will display Black Fathers/Father Figures in a light that they have rarely been shown in before, specifically in children's books. The discussion will highlight the abilities of Black Fathers…
Join us for a conversation between creatives about Shinique Smith’s practice, and how growing up in Baltimore influenced her path as an artist. Shinique Smith is known for her monumental works of bundled…
Taking us into detention centers, immigration courts, and the inner lives of Aida Hernandez and other daring characters, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez reveals the human consequences of militarizing…
…and Other Disasters, the smart and moving collection of short fiction and poetry from acclaimed author Malka Older, examines otherness, identity and compassion across a spectrum of possible existence…
Join us for the annual Cave Canem poetry reading featuring Kyle Dargan and local Cave Canem fellows.Hosted by Reginald Harris from Poets House, New York City.Kyle Dargan is the author of the poetry…
This program is in conjunction with Undesign the Redline, exhibited at Central Library November 1, 2019-January 31, 2020.Lawrence Lanahan is the author of The Lines Between Us: Two Families and a Quest…
Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn, has long been admired for his deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative histories. Now he turns his attention to a new war, and…
Are you interested in getting your genre writing published? Do you want tips and tricks on how to become a published author or how to self-publish? Have you considered marketing strategies to become a…
Presented in partnership with Church of the Redeemer.The experience the first undergraduate women found when they stepped onto Yale's imposing campus was not the same one their male peers enjoyed. Isolated…
Kalman Hettleman will be in conversation with New York Times reporter Erica L. Green. They will discuss the education system and what can be done to improve the system.Kalman R. “Buzzy” Hettleman…
A Real Whole Lot: A World War II Soldier's Love Letters to His Wife contains about 200 transcribed v-mail letters and a dozen or so letters on paper found while Dr. Jacqueline Kane was going through…
Dorothy Butler Gilliam, whose 50-year-career as a journalist put her in the forefront of the fight for social justice, offers a comprehensive view of racial relations and the media in the U.S.Told with…
Before language existed to identify persons whose gender expression and/or sexuality were non-conforming, nineteenth and early twentieth century local newspapers offered tantalizing clues that all was…
Not every family legacy is destructive. From her parents, Talusan has learned to tell stories in order to continue. In excavating abuse and trauma, and supplementing her story with government documents…
Saeed Jones is in conversation with Clint Smith. Presented in partnership with CityLit Project.Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives: tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the…
Marita Golden is an Alzheimer’s activist and editor of the multi-cultural anthology, Us Against Alzheimer’s: Stories of Family Love and Faith. The program will include readings by Katia D. Ulysse and Lauren…
Lady Brion is in conversation with Reginald Dwayne Betts about his new poetry collection, Felon. The event was co-presented by OSI-Baltimore. A poet, essayist and national spokesperson for the Campaign…
Celebrate the start of Baltimore Architecture Month learning about businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who was inspired by Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt to build over a thousand public libraries…
Jona Colson’s first poetry collection, Said Through Glass, won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House. He received his BA in English and Spanish from Goucher College…
Brian Kuebler in conversation with Ed Slattery.The Long Blink is a narrative nonfiction book by Emmy Award-winning journalist, Brian Kuebler, who exposes the staggering cost of the American trucking industry’s…
Kate Black will be in conversation with Baltimore City Councilwoman Shannon Sneed, Baltimore City Councilwoman Danielle McCray, Maryland Delegate Stephanie Maddin Smith, and Maryland Delegate Brook…
The intertwining stories in The Great Believers take us through the heartbreak of the 80’s and the chaos of the modern world, as characters struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.Rebecca…
Saving Washington: The Forgotten Story of the Maryland 400 and The Battle of Brooklyn blends real-life historical figures and events with richly developed fictional characters. On a marshy Brooklyn…
The 2019 Enoch Pratt Free Library / Little Patuxent Review Poetry Contest finalists read along with one of the contest judges and one winner of the Poetry Contest in previous years.Jalynn Harris,…
Kim Paris Upshaw presents The Silent Women’s Club.In Sunshine and Daniel: Seeking Grace in Lost Motherhood, Kim Paris Upshaw takes us on a journey from loss to love, walking hand in hand with these women…
Learn about Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Alexandrian Library), located in Baltimore's Sister City, Alexandria, Egypt. Presented by Heba El-Rafey.Heba El-Rafey is the Director of Public Relations and International…
Baltimore, one of the South’s largest cities, was a crucible of segregationist laws and practices. Through the example of Baltimore, Maryland, David Taft Terry explores the historical importance of African…
Elizabeth Schmidt discusses her new book, Foreign Intervention in Africa After the Cold War, and refugee resettlement in Baltimore with Akalu Paulos.Elizabeth Schmidt is a professor emeritus of history…
Jericho Brown is the author of the collection The Tradition. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced…
Celebrate Juneteenth with Sheri Booker as she reads from her collection, One Woman One Hustle.A vibrant and uplifting collection of poems, One Woman One Hustle addresses the issues of today's young women…
Renee Brooks Catacalos is in conversation with Rev. Heber Brown III, founder of Black Church Food Security Network.In The Chesapeake Table, Catacalos examines the powerful effect of eating local in Maryland…
Dan Rodricks is a long-time columnist (and podcast host) for The Baltimore Sun, and a local radio and television personality who has won several national and regional journalism awards over a reporting…
Before Gina Apostol's fourth novel, Insurrecto, hit the shelves, Publishers' Weekly named it one of the Ten Best Books of 2018. Insurrecto was also named Buzzfeed's Best Books of 2018 and Autostraddle's…
James Cabezas will be in conversation with co-author Joan Jacobson.Despite a childhood affliction that left James Cabezas with the grim knowledge that he might one day go blind, he led a courageous career…
Angie Kim’s Miracle Creek is a thoroughly contemporary take on the courtroom drama, drawing on the author’s own life as a Korean immigrant, former trial lawyer, and mother of a real-life “submarine”…
Mason Jar Press brings together their authors in a celebration of literature and art. Join the authors of the most recent and upcoming MJP publications—Danny Caine, Nicole Callihan and Jaime Fountaine—for…
Ned Balbo is the author of The Trials of Edgar Poe and Other Poems, awarded the Poets’ Prize and the Donald Justice Prize. His fifth book, 3 Nights of the Perseids, was selected by Erica Dawson for the…
Marriage in Black: The Pursuit of Married Life Among American-born and Immigrant Blacks offers a progressive perspective on black marriage that rejects talk of black relationship “pathology” in order…
In 1958, the very same year that an unknown songwriter named Berry Gordy borrowed 0 to found Motown Records, a pretty young mother from Nashville, Tennessee borrowed 0 from her brother to run a Numbers…
Join Adelaide Books authors as they share from their work and talk about the publishing process, featuring Matthew Nino Azcuy and Heather Rounds.Heather Rounds is the author of the novella She Named…
Charita Cole Brown was diagnosed with a severe form of bipolar disorder while finishing her final semester as an English major at Wesleyan University. Doctors predicted she would never lead a "normal"…
Pulitzer-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Leonard Pitts, Jr.’s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they…
Brian VanDeMark is in conversation with George Petras of USA Today.In Road To Disaster: A New History Of America’s Descent Into Vietnam, Naval Academy professor Brian VanDeMark looks at the cataclysmic…
Girl in Black and White: The Story of Mary Mildred Williams and the Abolition Movement restores Mary Mildred Williams to her rightful place in history and uncovers a dramatic narrative of travels along…
Celebrate Women's History Month as celeste doaks, Lady Brion, and DaMaris Hill read selections and talk about their work. Hosted by Carla Du Pree, Executive Director of CityLit Project.Poet and journalist…
Linda G. Morris is in conversation with John H. Morris, Jr., Esq., and Sidney Rauls-Ellis, LSWC.Before Opie lived in Mayberry, Beaver and Wally in Mayfield, and Betty, Bud and Kathy in Springfield, there…
John Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia and Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent, will present "The Lost History of…
Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying book of essays that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His…
Aminah lives an idyllic life until she is brutally separated from her home and forced on a journey that transforms her from a daydreamer into a resilient woman. Wurche, the willful daughter of a chief…
Paulette Beete's poems, short stories, and personal essays have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Always Crashing, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly, among other journals. Her chapbooks include Blues for a Pretty…
Cork Wars is a history involving World War II, immigration and cork. It’s a story about how cork—from cork oak forests around the Mediterranean—was a big deal in the mid-20th century. It was so…
Each year Alden Forth takes a lover, only to let him go after a few short weeks. That is until the summer she finds her simple way of life threatened as her grandfather, her last surviving relative, descends…
Leslie Jamison is in conversation with Adam Kaplin, MD, PhD, of the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.With its deeply personal and seamless blend…
Embracing Sisterhood is a thought-provoking examination of black women’s intersecting challenges, tensions, and issues of class in the twenty-first century. In this purported era of high-profile, mega-successful…
Elizabeth Spires (born in 1952 in Lancaster, Ohio) is the author of seven poetry collections: Globe, Swan’s Island, Annonciade, Worldling, Now the Green Blade Rises, The Wave-Maker, and, newly published…
Using gut-wrenching reportage, on-the-ground research, and personal accounts garnered from interviews with over 100 police and government officials around the country, Horace presents an insider's examination…
Nic Stone will be in conversation with Rashad Staton, Youth Engagement Specialist for Baltimore City Public Schools.One Book Baltimore is a new initiative that provides opportunities for Baltimore City…
Drawing on path-breaking work in which she and her colleagues isolated significant communication effects in the 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns, the eminent political communication scholar Kathleen…
Are you interested in screenwriting? Do you want tips and tricks on how to break into the screenwriting industry? Have you considered marketing strategies to become a successful screenwriter? Then join…
Porochista Khakpour's debut novel Sons and Other Flammable Objects was a New York Times Editor's Choice, one of the Chicago Tribune's Fall's Best, and the 2007 California Book Award winner in the 'First…
Joelle Biele's newest book is Tramp (LSU Press, 2018); she is also the author of White Summer and Broom and the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence. A Fulbright…
Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these…
This collection of insightful and searing essays celebrates the vibrancy and strength of black history and culture in America. In We Can't Breathe, Jabari Asim disrupts what Toni Morrison has exposed as…
Geraldine Connolly was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. She is the author of a chapbook, The Red Room, and four full-length poetry collections: Food for the Winter (Purdue), Province of Fire (Iris Press)…
The ;conversation with Tim Mohr will be moderated by WBAL-TV anchor Andre Hepkins.The story of East German punk rock is about much more than music; it is a story of extraordinary bravery in the face of…
On October 16, 1859, John Brown and his band of eighteen raiders descended on Harpers Ferry. In an ill-fated attempt to incite a slave insurrection, they seized the federal arsenal, took hostages, and…
The 2018 Mencken Memorial Lecture presented by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post.Dana Milbank is a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist. Before joining the staff of the Washington Post in 2005, he served…
In 1844, Horace Wells, a Connecticut dentist, encountered nitrous oxide, or laughing gas -- then an entertainment for performers in carnival-like theatrical acts -- and began administering the gas as the…
In his new book, America: The Farewell Tour, Chris Hedges provides a provocative examination of America in crisis, where unemployment, deindustrialization, and a bitter hopelessness and malaise have…
The 2018 Enoch Pratt Free Library / Little Patuxent Review Poetry Contest winner shares the stage with a contest runner-up, two contest judges, and a Little Patuxent Review contributor.Born in India and…
The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg is a propulsive, brilliantly shape-shifting novel. A widow tries to come to terms with her husband’s death -- and the truth about their marriage -- in this surreal…
Addiction is too often viewed only through the prism of sadness and pain. At this event, you are invited to imagine the greater possibilities as we celebrate the creativity and optimism of the writers…
Curtis Black is no stranger to scandal. Throughout the decades, he has done much in the public eye, both good and evil. But what most people don't realize is that Curtis has been hiding a horrific childhood…
What makes a pink-haired queer raise his hand to enlist in the military just as the nation is charging into war? In his memoir, Out of Step, Anthony Moll tells the story of a working-class bisexual boy…
In The Voting Rights War, Gloria Browne-Marshall examines voter laws posing challenges to American voters -- especially African Americans -- from slavery through current controversies of voter suppression…
Kevin Shird traveled from Baltimore to Montgomery, Alabama, to meet 84-year-old Nelson Malden. In Malden's barbershop, leaders of the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King, Jr., gathered…
The struggle to desegregate America’s schools was a grassroots movement, and young women were its vanguard. In the late 1940s, parents began to file desegregation lawsuits with their daughters, forcing…
Jennifer Chang is the author of The History of Anonymity and Some Say the Lark, which was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including American Poetry…
When Darnell Moore was fourteen years old, three boys from his neighborhood tried to set him on fire. They cornered him while he was walking home from school, harassed him because they assumed he was gay…
As people consider how to respond to a resurgence of racist, xenophobic populism, A Mouth Is Always Muzzled tells an extraordinary story of the ways art brings hope in perilous times. Weaving disparate…
Between 1963 and 1972 America experienced over 750 urban revolts. Considered collectively, they comprise what Peter Levy terms a 'Great Uprising'. Levy examines these uprisings over the arc of the entire…
Nadine Strossen's new book, HATE, dispels misunderstandings plaguing our perennial debates about "hate speech vs. free speech," showing that the First Amendment approach promotes free speech and democracy…
During the Civil Rights Movement, African American women did not stand on ceremony; they simply did the work that needed to be done. Yet despite their significant contributions at all levels of the movement…
Lauren Haldeman is the author of Instead of Dying (winner of the 2017 Colorado Prize for Poetry, Center for Literary Publishing, 2017), Calenday (Rescue Press, 2014), and the artist book The Eccentricity…
In her new book, The Woman's Hour, Elaine Weiss tells the story of the last six weeks in the fight for women's suffrage, when it all came down to one state, and in the end one man's vote.By August 1920…
In her new book, History Teaches Us to Resist: How Progressive Movements Have Succeeded in Challenging Times, Dr. Mary Frances Berry examines instances of resistance during the times of various presidential…
In the 1960s and '70s, a diverse range of storefronts -- including head shops, African American bookstores, feminist businesses, and organic grocers -- brought the work of the New Left, Black Power, feminism…
A 2018 Oprah's Book Club Selection!Novelist Tayari Jones reads and discusses her new book, An American Marriage.An American Marriage is a stirring love story and an insightful look into the hearts and…
Ira's Shakespeare Dream is a book for children about Ira Aldridge, the celebrated African American Shakespearean actor. Written by Glenda Armand, the book is illustrated by the award-winning artist Floyd…
The other great Renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth in what may seem an unlikely place – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – from the 1920s through the 1950s. Today black Pittsburgh…
David Cay Johnston first met Donald Trump in 1988 and has tracked him ever since. He wrote about Trump in two books: Temples of Chance and The Making of Donald Trump. He was also an uncredited source…
Cops, politicians, and ordinary people are afraid of black men. The result is the Chokehold: laws and practicees that treat every African American man like a thug. In his new book, former federal prosecutor…
During an illustrious four-decade career at NPR and PBS, John Merrow -- winner of the George Polk Award, the Peabody Award, and the McGraw Prize -- reported from every state in the union, as well as from…
Are you interested in learning how to save money without ruining your lifestyle? What about putting extra money aside for the holidays? If so, then join us for the Budgeting Basics program, featuring InvestEd…
Are you interested in the publishing world? Do you want tips and tricks on how to become a published author or how to self-publish? Have you considered marketing strategies and business plans? Then join…
Written by Dr. Lydia Kang, a practicing internal medicine physician, and Nate Pedersen, a librarian and historian, Quackery offers 67 tales of outlandish treatments complete with vintage illustrations…
Hilary S. Jacqmin's first book of poems, Missing Persons, was published by Waywiser Press in spring 2017. She earned her BA from Wesleyan University, her MA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University…
Richard Theodore Greener (1844-1922) was a renowned black activist and scholar. He was the first black graduate of Harvard College, the first black faculty member at a southern white college, and the first…
Did American troops fight in Vietnam with one hand tied behind their backs? Was the draft system fair? Did antiwar protests turn U.S. policy around?Arnold R. Isaacs , who covered the war's last three years…
After the Civil War the Indian Wars would last more than three decades, permanently altering the physical and political landscape of America. Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly…
In Crashback, journalist Michael Fabey describes the "warm war" in the Pacific Ocean, a shoving match between the United States and China. The Chinese regard the Pacific, especially the South China…
He was the wittiest, the prettiest, the strongest, the bravest, and, of course, the greatest (as he told us over and over again). Muhammad Ali was one of the twentieth century's greatest radicals and most…
Melvin A. Goodman's long career as a respected intelligence analyst at the CIA, specializing in US/Soviet relations, ended abruptly. In 1990, after twenty-four years of service, Goodman resigned when…
Shirley J. Brewer graduated from careers in palm-reading, bartending, and speech therapy. She serves as poet-in-residence at Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Baltimore. Recent poems appear in Barrow…
Real American by Julie Lythcott-Haims, bestselling author of How to Raise an Adult, is a deeply personal account of her life growing up as a biracial black woman in America. The only child of an African…
Rising Tides sounds an urgent wakeup call to the growing crisis of climate refugees, and offers an essential, continent-by-continent look at these dangers. Over the next few decades, as sea levels rise…
In this definitive biography of Chester B. Himes, the African American author who had an extraordinary influence on black writers globally, Lawrence P. Jackson explores Himes' middle-class origins and…
Grace Cavalieri's forthcoming book is Other Voices, Other Lives (Oct 2017.) She's the founder/producer of Public Radio’s “The Poet and the Poem” now from the Library of Congress. She celebrates…
Stoney is the true story of an African American groom of horse racing and his life as one of the sport's most respected of grooms. Walker "Stoney" Stone was one of the best-known grooms who ever put a…
Honoring the Memory, Career and Bequest of Henry Louis MenckenThe 2017 Mencken Memorial Lecture: "When America Was Great and Baltimore Knew Better" presented by Darryl G. Hart, author of Damning Words…
From September 11, 2001 to May 2, 2011, Osama Bin Laden evaded intelligence services and special forces units, drones and hunter killer squads. The Exile tells the extraordinary inside story of that…
Join us for a game-changing conversation that might transform your life.The Pratt Library and the Maryland Educational Opportunity Center present a panel of career-changers who will share their experiences…
In Red Line: American Foreign Policy in a Time of Fractured Politics and Failing States, former Deputy Secretary of State P. J. Crowley, one of America’s most insightful national security commentators…
In Committed: The Battle over Involuntary Psychiatric Care, psychiatrists Dinah Miller and Annette Hanson offer a thought-provoking and engaging account of the controversy surrounding involuntary psychiatric…
In the Margins: A Conversation in Poetry is a unique collection of poetry reflecting the evolution of a writing group over 20 years, featuring the Baltimore poets: Christine Higgins, Ann LoLordo, Madeleine…
Get to know the Central Library of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Maryland State Library Resource Center, with this brief audio tour. Listeners will enjoy a helpful overview of the Central Library's most prominent…
Let the People Rule tells the story of the four-month campaign that changed American politics forever. In 1912 Theodore Roosevelt (TR) came out of retirement to challenge his close friend and handpicked…
Elizabeth Hazen is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in Best American Poetry 2013, Southwest Review, The Threepenny Review, The Normal School, and other journals. She earned her BA at Yale and…
D Watkins (The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir) and Liza Jessie Peterson (All Day: A Year of Love and Survival Teaching Incarcerated Kids at Rikers Island) talk about their new books and the writing life…
Mason Jar Press, a new, local independent press, brings together their authors in a celebration of literature and art. Join the authors of the most recent MJP publications—the Black Ladies Brunch Collective…
During the Presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for a complete ban on Muslims entering the U.S., surveillance of mosques, and a database for all Muslims living in the country. In We Too Sing America…
Seventy per cent of all Americans say they favor spanking, but African American culture seems to have a special attachment to it. The overwhelming majority of black parents see corporal punishment as a…
What I Learned in the Midst of KAOS is, in part, a coming-of-age story about how Dr. LaMarr Darnell Shields responded to the chaos in his life, first as a young man and student growing up on the South…
Brian Gilmore, Washington, D.C., poet and longtime public-interest lawyer, is the author of three collections of poetry including his latest, We Didn't Know Any Gangsters (Cherry Castle Publishing, 2014)…
Eric Goodman's new novel, Womb, reveals how easily life can be lost and, just as easily, how life can be celebrated. Penny is reluctant to tell her husband, Jack, that she's pregnant. With dead-end jobs…
When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the 2005 Liberian presidential election, she demolished a barrier few thought possible, obliterating centuries of patriarchal rule to become the first female elected head…
From the moment he was arrested for trespassing at a McDonald's in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 13, 2014, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery found himself in a unique position from which to cover…
A compilation of essays, stories, poems, parables, and art, The Long Loneliness in Baltimore depicts nearly fifty years worth of experiences in Southwest Baltimore (“Sowebo”). Through the establishment…
In At Mama's Knee, April Ryan looks at race and race relations through the lessons that mothers transmit to their children. As a single African American mother in Baltimore, Ryan has struggled with each…
The Pratt Library's annual King Commemorative Lecture presented by Dr. Julianne Malveaux, founder and president of Economic Education.Dr. Malveaux is a labor economist, author and commentator on issues…
Milt Diggins tells the story of Thomas McCreary, a slave catcher from Cecil County, Maryland. Reviled by some, proclaimed a hero by others, McCreary first drew public attention in the late 1840s for a…
By objective measures, evidence indicates that President Barack Obama has been tremendously successful and effective. On economic indicators alone, he is credited with the longest streak of job growth…
Walter Arthur Harris Gill, Ph.D., the first African American to graduate from the then all-male Baltimore City College High School, writes about his boyhood and youth experiences while growing up in Greenville…
Through the powerful stories of five enslaved people who were "owned" by four of our greatest presidents, In the Shadow of Liberty discusses the role slavery played in the founding of America. From Billy…
In the sequel to her New York Times bestseller Etched in Sand, Regina Calcaterra pairs with her youngest sister Rosie to tell Rosie’s harrowing, yet ultimately triumphant, story of childhood abuse and…
This is the unflinching memoir of a female African American advertising executive’s unprecedented and unlikely success, which began in the Mad Men era. It follows her journey from the projects of Motown-era…
Meg Eden's work has been published in various magazines, including Rattle, Drunken Boat, Poet Lore, and Gargoyle. She teaches at the University of Maryland. She has four poetry chapbooks, and her novel…
In a new memoir, Monica Coleman reflects on the legacies of slavery, poverty, war, and alcoholism, and how these conditions can mask a history of mental illness. At once spiritual autobiography and memoir…
Poet and journalist celeste doaks is the author of Cornrows and Cornfields (Wrecking Ball Press, UK, March 2015). Cornrows was listed as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2015” by Beltway Quarterly Poetry…
At an auction in Baltimore Pamela Rigby and her mother Vivian Rigby purchased a 19th century photograph album owned by a former slave. The mother-daughter team began the task of researching and writing…
Over the past decade a new and controversial energy extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has rocketed to the forefront of U.S. energy production. With fracking, millions of gallons…
Loren Miller, one of the nation's most prominent civil rights attorneys from the 1940s through the early 1960s, successfully fought discrimination in housing and education. Alongside Thurgood Marshall…
AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK! From prize-winning, bestselling author Colson Whitehead, a magnificent, wrenching, thrilling tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for…
Ron Capps is the author of Seriously Not All Right: Five Wars in Ten Years (Schaffner, 2014), a memoir of his service as a soldier and Foreign Service officer in Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and…
As the crack epidemic swept across inner-city America in the early 1980s, the streets of Baltimore were crime ridden. For poor kids from the housing projects, the future looked bleak. But basketball could…
Uprising in the City explores the unrest in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray. While describing the protests and violence, the book draws on author Kevin Shird's observations, experiences…
Honoring the Memory, Career and Bequest of Henry Louis Mencken.
The 2016 Mencken Memorial Lecture: "Joint Transmission: The Friendship of H. L. Mencken and Blanche Knopf" presented by Laura Claridge, author of The Lady with the Borzoi: Blanche Knopf, Literary Tastemaker…
Poets Le Hinton and Laura Shovan read in the company of the 2016 Pratt Library Poetry Contest finalists—Saundra Rose Maley, Maggie Rosen, and Sheri Allen. The host is Steven Leyva, editor of Little Patuxent…
In Just Another Southern Town, Joan Quigley recounts an untold chapter of the civil rights movement: an epic battle to topple segregation in Washington. At the book's heart is the formidable Mary Church…
Jessica Anya Blau is the author of The Wonder Bread Summer, Drinking Closer to Home, and the nationally bestselling The Summer of Naked Swim Parties. Her books have made many Best Books of the Year lists…
Terry McMillan, New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting to Exhale, is back with the inspiring story of a woman who shakes things up in her life to find greater meaning…
Diane Guerrero, star of "Orange is the New Black" and "Jane the Virgin," shares her personal story of the plight of undocumented immigrants in this country. Guerrero was just 14 years old the day her parents…
Second House from the Corner is the story of a woman who is torn apart by the secrets she struggles to keep. Felicia Lyons is a 36-year-old stay-at-home mom of three, drowning in the drudgeries of play…
Join Ann Bracken and Barbara Morrison as they explore the intersection of poetry and memoir. They will read from their most recent collections, in which they use poetry to unearth the secrets of the past…
In the Marshall Islands, an island-nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that was once a testing ground for nuclear bombs, American engineers and programmers are making and testing missiles while their…
In this groundbreaking work of history, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed and the country's leading Jefferson scholar Peter S. Onuf present an absorbing and revealing character study…
Robert "Sonny" Wood will read selections from his poetry collection, The Eye of the Poet. Mr. Wood was a long-time member of The Arena Players and also appeared in the HBO series "The Wire."
Local college professor Dr. T. L. Osborne provides readers with an in-depth look at current Hip-Hop culture through the lens of history. In The Hip-Hop Lectures, she traces the roots of Hip-Hop culture…
With the outbreak of the Civil War, the small social Southern town of Washington, DC found itself caught between warring sides in a four-year battle that would determine the future of the United States…
To commemorate Autism Awareness Month, award-winning pianist Jermaine Gardner performs a concert of classical and jazz selections. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Jermaine has performed…
With an accessible blend of narrative history and science, Strange Glow describes mankind's extraordinary, thorny relationship with radiation, including the hard-won lessons of how radiation helps and…
National Book Award winner James McBride goes in search of the "real" James Brown -- and his surprising journey illuminates the ways in which our cultural heritage has been shaped by Brown's legacy.Kill…
The struggle to integrate the Baltimore Orioles mirrored the fight for civil rights. The Orioles debuted in 1954, the same year the Supreme Court struck down public school segregation. As Baltimore experienced…
The most famous long-distance hiking trail in North America, the 2,181-mile Appalachian Trail -- the longest hiking-only footpath in the world -- runs along the Appalachian mountain range from Georgia…
The Baltimore Symphony's oboist Michael Lisicky chronicles the first 100 years of the orchestra from its humble beginning as the nation's only municipally-funded symphony to its present status as one of…
In The Black Calhouns, Gail Lumet Buckley -- daughter of Lena Horne -- delves deep into her family history, detailing the experiences of an extraordinary African American family from Civil War to Civil…
In this family program, Cal Ripken, Jr. talks about his new book, The Closer, with Kevin Cowherd and John Maroon. In The Closer, the sixth book in Cal Ripken, Jr.'s All Stars series, Danny Connell, the…
Reading and writing poems that make strong use of sounds to carry the meaning: luscious-, funny-, or ugly-sounding words; rhythms that tell the tale; echoes (rhyme, repetition).The Instructor: Clarinda…
Raised in northern New Jersey, Cory Booker went to Stanford University on a football scholarship, accepted a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, then studied at Yale Law School. Graduating from Yale…
Experts at this free grants workshop discuss grant programs and application procedures for arts, humanities and heritage preservation organizations.Invited presenters include the Maryland Humanities Council…
John Gery has published seven books of poetry, most recently, Have at You Now! (2014). His work has appeared throughout the U.S., Europe, and Canada and has been translated into seven languages. Gery has…
In her new book, Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide, MSNBC national correspondent, Joy-Ann Reid looks at the history of race relations in the U.S. while tracing the political shifts…
Sandra Beasley is author of three poetry collections: Count the Waves; I Was the Jukebox, winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; and Theories of Falling, winner of the New Issues Poetry Prize. Honors…
DNA has been a master key unlocking medical and forensic secrets, but its genealogical life has also been notable. Genealogy is the second most popular hobby in the U.S., and the outpouring of interest…
In Naomi Jackson's debut novel, two sisters, ages 10 and 16, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister Dionne…
Like many black Americans of the mid-twentieth century, Phyllis Lawson's parents moved from their hometown of Livingston, Alabama to the big city in search of a better life. However, it wasn't long before…
Andy and Don is a lively and revealing biography of Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, celebrating the powerful real-life friendship behind one of America's most-iconic television programs.Andy and Don -- fellow…
Understanding Mass Incarceration describes in plain English the many competing theories of criminal justice -- from rehabilitation to retribution, from restorative justice to justice reinvestment. Author…
Thurgood Marshall brought down the separate-but-equal doctrine, integrated schools, and not only fought for human rights and human dignity but also made them impossible to deny in the courts and in the…
Rita Gabis comes from a family of Eastern European Jews and Lithuanian Catholics. She was close to her Catholic grandfather as a child and knew one version of his past: prior to immigration he had fought…
James Arthur and Joseph Harrison read from and talk about their work.James Arthur’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and The American Poetry…
Word Warrior documents the writing, life and times of a pioneering, yet overlooked, African American artist. Throughout Richard Durham's lifetime (1917-1984), this prolific Mississippi-born, Chicago-based…
Elizabeth Nix, professor of legal, ethical and historical studies at the University of Baltimore, will bring examples of structural racism and white privilege to light by talking about the history of Baltimore…
D. Watkins, a native son of the east side (the beast side) of Baltimore, has survived the kind of life in urban America that has claimed the lives of many of his friends and family members. He writes with…
Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 bestseller, Silent Spring, was the first American to combine two longstanding, but separate, strands of American environmentalism -- the love of nature and a concern for…
In 1886 New York, the son of John Cross, a respectable architect, racks up a sizeable gambling debt to Kent's Gents, a notorious gang of thieves and killers. To pay back the debt, Cross has to use his…
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts' new book, Grant Park, explores the last four decades of U.S. race relations through the interconnected stories of two Chicago journalists: Malcolm Toussaint…
The New Black is a documentary that tells the story of how the African American community is grappling with the gay rights issue. The film documents activists, families and clergy on both sides of the…
Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA, will talk about structural changes in the job market that have resulted in many day laborers…
Born in the Dominican Republic, Peralta came to the United States legally with his family when he was four years old. When their visas lapsed, his father returned to the Dominican Republic. Peralta and…
Kathi Wolfe is a poet and writer. Wolfe's most recent collection, The Uppity Blind Girl Poems, winner of the 2014 Stonewall Chapbook Competition, was published by BrickHouse Books in 2015. Her work has…
At their New England art school, Paulina and Fran both stand apart from the crowd. Paulina is striking and sexually adventurous, a self-proclaimed queen bee with a devastating mean-girl streak. Fran, with…
Ranging from the 17th century to the present and crossing multiple continents, Counternarratives' novellas and stories draw upon memoirs, newspaper accounts, detective stories, interrogation transcripts…
In the wake of the killing of Freddie Gray and the subsequent uprising, many media outlets focused on tired stereotypes about black criminality rather than the years of oppression that sparked the protests…
Objective Troy tells the story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the once-celebrated American imam who called for moderation after 9/11, a man who ultimately directed his outsized talents to the mass murder of his fellow…
When he was 12 years old, Freeman Hrabowski heard Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. talk about a children's march for civil rights and opportunity. Hrabowski convinced his parents to let him participate in the…
When Mark Zuckerberg announced his 0 million pledge to transform the Newark Schools -- and to solve the education crisis in every city in America -- it looked like a huge win for then-mayor Cory Booker…
Best-selling author James Patterson is Pratt's very special guest at the Central Library. He donated 25,000 books to Baltimore City Public Schools and spoke to over 300 5th graders in the Main Hall of…
This debut novel from the author of The Drunken Botanist is based on the forgotten true story of one of the nation's first female deputy sheriffs.Constance Kopp doesn't quite fit the mold. She towers over…
Honoring the Memory, Career and Bequest of Henry Louis MenckenThe 2015 Mencken Memorial Lecture, "H. L. Mencken: Anti-Semite?" is presented by David S. Thaler and introduced by last year's lecturer, Larry…
Miss Jessie's is a memoir and business guide full of inspirational life lessons and unique business advice from Miko Branch, the CEO of Miss Jessie's, the company that revolutionized the hair-care industry…
In the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre, many expected a broad strengthening of gun control laws and a reconsideration of America's gun culture. Yet the gun rights movement, headed by the National…
News headlines, social media and talking heads paint a problematic picture of black womanood. In The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America, Tamara Winfrey-Harris …
In celebration of Baltimore Pride 2015, the Pratt Library presents a conversation with Joe Wenke, author of The Human Agenda: Conversations About Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity; Gisele Alicea (aka…
A panel of career-changers share their experiences. In collaboration with Maryland New Directions.
In Injustices, constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser argues that the Supreme Court routinely bent the arc of American history away from justice. He explains how the Court seized power for itself that…
A black teenage boy is dead. A white man kiled him. Was he standing his ground or was it murder? Using the Trayvon Martin case as the foundation for her story, Victoria Christopher Murray weaves a tale…
Far from the trendy cafes, designer boutiques, and political protests and crackdowns in Moscow, NPR host David Greene found the real Russia. Midnight in Siberia chronicles Greene’s journey on the Trans-Siberian…
Welcome to Mahalia’s Sweet Tea, the finest soul food restaurant in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Halia Watkins has her hands full cooking, hosting and keeping her boisterous young cousin, Wavonne…
In his debut novel, Jabari Asim explores urban life in the first years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, using the intertwined stories of a retired “leg breaker,” an aging kingpin, an…
Through her photographs and personal experiences, Maria Drumm takes us on a journey through the ancient countries of Sagdiana, Burma, and Ceylon, across China and the Taklamakan desert and into the rock-cut…
Join us for the Baltimore book launch of Kimberla Lawson Roby’s new Rev. Curtis Black book. It’s been four years since Alicia Black, daughter of Rev. Curtis Black, divorced her second husband. Since…
Allison Leotta draws on her experience as a federal prosecutor to capture the inner workings of criminal investigations. Her new novel, A Good Killing, follows prosecutor Anna Curtis as she heads home…
Through her restaurant reviews and bestselling memoirs, Ruth Reichl has earned a special place in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers. In her debut novel, she tells the story of Billie Breslin…
In The Hidden History of America at War, Kenneth Davis provides a unique, myth-shattering, and insightful look at war – why we fight, who fights our wars, and what we need to know but perhaps never learned…
What is gentrification? And how can we prevent it from happening during the revitalization of a neighborhood?These are the questions social worker/professor-turned-filmmaker Judith Lombardi asks in her…
Poets Abdul Ali and Venus Thrash read from and talk about their work.Abdul Ali, author of Trouble Sleeping, winner of the 2014 New Issues Poetry Prize, teaches in the English department at Towson University…
When the seeds were sown for The House of Ruth in the 1970s, the issue of intimate partner abuse was not well understood or documented. There were few places of refuge for abused women and their children…
The stunning advances of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have put all ethnic and religious groups in the area, including moderate Sunni Arabs, at risk. For some groups, the threat approaches genocidal…
In conversation with Marc Steiner, Tom Hayden will discuss his new book, Listen, Yankee!, an account of Cuban politics and a memoir of a U.S. revolutionary leader and founder of SDS. The book is based…
Join young adult novelist Frank Portman (aka Dr. Frank of The Mr. T Experience) and poet/novelist Gerry LaFemina (Expletive Deleted and Tom Collins and the Cocktail Shakers) for a reading from their…
Real life is never as steamy as it is in a book. In this session, three best-selling romance writers will talk about finding inspiration for their work, how to balance real relationships with fictional…
Join poets James Arthur (Charms Against Lightning) and Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka (winner of the Harriss Poetry Prize for Oblige the Light) with host Barbara Diehl, senior editor of The Baltimore Review…
Join two local writers with new short story collections -- Jason Tinney (Ripple Meets the Deep) and Lucas Southworth (Everyone Here Has a Gun) -- for a reading and discussion about the art form. Hosted…
Enjoy this reading by winners of the Pratt Library’s fourth annual poetry contest presented in partnership with Little Patuxent Review. Readings by Inga Schmidt, contest winner, and Micia White and James…
John Darnielle, long-listed for the National Book Award in Fall 2014 for Wolf in White Van and frontman for the Mountain Goats, talks with CityLit Project's executive director Gregg Wilhelm.
Editor Michael Salcman talks about the literary effort to compile this meticulously researched anthology, with readings by local contributors Shirley Brewer, Clarinda Harriss, and Jennifer Wallace. Dr…
Editors Gerry LaFemina (director, Frostburg Center for Creative Writing) and Gregg Wilhelm (director, CityLit Project) unveil Clash by Night, an anthology inspired by The Clash’s seminal album, London…
Writers who moonlight as rockers take the stage to discuss the differences and affinities between writing for the eye or writing for the ear. Poet Gerry LaFemina, short story author Jason Tinney,…
Sheree Franklin is a Chicago-based intuitive coach and counselor. In her new book, Intuition: The Hidden Asset Everyone Should Learn to Use, Franklin explains how we can learn to use our intuition and…
Author Miranda Paul and Gambian activist Isatou Ceesay will talk about the struggles and successes of getting sustainable development projects off the ground in Gambian villages.In the late 1990s, Isatou…
In Madison's Gift, David Stewart restores James Madison, sometimes overshadowed by his fellow Founders, to his proper place as the most significant framer of the new nation.Short, plain, balding, neither…
On June 14, 1940, German tanks entered a silent and nearly deserted Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation. For the next four years, an eerie sense of normalcy…
Lawrence Hill talks about his book, The Book of Negroes, which is being reissued in paperback to coincide with the BET miniseries airing in February.In The Book of Negroes, Hill brings to life the journey…
In Shrinks, Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, shares the story of psychiatry's origins and the checkered history of useless or harmful treatments that made psychiatry the black sheep of medicine. Lieberman describes…
Redwood is a gripping true story of a once successful and popular Baltimore restaurant known for its great cuisine, musical entertainment, atmosphere, and lavish celebrity events.The three young entrepreneurs…
Angela Walton-Raji is a nationally known author and African American and Native American genealogist. She hosts a weekly African Roots Podcast devoted to African American genealogy news, methods, and…
Angela Walton-Raji is a nationally known author and African American and Native American genealogist. She hosts a weekly African Roots Podcast devoted to African American genealogy news, methods, and…
Angela Walton-Raji is a nationally known author and African American and Native American genealogist. She hosts a weekly African Roots Podcast devoted to African American genealogy news, methods, and…
Angela Walton-Raji is a nationally known author and African American and Native American genealogist. She hosts a weekly African Roots Podcast devoted to African American genealogy news, methods, and…
How did a disheveled, intellectually combative gay Jew with a thick accent become one of the most effective politicians of our times? In this feisty and moving memoir, former Congressman Barney Frank recounts…
Being a Woman Surgeon, the first anthology of its kind, consists of contributions by a multidisciplinary group of female surgeons. This compilation of essays, interviews, and poems captures the essence…
Steven Leyva was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in Houston, Texas. His poems have appeared in The Fiddleback, The Light Ekphrastic, Cobalt Review, and Little Patuxent Review. He is a Cave Canem…
In 1942 Alice Allison Dunnigan, a sharecropper's daughter from Kentucky, made her way to the nation's capital and a career in journalism that eventually led her to the White House. With Alone Atop the…
Three women writers discuss the intersection of place, time, and culture in literature and in the lives of women. The conversation is moderated by Linda A. Duggins, Hachette Book Group.Following the death…
As the Washington correspondent for the Chicago Defender, Ethel Payne used her journalistic skills to elevate civil rights issues onto the national agenda. In the 1950s and ‘60s, she raised challenging…
Ekphrastic poems are based on another work of art, most often visual art.The Instructor: Clarinda Harriss is a professor emerita of English at Towson University whose poems and short fiction are widely…
PNC Bank and Enoch Pratt Free Library hosts this interview with four highly experienced and established women business owners in Baltimore to discuss the effects of the economy on their businesses and…
In his 50-year career as a negotiations expert, sports agent, New York Times bestselling author, attorney, business leader and educator, Ron Shapiro has discovered that people from all walks of life can…
Writing poetry on themes: "What I Learned From An Extremely Unlikely Source" (like a comic book character, old lady in the grocery line, etc.) or "A Food Experience Which Became Something Much More."Instructor…
Not lies, but poems whose form is based in some way on the Fibonacci Sequence, a numerical sequence found in nature.Instructor: Clarinda Harriss is a professor emerita of English at Towson University whose…
In The Real Cost of Fracking, Michelle Bamberger, a veterinarian, and Robert Oswald, a pharmacologist, show how hydraulic fracturing endangers the environment and harms people, pets, and livestock. They…
April Ryan, White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks (AURN), gives readers a factual and compelling behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of race relations as it relates to the…
When Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone was published in 2007, it soared to the top of bestseller lists, becoming an instant classic: a harrowing account of Sierra Leone’s civil war and the fate of child…
Join us for the launch of Wes Moore’s new book, The Work. From the author of the bestselling The Other Wes Moore comes the story of how Moore traced a path through the world to discover the meaning of…
Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi’s debut novel is a tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one’s own fate. Set in Kabul, Rahima and her sisters can only attend school sporadically and…
The Pratt Library’s annual King Commemorative Lecture presented by Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr.Born and raised in Oxford, North Carolina, Benjamin Chavis, Jr. desegregated his hometown’s whites-only…
A panel of health experts and community leaders provide an update on Liberia after the Ebola crisis. Presented in partnership with Jhpiego.Panelists include: Dr. Chandrakant Ruparelia, Jhpiego Senior Health…
Elmaz Abinader is an award-winning author, poet, and playwright whose works are inspired by the dislocation of her parents from Lebanon to the US, as well as dislocations, occupations, and disenfranchisement…
This annual Cave Canem poetry reading at the Pratt features Tim Seibles and Cave Canem fellows from the Baltimore-Washington area. Hosted by Reginald Harris of Poets House.Tim Seibles is the author of…
In her New York Times bestsellers, Unlikely Friendships and Unlikely Loves, Jennifer Holland opened our eyes to the rich inner lives of animals and the power of love and friendship. In her new book, she…
Blackballed is Darryl Pinckney's reflection on a century and a half of black participation in US electoral politics. In this combination of memoir, historical narrative, and contemporary political and…
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edward J. Larson recovers a crucially important -- yet almost always overlooked -- chapter of George Washington's life, revealing how Washington saved the United States…
New Orleans native Francesca Dumas is a quadroon, courted by moneyed white men. She leads a sheltered life of elegant gowns and lavish balls until a bullet shatters her dream world. While awaiting arrival…
In Baron Wormser's new novel, set in Baltimore in 1962-63, Susan Mermelstein and her son Arthur journey from sheltered innocence through the contradictions and complexities of race, politics and history…
Ailish Hopper is the author of Dark~Sky Society, selected by David St. John as runner-up for the New Issues prize, and the chapbook, Bird in the Head, selected by Jean Valentine for the Center for Book…
Susan Katz Miller grew up with a Jewish father and a Christian mother and was raised Jewish. Now in an interfaith marriage herself, she is one of the growing number of Americans who are electing to raise…
For millions of people worldwide, nurses are the difference between life and death, self-sufficiency and dependency, hope and despair. Saving Lives highlights the essential roles nurses play in contemporary…
The Prince of Los Cocuyos is a poignant, funny, and inspiring memoir from Richard Blanco, the first Latino, and openly gay, poet to read at a presidential inauguration. In it he explores his coming-of-age…
Born in Leningrad in 1972, Gary Shteyngart came to the U.S. seven years later. His loving but mismatched parents dreamed that he would become a lawyer or Wall Street player, something their curious, diminutive…
Donald Miller's new book, Supreme City, is the story of Manhattan's growth and transformation in the 1920s and the brilliant people behind it. Chronicling the era immortalized by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Miller…
In the tradition of Elizabeth George, Louise Penny, and P. D. James, New York Times bestselling author Deborah Crombie delivers a powerful tale of intrigue, betrayal, and lies that will plunge married…
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Where the Wild Things Are (2013), Maurice Sendak: The Memorial Exhibition is a retrospective of original works by the late, great Maurice Sendak. The artwork is presented…
In the shadow of the Civil War, a circle of radicals in a rowdy saloon changed American society and helped set Walt Whitman on the path to poetic immortality.Rebel Souls is the first book ever written…
An eclectic collection of 16 short stories whose characters build a world of ordinary heroes, held together by a common thread -- loss. But amid all this loss, there's humor and hope.Joseph Chamberlin…
Julia Wendell's new poetry chapbook is Take This Spoon (Main Street Rag, 2014). Her previous publications include The Sorry Flowers (WordTech Editions, 2009), Dark Track (WordTech Editions, 2005), Wheeler…
Michael Ross offers the first full account of the June 1870 abduction of seventeen-month-old Mollie Digby, an incident that electrified the South at one of the most critical moments in the history of American…
Race, more than any other demographic factor, determines levels of individual educational achievement, health and life expectancy, possibility of incarceration, and wealth in the United States. And we…
Karl Alexander will discuss his book, The Long Shadow, with writer D. Watkins and radio personality Marc Steiner.For 25 years Karl Alexander, Doris Entwisle and Linda Olson, authors of The Long Shadow…
Maryland Church Records, by Jane ThursbyWhen searching for your family vital records, church records are very important. But what church or more importantly what religion? What were the colonial or State…
From his humble beginnings in Sumter, South Carolina, to his prominence as the third highest ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, Congressman Clyburn has led an extraordinary life. In Blessed…
Charles M. Blow, New York Times op-ed columnist, will join us to talk about his own extraordinary life story -- growing up in segregated, dirt-poor Louisiana. As told in his new memoir, Fire Shut Up in…
From the injuries he suffered as a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam in 1966 to the Iran-Contra affair that he covered as a journalist and which involved his fellow veterans, Robert Timberg's life has been…
Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's "Fresh Air" and Gatsby lover extraordinaire, offers a fresh perspective on what makes Gatsby great: its literary achievements, its debt to hard-boiled crime fiction…
When Eileen Tumulty, raised by her Irish immigrant parents in Queens, meets Ed Leary, a scientist, she thinks she's found the perfect partner to deliver her to the cosmopolitan world she longs to inhabit…
In Notes from a Colored Girl, Karsonya Wise Whitehad examines the life and experiences ofEmilie Frances Davis, a freeborn twenty-one-year-old mulatto woman, through a close reading of three pocket diaries…
On July 12, 1862, Abraham Lincoln spoke for the first time of his intention to free the slaves; on January 1, 1863, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. These six months were perhaps the most tumultuous…
As parents, Michele Stephenson and Joe Brewster, M.D., recognized that all black boys must confront and surmount the "achievement gap," regardless of how wealthy or poor their parents are. To understand…
The 2014 Mencken Memorial Lecture: "H. L. Mencken: Racist or Civil Rights Champion?," presented by Larry S. Gibson, professor of law at the University of Maryland School of Law. Gibson is a practicing…
As part of the Star-Spangled 200 celebration, the Pratt Library invites you to meet and hear historian Marc Leepson talk about his new book, What So Proudly We Hailed. In the first full-length biography…
Not long after moving back to his hometown of Baltimore, Kelly Thorndike meets an old friend from high school who has had "racial reassignment surgery." Once a skinny, white Jewish kid, Martin has altered…
Celebrating the release of Little Patuxent Review's Summer 2014 issue, LPR is excited to host a reading and conversation with four writers. Joseph Ross, Alan King, Michael Brokos, and Tafisha Edwards will…
This podcast details Baltimore Heritage's Patterson Park War of 1812 Archeology and Outreach Program, an archeology dig near the Pagoda in Patterson Park focused on East Baltimore's role in the War of…
In Lessons of Redemption, Kevin Shird, co-founder and president of the Mario Do Right Foundation, tells his life story, from the tough streets of Baltimore City, through several years in federal prison…
In Drifting, her debut collection of interlinking stories, Katia Ulysse follows the private lives of four secretiva Haitian families whose hopes for distant success are constantly challenged by the hard…
Three Kundiman fellows with award-winning first books read and talk about their work.Cathy Linh Che is the author of Split (Alice James, 2014), winner of the 2012 Kundiman Poetry Prize.A Vietnamese American…
Forgotten Sundays follows the life and relationship between Gerry Sandusky, sports director for WBAL-TV, and his father, former NFL tackle and coach John Sandusky. Gerry spent his summers at NFL training…
Baltimore, like many other cities, is redesigning local government policy and programs to become a more sustainable city. Sustainability encourages city officials to integrate policy and programs addressing…
John D. Negroponte's career, spanning 50 years of unprecedented American global power, includes his service as U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines and Iraq. Though considered the ultimate…
Twenty-one years ago, Jim Ziolkowski gave up a fast-track career in corporate finance to dedicate his life to buildOn, an organization that turns inner-city teens into community leaders at home and abroad…
On June 6, 1944, 160,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy to battle German forces. It was the greatest sea-borne assault in human history. The invasion, and the victories that followed,…
Three bestselling Maryland writers – Sheri Booker (Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner City Funeral Home), Dan Fesperman (The Double Game), and Sarah Pekkanen (Catching Air) – talk about their…
Between 1935 and 1943, the U.S. government commissioned 44 photographers to capture American faces, along with living and working conditions, across the country. Of the 180,000 photographs taken and now…
Carolyn Surrick is a musician who specializes in early music. She is an acclaimed viola da gamba player who tours and records with Ensemble Galilei. She and her colleagues played each week for soldiers…
Sheila Connolly is the New York Times bestselling author of three cozy mystery series. Her Museum Mysteries are set in Philadelphia and the Orchard Mysteries in small town Massachusetts. Scandal in Skibbereen…
"By almost every measure, the group that is facing some of the most severe challenges in the 21st century, in this country, are boys and young men of color." -- President ObamaJoin us in a discussion about…
Celebrate Maryland's spirit of innovation at the second annual Innovation Expo. Makers, scientists, librarians, artists, and other creative thinkers from across the state will gather at the Central Library…
Celebrate Maryland's spirit of innovation at the second annual Innovation Expo. Makers, scientists, librarians, artists, and other creative thinkers from across the state will gather at the Central Library…
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, editor of Singapore Noir, talks with Rafael Alvarez, a contributor to Baltimore Noir. From Singapore, land of mysteries and shadows that enticed Somerset Maugham and Rudyard Kipling…
Celebrity authors Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge, hosts of "The Fabulous Beekman Boys" on the Cooking Channel and winners of the 21st season of "The Amazing Race," talk about their new book, a year-long…
The Seven Disciplines of Wellness provides a roadmap for complete wellness of the body, mind and spirit. In a world full of confusion and contradictory health information, Surina Jordan uses scripture…
Janice Gary's new book, Short Leash: A Memoir of Dog Walking and Deliverance, is a beautifully written portrait of two damaged souls and how they lean on one another to heal and find their way back to…
Investigative reporter Christopher Leonard reveals how a handful of companies have seized the nation's meat supply and created a system that puts farmers on the edge of bankruptcy, hikes up Americans'…
On the night of March 8, 1971, eight amateur burglars broke into an FBI office in Media, PA, and stole every file in the office. Betty Medsger, then a reporter at the Washington Post, received copies of…
Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, The Mob and the City is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in…
The bold lines and decorative details of Art Deco have stood the test of time and are evident in the architecture of cities like Washington and Baltimore. Richard Striner and co-author Melissa Blair explore…
Presented by the DC-area Literary Translators Network and Loch Raven Review. Features Nancy Naomi Carlson (French), Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak (Persian), Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka (Polish), and Katherine E. Young…
Alan Cheuse reads from his just-published An Authentic Captain Marvel Ring, which collects the best short stories and novellas from this National Public Radio reviewer. Introduced by Andrew Gifford, publisher…
Three poets with local connections read from their new collections: Lalita Noronha (Her Skin, Phyllo-thin), Erica Dawson (The Small Blades Hurt), and Natasha Saje (Vivarium). Hosted by Kristen Harbeson…
Join Jeff Parker (The Taste of Penny), Jason Ockert (Neighbors of Nothing) and Nathan Deuel (Friday Was the Bomb: Five Years in the Middle East) of the University of Tampa's MFA in Creative Writing program…
Readings by UMBC faculty writers Lia Purpura (Rough Likeness), Michael Fallon (The Great Before and After) and Holly Sneeringer ("Under Water"), along with student winners of the English Department's literary…
National Poetry Month Celebration with Poet Lore. Join Genevieve DeLeon, managing editor of Poet Lore, for readings by Megan Foley, Amy Eisner, and the winner of the Pratt Library's poetry contest.
James McBride, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction for The Good Lord Bird, talks about his book with WYPR's Tom Hall. McBride's 1996 memoir, The Color of Water, was a New York Times' bestseller…
Singer/songwriter Wesley Stace (better known by his former stage name John Wesley Harding) discusses his just-published novel, Wonderkid, with WTMD's Erik Deatherage.
Honoring the Maryland winners in this national essay program for students grades 4 - 12, sponsored by the Maryland Humanities Council/Maryland Center for the Book. Featured author: Elisabeth Dahl, Genie…
Elizabeth Nunez and Bernardine Evaristo talk about the writing life and read from their new books.Not for Everyday Use is a riveting memoir in which Elizabeth Nunez wrestles with her mother's determination…
Leigh Goodmark talks about her book, A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and the Legal System.The current legal response to domestic violence is excessively focused on physical violence and fails to…
Meg Wolitzer's new book, The Interestings, was named a "best book of 2013" by Entertainment Weekly, Time, and the Chicago Tribune. In 1974 six teenagers at a summer arts camp become inseparable, and they…
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak talks about her book, I Kiss Your Hands Many Times: Hearts, Souls, and Wars in Hungary.Marianne Szegedy-Maszak's parents, Hanna and Aladar, met and fell in love in Budapest in 1940…
"Inspira" features playwright/performer Amanda Kemp and violinist Michael Jamanis in a production which blends African American history and poetry to introduce intergenerational audiences to the beauty…
In Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, Terry Teachout reveals the many layers of a man as unique and complex as the music he created. Drawing on candid unpublished interviews with Ellington, revealing oral-history…
A former National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Brian Teare is the recipient of poetry fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the American Antiquarian Society. He…
In his stunning forty-year career as a premier negotiator in the worlds of law, sports, business, and politics, Ron Shapiro has found that if there is a single key to a successful outcome, it is also the…
Four women writers discuss the intersection of place, time and culture in literature and in the lives of women. The conversation will be moderated by Linda A. Duggins of Hachette Book Group.Misty Copeland…
Activities include looking at poems by professional poets which could stand to lose some lines, changing a word or two, and then applying the same principle to a poem of your own.Presented by Clarinda…
Marisela Gomez talks about her book, Race, Class, Power, and Organizing in East Baltimore, in which she examines the historical and current practices of rebuilding abandoned and disinvested communities…
Activities discussed during this poetry event include reading and discussing examples of ekphrastic poems (poems about other works of art).Presented by Clarinda Harriss, Professor Emerita of English at…
Activities discussed during this poetry event include picturing an actual family photo in your mind.Presented by Clarinda Harriss, Professor Emerita of English at Towson University.
John Rizzo talks about his new book, Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA.Company Man is John Rizzo's insider memoir of his career at the CIA under eleven CIA directors and seven…
Janis Kearney's book, Daisy: Between a Rock and a Hard Place, chronicles the life of civil rights legend Daisy Gatson Bates, including her role in the 1957 Little Rock Central High School integration crisis…
Dr. Dolen Perkins-Valdez talks about Twelve Years a Slave, the story of Solomon Northup.Twelve Years a Slave, published in 1853 and the inspiration for the 2013 motion picture, tells the story of a free-born…
Kaid Benfield talks about his new book, People Habitat: 25 Ways to Think about Greener, Healthier Cities.With over 80 percent of Americans now living in cities and suburbs, getting our communities right…
Sarah Arvio’snight thoughts: 70 dream poems & notes from an analysis(Knopf 2013) is a hybrid book: poetry, memoir and essay. Her earlier books areVisits from the SeventhandSono: cantos(Knopf, 2002…
Jen Michalski talks about her new book, The Tide King.The Tide King won the 2012 Big Moose Prize. She is the author of two collections of fiction, From Here and Close Encounters, and a collection of novellas…
The Pratt Library's annual King Commemorative Lecture, presented by Dr. Jamal Harrison Bryant.Dr. Bryant, founder and leader of Baltimore's Empowerment Temple Church, is a third generation preacher with…
Wally Lamb's new novel is a richly-layered exploration of a complicated family navigating dramatic changes in the present as it struggles to make sense of a thorny past. Epic in scope, yet intimate in…
Vocalist Pia Leinonen and guitarist Joni Tiala combine the rich tradition of Finnish folksong with a "retro" sensibility, creating a magical acoustic experience.
James Carville and Mary Matalin talk about their new book, Love & War: Twenty Years, Three Presidents, Two Daughters and One Louisiana Home.Twenty years after their bestselling All's Fair: Love, War…
Baltimore authors Rafael Alvarez and Dean Bartoli Smith talk about the writing life in Baltimore and their new books.Rafael Alvarez' new collection of Baltimore stories, Tales from the Holy Land, charts…
In a compelling tale of unsolved murder and Internet prostitution, award-winning investigative reporter Robert Kolker delivers a haunting and humanizing account of the true-life search for a serial killer…
As an urban folk art, painted screens flourished in Baltimore. In her new book, Elaine Eff looks at this iconic Baltimore tradition through the words and images of dozens of self-taught artists. Many screen…
Reginald Harris of Poets House in New York hosts this annual reading by Cave Canem poets Kyle G. Dargan and Amber Flora Thomas.Kyle Dargan is the author of three collections of poetry, Logorrhea Dementia…
From sweet contemporary to sizzling paranormal romance, modern romance heroines are just as likely to save the world as heroes. Join Laura Kaye, Stephanie Draven, Christie Barth, Lea Nolan and Eliza Knight…
Whether it's blues or Bach, ragtime or randy, hillbilly or hot, Ray Kamalay has built an historic repertoire of music that is both intriguing and fun. Kamalay, a professional musician for more than 35…
After the publication of the bestselling Letters to a Young Brother, Hill Harper received many letters from inmates looking for a connection with a successful role model. His new book, Letters to an Incarcerated…
Set in Baltimore, Jubi Stone tells the story of nineteen-year-old Jubilee, a long-awaited gift to her now aging parents, James and Esther Stone. By the time she reaches her teens, however, Jubi is on a…
Elizabeth Spires is the author of six poetry collections: Globe, Swan’s Island, Annonciade, Worldling, Now the Green Blade Rises, and The Wave-Maker. She has also written six books for children, including…
In the fall of 1944, an American bomber carrying eleven men vanished over the Pacific islands. According to mission reports, the plane when down in shallow water, but investigators could not find the wreckage…
The 1920s in New York City was a time of freedom, experimentation, and passion -- with Harlem at the epicenter. White men could go uptown to see jazz and modern dance, but women who embraced black culture…
Woman Lawyer tells the story of Clara Foltz, the first woman admitted to the California Bar. Famous in her time as a jury lawyer, public intellectual, leader of the women's movement, inventor of the role…
Hailey Leithauser's book, Swoop (Graywolf, 2013), was the winner of the Poetry Foundation's 2012 Emily Dickinson First Book Award and was named one of the top ten poetry titles of fall 2013 by Publishers…
Learn About Recent Government Data Collection Programs and the Surrounding Legal IssuesFree Presentation by The Washington Post's James McLaughlin (deputy general counsel) & Jeff Leen (investigations…
As Tip O'Neill's former chief of staff, Chris Matthews is uniquely qualified to write this firsthand, one-of-a-kind story of the friendship between President Ronald Reagan and the Speaker of the House…
Bestselling author Simon Winchester chronicles how our disparate union of states came together as the American nation that exists today. The Men Who United the States follows the footsteps of America's…
Reginald F. Lewis became the CEO of a billion dollar conglomerate, TLC Beatrice, while in his forties. What prepared him for his role as one of the world's most respected executives? Lin Hart grew up with…
Soul Train, Black College Football, and Their Part in the Civil Rights Struggle Award-winning journalist Ericka Blount Danois is the author of Love, Peace, and Soul: Behind the Scenes of America's Favorite…
Front Stoops in the Fifties tells the story of some of Baltimore's most famous icons from the "decade of conformity," including Jerry Leiber, Nancy Pelosi, Thurgood Marshall, and Barry Levinson. Michael…
Cold-case detective Parker McCall has spent 15 years trying to solve his brother's murder. Now a chance photo of the killer in the newspaper sets him hard on the woman's trail. A former teenaged runaway…
Dr. Carl Hart shares his story of growing up in one of Miami's toughest neighborhoods and how it led him to his groundbreaking work in drug addiction. As a youth, Carl Hart studied just enough to stay…
Bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk talks about his new book, Doomed, the sequel to Damned. Madison Spencer, the liveliest and snarkiest dead girl in the universe, continues the afterlife adventure begun…
Historian Susan Zuccotti tells the story of Père Marie-Benoît, a courageous French Capuchin priest who risked everything to hide Jews in France and Italy during the Holocaust. From monasteries first…
Men and women disappeared, were arrested, imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, put on trial, convicted, and sentenced to forced labor camps in Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1989. Czech Political Prisoners…
For those new to proposal writing, this class will cover: how the proposal fits into the overall grant seeking process; what to include in a standard proposal to a foundation; tips for making each section…
In World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements, filmmaker Chris Farina tells how John Hunter created the "World Peace Game" for his students in Richmond, Virginia. The game teaches conflict resolution…
Joseph Patrick Kennedy, patriarch of America's greatest political dynasty, is widely remembered as an indomitable, elusive, fatally flawed figure. In The Patriarch, historian David Nasaw reveals a man…
October 1 marked the first day Marylanders could sign up for health insurance through the Maryland Health Connection, a creation of President Obama's health reform initiative. To learn more about the changes…
Are you new to fundraising and want to learn how the funding research process works, and what tools and resources are available? In this class we cover: what you need to have in place before you seek a…
For more than 25 years, Jean Thompson has been a private history scavenger and detective, pursuing what she calls "pieces of The Dream.""The Dream," as articulated by noted bibliophiles, historians and…
How do restaurant workers live on some of the lowest wages in America? And how do poor working conditions -- discriminatory labor practices, exploitation, and unsanitary kitchens -- affect the meals that…
A daughter of American royalty, Eileen Rockefeller is the first woman in the Rockefeller family to write a memoir of growing up with fame and fortune and finding her own voice within its storied history…
Joanna Pearson's first book of poetry, Oldest Mortal Myth (2012), was chosen by Marilyn Nelson for the 2012 Donald Justice Prize. Her poems have appeared in various publications, including Best New Poets…
Thomas Glave has been admired for his unique style and exploration of taboo, politically volatile topics. The award-winning author's new collection, Among the Bloodpeople, contains all the power and daring…
Grammy-nominated lutenist Ronn McFarlane is joined by flutist Mindy Rosenfeld, a founding member of the Baltimore Consort, in a concert featuring period flutes, lutes, fife, harp, and bagpipes.
Allison Leotta and Sujata Massey talk about the writing life and read from their new books. Former federal prosecutor Allison Leotta's third novel, Speak of the Devil, features her series heroine, sex-crimes…
MK Asante was born in Zimbabwe to American parents. A little more than a decade later, he found himself alone in North Philadelphia -- his mother in a mental hospital, his father gone, his older brother…
Jasmine Hogan and Peggy Houng, students of Professor Ruth Inglefield at the Peabody Institute of Music, perform in a monthly recital in the Fine Arts & Music Department. Works by J.S. Bach, Franz…
A Genealogy Circle Fall ProgramBest practices for preserving paper-based materials and objects: books, paper documents, photographs and more. Topics will include: proper storage and handling methods/techniques…
Just Tell Me I Can't: How Jamie Moyer Defied the Radar Gun and Defeated Time is pitcher Jamie Moyer's memoir, (written with Larry Platt). Longtime baseball fans have known Jamie Moyer's name for more than…
The DaVinci Code for the Lincoln assassination, David O. Stewart's debut novel explores the dark forces behind the John Wilkes Booth conspiracy in an attempt to solve one of the most intriguing puzzles…
The 2013 Mencken Memorial Lecture - "An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted and the Miracle Drug Cocaine (with a guest appearance by H. L. Mencken," presented by Dr. Howard Markel. Dr…
Piotr Gwiazda has published two books of poetry, Messages (2012) and Gagarin Street (2005), as well as a critical study, James Merrill and W.H. Auden: Homosexuality and Poetic Influence (2007). His translation…
As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are fleeing the country if they can. Ifemelu goes to America to study…
Writing for Jet and Ebony for 53 years, longer than any other journalist, Washington bureau chief Simeon Booker was on the front lines of virtually every major event of the civil r4ights movement. In Shocking…
Daniel James Brown tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions…
In 2013, in a nationally televised contest, 14-year-old Citoyen "City" Coldson is asked to use the word "niggardly" in a sentence. He has a meltdown and storms off, and the video of his outburst goes viral…
Jessica Anya Blau's new novel, The Wonder Bread Summer, tells the story of 20-year-old Allie Dodgson who's working part-time in a dress shop which turns out to be a front for a dangerous drug-dealing business…
"When my son came out to me, I was deeply fearful that he could never be happy, and I felt profound sorrow."Thus began one woman's extraordinary, silence-breaking journey. Catherine Tuerk set out to educate…
Rick Atkinson is the reigning chronicler of World War II. More than 15 years ago he set out to write the "Liberation Trilogy," the most comprehensive story of the Allied Forces in Europe and North Africa…
Join us for a conversation with two leading experts on race and community-police partnerships. Baltimore's own Lieutenant Colonel Melvin Russell and national scholar Dr. Phillip Goff will address some…
Passager Journal, based in Baltimore, has been publishing writing by older authors for over two decades. Editors Mary Azrael and Kendra Kopelke host an evening of readings by poets whose work they’ve…
When Walter Mosley burst onto the literary scene in 1990 with his first Easy Rawlins mystery, Devil in a Blue Dress, he captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of readers. Eleven books later, Easy…
Freeman takes place in the first few months following the Confederate surrender and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Sam, a runaway slave who once worked for the Union Army, decides to leave his safe…
John Shea and Piper Watson from the Station North Tool Library talk about their experience developing the Tool Library over the course of a year - the doors now having been open for two months. They…
In 2000, the Pentagon had fewer than 50 aerial drones; ten years later, it had nearly 7,500. Drones are already a billion business in the U.S. alone; the U.S. Air Force now trains more drone "pilots…
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Marian House, a traveling exhibition profiles Marian House alumnae and their remarkable journeys from dependence to independence.Accompanying Community Dialogue…
The ensemble plays an original arrangement by Peabody faculty member Phillip Kolker of the Quartet in d minor by Georg Phillipp Telemann. Also on the program are several arrangements of music by the…
When the U.S. inaugurated its first African American president in 2009, many wondered if the country had finally become a post-racial society. In Ghosts of Jim Crow, F. Michael Higginbotham argues that…
On the program are the quintet for winds Op. 43 by Carl Nielson and Samuel Barber's "Summer Music" woodwind quintet.
Judges of the Poetry Contest join the finalists for this poetry reading, hosted by Laura Shovan, editor of Little Patuxent Review, and by Pratt librarians.Lori Powell is our 2013 Contest winner. Steven…
Baltimore native and Peabody graduate student Solomon Eichner performs a program of piano music by Beethoven, Liszt and Prokofiev.
The world is facing an unprecedented crisis of resource depletion -- a crisis that encompasses shortages of oil and coal, copper and cobalt, water and arable land. With all the earth's accessible areas…
The Old Songs group has been translating archaic Greek poetry and putting it to old-time American folk and blues music since 2002. They have released CDs of versions of the poetry of Sappho, Archilochus…
Jamal Joseph discusses his memoir, Panther Baby. In the 1960s, he exhorted students at Columbia University to burn their college to the ground. Today, he’s chair of Columbia's School of the Arts film…
Jen Michalski is author of the novel The Tide King, winner of the 2012 Big Moose Prize, the short story collections From Hereand Close Encounters, and the novella collection Could You Be With Her…
Afaa Michael Weaver is the author of eleven previous poetry collections, including Timber and Prayer: The Indian Pond Poems,My Father’s Geography, and The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005.…
Tim Wendel’s books include Summer of ’68, High Heat, Red Rain, and Castro’s Curveball. A writer-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University, his stories have appeared in The New York Times, The…
George Saunders is the author of three collections of short stories: the bestselling Pastoralia, set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape; CivilWarLand in Bad…
Poets laureate Stanley Plumly of Maryland and Dick Allen of Connecticut read their latest work. Plumly is the author of Orphan Hours and is recipient of the 2010 John William Corrington Award for Lifetime…
Letters About Literature is a national writing contest for students in grades 4 to 10 sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. The program encourages young readers to write to the…
Fiscal sponsorship allows a nonprofit organization (the “fiscal sponsor”) to provide administrative services, access to 501 (c)(3) status and capacity building support for groups or individuals engaged…
Actions have consequences -- and the ability to learn from them revolutionized life on earth. While it's easy enough to see that consequences are important, few have heard there's a science of consequences…
Inextricably connected to issues of autonomy, privacy, and sexuality, the abortion debate remains home base for the culture wars in America. Yet, as Sarah Erdreich argues in Generation Roe, there is more…
In this overview of health and healing in early America, Elaine G. Breslaw describes the evolution of public health crises and solutions. Breslaw examines "ethnic borrowings" of early American medicine…
How can multiculturalism go wrong? Through extensive interviews conducted in a large Midwestern school district, Antonia Randolph explores how teachers perceive students from diverse racial and ethnic…
The first book to investigate Jane Austen's popular significance today, Everybody's Jane considers why Austen matters to amateur readers, how they make use of her novels, what they gain from visiting places…
In 1961 President Eisenhower warned Americans about the dangers of a "military industrial complex." Today, as more and more Americans fall into poverty and the global economy spirals downward, the U.S…
Marian Anderson (1897–1993) was an African American singer who overcame both poverty and the blatant racism of her day to become an international opera star. She may be best remembered now for her historic…
Kweku Sai is dead. A renowned surgeon and failed husband, he succumbs suddenly outside his home in suburban Accra. The news of Kweku's death sends a ripple around the world, bringing together the family…
Is relativity Jewish? The Nazis denigrated Albert Einstein's revolutionary theory by calling it "Jewish science," a charge typical of the ideological excesses of Hitler and his followers. Philosopher of…
This collection of essays by black scholars and activists, edited by Jared Ball and Todd Burroughs, is a critical response to Manning Marable's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention…
A panel of four women writers from across the globe discusses the intersection of place, time and culture in literature and in the lives of women. The conversation will be moderated by Linda A. Duggins…
In The Secret Financial Life of Food, Kara Newman reveals the economic pathways that connect food to consumer, unlocking the mysteries behind culinary trends, grocery pricing, and restaurant dining. Kara…
Clarinda Harriss is a professor emerita of English at Towson University, where she taught poetry, editing, and modern literature for decades, during one of which she was the Chair of English. Her most…
In 1952, the skies over Washington, D.C. were saturated with flying saucers. Aerial dog fights between United States Air Force pilots and these unknown invaders were tracked by commercial and military…
Sonia Sotomayor was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2009. My Beloved World is the story of her life before she became the first Hispanic appointed to the court: her childhood in a Bronx housing project…
Isaac Rice, a teenaged slave, escapes from a South Carolina rice plantation and faces incredible hardships and danger as he travels westward. First Dark is an epic tale of a young man who pursues respect…
Two well-known authors read and talk about their novels, newly published by Akashic Books. Bernice McFadden's classic novel, Nowhere Is a Place, isabout a young woman's journey of self-discovery and…
Shirley Sherrod, former U.S.D.A. Georgia State Director of Rural Development, was fired from her job in July, 2010, after a conservative blogger published clips from a speech she had made several months…
New York actor and editor Charles Reese brings famed American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin to life. Reese will perform selected excerpts from the book which he edited, James Baldwin…
Wenonah Hauter is executive director of Food & Water Watch, a watchdog organization focused on corporate and government accountability as it relates to food, water and fishing. She also runs an organic…
Adam Robinson is the author of Say Poem and Adam Robison and Other Poems, which was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award. He is the founding editor of Publishing Genius, a small press that focuses…
At twenty-three, Emily Raboteau traveled to Israel to visit a childhood friend who'd found a place to belong. As a biracial American woman, Raboteau couldn't say the same for herself. After meeting black…
PNC Bank is making many efforts to provide small business owners and those interested in starting a small business with information on how to do so successfully.This panel discussion was hosted by Ramsey…
A renowned collector of Civil War photographs and a prodigious researcher, Ronald Coddington combines compelling archival images with biographical stories that reveal the human side of the war. During…
Sue Ellen Thompson is the author of four books of poetry, most recently The Golden Hour, and the editor of The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. In 2010 she received the Maryland…
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch has selected eighteen essential moments from the Civil Rights movement as presented in his "America in the King Years" trilogy and has written new introductions…
Thaddeus Logan is a former Baltimore City policeman and vice detective turned cab driver. Logan writes about his fares and the city he serves with great insight and sensitivity, and he has a particular…
George Leary was a youth counselor, surrounded by kids all day, and yet he failed to see that his own child was using and abusing drugs. After facing his denial, fear and grief, he made it his purpose…
Everyone is guilty of playing the blame game. It's satisfying and easy to do. If we despise our work, we can blame our manager or even our short-sighted organization for its inability to recognize our…
In Finnish mythology, Vellamo is the goddess of the sea. Based in Vaasa, on the western coast of Finland, the folk duo Vellamo crosses the sea to entertain American audiences. Vocalist Pia Leinonen and…
In Twilight of the Elites, Chris Hayes outlines the effects, and then the cause, of America's crisis of authority, and calls for a sweeping overhaul of the social order. Over the last decade, America has…
The primary purpose of the Constitution is to limit Congress. There is no separation of church and state. The Second Amendment allows citizens to make threats against the government. These are a few of…
Craig Symonds, professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, presents a masterful history of the Civil War navies, both Union and Confederate, and places them within the broader context of the…
Thurgood Marshall was the most important American lawyer of the 20th century: he transformed the nation's legal landscape by challenging racial segregation; he won 29 of 33 cases before the U.S. Supreme…
Antero Pietila's landmark book, Not In My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City(2010), tells the story of how discrimination molded housing patterns in the Baltimore area, from Baltimore's…
This annual Cave Canem poetry reading at the Pratt features Kwame Dawes and Cave Canem fellows Mahogany L. Brown, Raina Fields, Niki Herd, Brandon D. Johnson, Bettina Judd, and Kateema Lee. Hosted by Reginald…
Charles Heller's early childhood in Czechoslovakia was idyllic until, when he was three, Germany occupied his country. In his memoir, Heller narrates his family's story during those hellish years. Son…
In High Schools, Race, and America's Future, Lawrence Blum offers a lively account of a rigorous high school course on race and racism. Set in a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse high school…
A Night of Mystery with Elizabeth George, author of Inspector Lynley Mysteries... as seen on PBS. Part of the Pratt Presents... a fundraiser for child and teen literacy efforts.
Environmentalist Eric Rutkow presents a remarkable and thoroughly researched book about how trees have shaped American history, and in turn how forests have been shaped by history,. He shows that trees…
Linda Pastan has written over 13 books, including the recent poetry collections The Last Uncle, Queen of a Rainy Country, and Traveling Light. She has received the Dylan Thomas award, a Pushcart Prize…
For more than two centuries, Americans have debated the concept of freedom of religion. Did the Founding Fathers intend to create a Christian nation, or a government based on total exclusion of religion…
Dr. Robert A. Hill is professor emeritus of history at UCLA and director of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project. He is internationally recognized as a leading authority…
Rob Kasper, former Baltimore Sun reporter and columnist, has produced a hoppy, refreshing account of the history of brewing in Baltimore, from ancient craft brewers in the 18th century, through the beer…
Ellen Cassedy's longing to recover the Yiddish she'd lost with her mother's death led her to Lithuania, once the "Jerusalem of the North." What began as a personal journey broadened into a larger exploration…
The winners of the Baltimore City Senior Citizens Poetry Contest 2012, sponsored by the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks, are: Barbara Morrison, first place; Helen Szymkowiak, second place…
Launched by CityLit Project in 2010, CityLit Press publishes quality books often overlooked by larger publishers due to their regional focus or literary nature. In two years, the press has released five…
In a voice caught somewhere between speech and singing, ‘moonstruck’ Pierrot, the sad, lovelorn clown, takes a darkly comic journey through music colored by the smoky decadence of Berlin cabarets.…
Kate and Zoe are British Olympic cyclists and friends. Kate's family duties keep her away from the 2004 Olympics in Athens as Zoe goes for the gold. Fast forward to 2012, as Kate and Zoe train for their…
The relationship between Barack Obama's White House and John Roberts' Supreme Court has been rocky from the start, when Chief Justice Roberts flubbed the Oath of Office at President Obama's inauguration…
According to Harold Kwalwasser, former general counsel of the Los Angeles Unified School District, it is the parents' duty to drive school reform. Parents who participate in their children's school activities…
Tuerk House, Baltimore's groundbreaking drug and alcohol rehab center, opened in 1970 after Maryland reclassified alcoholism from a criminal offense to a disease. In The Tuerk House, author and former…
What we don't know can hurt us and others -- and unconscious bias along with racial anxiety can unwittingly affect our responses and behavior. The examples revealed in provocative new research may surprise…
Millions of people got their introduction to Baltimore by watching "The Wire." The show examined some very difficult urban problems. For example, did Omar Little die of lead poisoning? Can children like…
The 2012 Mencken Memorial Lecture - "The Scopes Trial: How the Letter Kills," presented by Richard J. Schrader, professor emeritus of English, Boston College. Dr. Schrader taught at Princeton University…
The poets will perform and join with the audience in a discussion of the differences and commonalities between poems made for the page and poems performed on the stage.Performance poet, writer, percussionist…
Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, the brash cop from Tana French's Faithful Place, is the Dublin murder squad's top detective -- and that's what puts the biggest case of the year into his hands. On one of the half-built…
More than five million young adults in the U.S. have only a high school education and are facing an "opportunity divide" that strands motivated workers outside the economic mainstream. In 2000, Gerald…
In American Tapestry, Rachel Swarns unearths the hidden story of First Lady Michelle Obama's multiracial ancestors, a history that she herself did not know. It traces the black, white and multiracial forebears…
The Harcourts of Chevy Chase, Maryland, are a respectable middle class, middle-aged, mixed-race couple with four marriageable daughters. One of the daughters, Elizabeth (Bliss) moves back home in the aftermath…
Rachel Hennick tells the story of her father, Bill Hennick, a firefighter and paramedic in Baltimore, a city with the busiest fire stations in the U.S. As a child, Bill survives a terrible fire and later…
On January 1, 2009, Maggie and John Anderson, two African American professionals living in the Chicago suburbs, embarked on a year-long public pledge to "buy black." They thought that by taking a stand…
When Barack Obama took office, he brought with him a new group of foreign policy advisers intent on carving out a new global role for America in the wake of the Bush administration's war in Iraq. James…
Tom Wilber has spent years interviewing key players and local residents on all sides of the Marcellus Shale issue. Running from southern West Virginia through eastern Ohio, across central and northeast…
Syndicated columnist and political cartoonist Ted Rall revisits the rapid rise and dizzying fall of Barack Obama, and the emergence of the Tea Party and Occupy movements, and draws a startling conclusion…
Nikki Giovanni and Afaa Michael Weaver head a star-studded lineup of poets and writers reading and remembering Lucille Clifton on the 75th anniversary of her birth; readers include Melvin Brown, Sarah…
Kendra Kopelke and Mary Azrael are co-editors of Passager journal, now in its 22nd year, and Passager Books, a press dedicated to older writers. They have published books by individual authors and co-edited…
As a prelude to the Star-Spangled Sailabration, an international parade of ships sailing into Baltimore's Inner Harbor June 13 - 19, David Taylor talks about the U.S. Navy's official commemorative book…
Better Than Alright, an innovative collaboration with Essence and Ledisi in her writing debut, is a collection of Ledisi's personal photos, quotes, lyrics and richly detailed stories. Beginning with her…
When Sargent "Sarge" Shriver, founder of the Peace Corps and architect of President Johnson's War on Poverty , died in 2011, thousands of tributes poured in from friends and strangers around the world…
The first of three volumnes of The Graphic Canon is a collection of the world's great literature interpreted by artists and illustrators including R. Crumb, Will Eisner, Molly Crabapple, and Gareth Hinds…
Armed with only early boyhood memories, Lawrence P. Jackson begins his quest by setting out from his home in Baltimore for Pittsylvania County, Virginia, to try to find his late grandfather's old home…
We kicked off the 2012 Adult Summer Reading Program by helping you find good reads this summer. Join us for our first live, online "What should I read next?" session with Pratt librarians.
Raised by a pro-black, pan-Afrikan single mother during the crack years of 1980s Washington, DC, and educated at Sidwell Friends School and Harvard University, Baratunde Thurston has over 30 years' experience…
Millions of readers and film-goers around the world have been thrilled by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the Stieg Larsson trilogy. In a series of short vignettes, Eva Gabrielsson, Larsson's life…
Launched in 2006, this free community writing workshop meets weekly at the Reentry Center in the Northwest Career Center. Baltimore writers and teachers from Coppin State, Johns Hopkins, Loyola, MICA…
In this memoir, Richard O'Mara, a former reporter, columnist, foreign correspondent and editor for the Baltimore Sun, writes about growing up in Philadelphia during the Great Depression. "Reading these…
The Jazz Exponents, a saxophone quartet, perform music from a real ‘golden age’ in jazz history, with tunes by greats like Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Horace Silver.
Lia Purpura is the author of seven collections of essays, poems and translations, most recently Rough Likeness. Her essays are full of joy in the act of intense observation; they're also deliciously subversive…
In her debut novel, Meredith Goldstein tells the story of five singles at a friend's lavish wedding on the Chesapeake Bay. Their entertaining trials of heartbreak, loneliness, and relationship disasters…
Before the age of 12, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's life was shaken by the Nazi invasion of her native Prague, World War II, fascism, and the onset of the Cold War. Albright recounts her…
Over Time is as unconventional and wide-ranging as Frank Deford's remarkable career. Fresh out of Princeton in 1962, Deford joined Sports Illustrated. They called him "the Kid," and he made his reputation…
Facilitated by: Anthony McCarthyThe Anthony McCarthy Show is a one-stop show for the in-depth interviews and information on breaking news, politics, public policy, arts, and culture. The key difference…
Mary Jo Salter was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and grew up in Detroit and Baltimore. She is Andrew W. Mellon Professor and Co-Chair of The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. Her six volumes…
On August 28, 1963, as Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a civil rights victory occurred in Baltimore. Segregation finally ended at Gwynn…
Listen to scrumptious stories about food from the folk and fairy tale tradition.
Poet, professor, lecturer on black culture and literature, women's liberation, peace and racial justice, Sonia Sanchez is the author of more than 18 books. These include: Homecoming; Wounded in the House…
Record unemployment and rampant corporate greed, empty houses but homeless families, dwindling opportunities in a paralyzed nation -- these are the realities of America, land of the free and home of the…
Best remembered for his landscape architecture, from New York's Central Park to Boston's Emerald Necklace to Stanford University's campus, Olmsted was also a Civil War hero, fervent abolitionist, crusading…
Session ThreeReading and writing poems that borrow their form and/or subject areas from other countries, including non-Western countries: (from Japan, haiku; from France, villanelles; from Italy, sestinas…
Session TwoReading and discussing blank verse, a la Shakespeare (and many contemporary poets); reading and writing sonnets (sure, sonnets have been around since the Renaissance, but they're still alive…
Session OneReading and writing poems that make strong use of sounds to carry the meaning: luscious-, funny-, or ugly-sounding words; rhythms that tell the tale; echoes (rhyme, repetition). The Instructor…
Deep within the forest green, in a magical and secret place, the gentle, green dragon resides! Come hear dragon tales as part of our Fairy Tale Festival.
Navigating the 1940 Census, an examination of the 1940 count, will introduce users to the data that will be released on April 2, 2012.Thomas MacEntee brings his considerable knowledge and experiences to…
Justin Jones-Fosu's book, Finding Your Glasses: Revealing and Achieving Authentic Success, is a practical guide to help you find your prescription for success in life. Find out if you are really living…
In her new book, Fran Allen McKinney shares the inspirational, encouraging, and motivating sayings she has authored and collected over the years. "Life comes at you from every angle, with any issue, for…
In 1916 Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, childhood friends and Smith College graduates, left their affluent lives in Auburn, New York, and went off to teach the children of homesteaders in a remote…
Equal parts investigative legal history and compelling detective tale, Flagrant Conduct is the still-untold story of Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark Supreme Court decision that promises to be the Brown…
Jane Satterfield is the author of two poetry collections: Assignation at Vanishing Point and Shepherdess with an Automatic. Among her awards are an N.E.A. Fellowship and the Faulkner Society Gold Medal…
Undoubtedly the most influential advocate for birth control even before the term existed, Margaret Sanger ignited a movement that has shaped our society to this day.Her views on reproductive rights have…
In 2008 Peggielene Bartels received a call from a cousin in Ghana: her uncle had died, and Peggielene was now the King of Otuam, a fishing village with 7,000 residents. King Peggy chronicles the astonishing…
A panel of four women writers from across the globe discusses the intersection of place, time and culture in literature and in the lives of women. The conversation will be moderated by Linda A. Duggins…
Enjoy the sounds of music from long, long ago, as talented young musicians perform works from the medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras on faithful reproductions of period instruments.
What was he like? Jack Kennedy said that the reason people read biographies was to answer that question. Chris Matthews has devoted years studying the life of Jack Kennedy. to find out what he was like…
Grocery prices and the forsaken foods at the back of your refrigerator seem to increase weekly. After reading American Wasteland, you will never look at your shopping list, refrigerator, plate or wallet…
The cross and the lynching tree are the two most emotionally charged symbols in the history of the African American community. In this powerful new work, theologian James H. Cone explores these symbols…
For a century Harlem has been celebrated as the capital of black America, a thriving center of cultural achievement and political action. At a crucial moment in Harlem's history, as gentrification encroaches…
In Out of Left Field, Rebecca Alpert explores how Jewish sports entrepreneurs, political radicals, and a team of black Jews from Belleville, Virginia called the Belleville Grays -- the only Jewish team…
With Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), Phillis Wheatley became the first English-speaking person of African descent to publish a book and only the second woman -- of any race or background…
In Delirium, Nancy L. Cohen tells the story of a little-known shadow movement that has fueled America's political wars for 40 years. She traces our current political crisis back to the rise of a well-organized…
A family's recently discovered correspondence provides the inspiration for this fascinating and deeply moving account of Jewish family life before, during and after the Holocaust. Rebecca Boehling and…
The first of two novels based on the slave revolt led by Nat Turner, Part One: The Witnesses is a fact-based epic that discredits the primary historical source document, The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831)…
In a love letter to a vanished way of life, Robert Kanigel tells the story of the Great Blasket Island off the west coast of Ireland, notable during the early 20th century for the vivid communal life of…
Ron and his girlfriend Jill bought an old condemned fraternity house in Baltimore and gave it new life, despite the fact that neither of them knew anything about home renovation. Their realtor, friends…
Clarinda Harriss is a professor emerita of English at Towson University whose poems and short fiction are widely anthologized. Her most recent books are Air Travel, Mortmain, and Dirty Blue Voice. She…
When Fortune, a slave, died in 1798, his owner, Dr. Porter, dissected his body and preserved the skeleton. Fortune's bones remained in the doctor's family until they were given to the Mattatuck Museum…
Dedicated to the promotion of new music through engaging and unique performances, the AM/PM quartet presents premieres and pieces by young composers alongside established works in contemporary music. The…
Meet the authors of Health First! The Black Woman's Wellness Guide: Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, president and CEO, Black Women's Health Imperative, and Hilary Beard, award-winning health journalist.Health First!…
Inspired by an all-night session of the video game "Guitar Hero," Gary Marcus devotes himself to mastering the actual guitar. Guitar Zero chronicles Marcus' journey from Suzuki classes to meeting with…
On April 19, 1861, the first blood of the Civil War was spilled in the streets of Baltimore. En route to Camden Station, Union forces were confronted by angry Southern sympathizers. At Pratt Street the…
In his new book, Dr. King-Meadows finds that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is much weaker than previously thought and that it often enables rather than prevents the disenfranchisement of minorities. The…
Donna Britt has always been surrounded by men -- her father, three brothers, two husbands, three sons, countless male friends. She learned to give to them at an early age. After her beloved brother Darrell's…
In Berlin after World War I, fascination with the occult was everywhere as people struggled to escape the grim reality of their lives. In the early 1930s, the most famous mentalist in the German capital…
During a dream, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. meets actor Gregory Gibson Kenney at the Lincoln Memorial. Dr. King shares four speeches, how he wishes to be remembered, and how fear is no longer a factor…
The man widely hailed as "the dean of moderators" looks at more than 40 years of televised political debate in the United States. Drawing on his own moderating experience, in-depth interviews with the…
Valzhyna Mort was born in Minsk, Belarus, and moved to the United States in 2005. She is the author of Factory of Tears and Collected Body. Most recently, she has received the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry…
Singer, songwriter, and arranger Adam Kolbe Jones is active in the Baltimore, Washington, and Minneapolis/St. Paul areas. His largely acoustic folk rock debut album, “Ladies and Gentleplums,” was released…
Learn all about the French secrets to joie de vivre. Jamie Cat Callan traveled all over France, interviewing hundreds of women to find their secrets to living a well-balanced life, enjoying more with less…
As part of the Pratt Library's Mencken Day, author, journalist and literary critic Christopher Hitchens presented the 2006 Mencken Memorial Lecture at the Central Library of the Enoch Pratt Free Library…
An ambassador and special envoy on Afghanistan (1989 - 1992), Peter Tomsen developed close relationships with Afghan leaders, including President Hamid Karzai and Ahmad Shah Masood, and has dealt with…
Talking About Race, an ongoing series co-sponsored by the Open Society Institute-Baltimore and the Pratt Library Touré's newest provocative book, Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black…
Prize-winning concert pianist, and Baltimore native, Solomon Eichner is rapidly emerging as a versatile young artist, equally at home with solo repertoire and chamber music. A 2011 graduate of the Manhattan…
Iain Haley Pollock is the author of Spit Back A Boy, winner of the 2010 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, selected by Elizabeth Alexander. Pollock teaches English at Chestnut Hill Academy.(www.ugapress.org/index…
Harriet Lynn, local theater and sports activist, will moderate a discussion with African-American tennis pioneers, Leon Bowser, Joseph Parham, Sr. and Jean Powell. This discussion follows the documentary…
Ella's Umbrella pairs the mesmerizing voice of jazz singer and songwriter, Nita Paul, with the joyful music-making of guitarist and singer, Paul Iwancio. With original songs on topics like hope, acceptance…
Jeremiah Baker uses saxophone to bridge the gap between the worlds of popular and classical music. Already the winner of numerous prizes and competitions, he is now a doctoral candidate at the Peabody…
American Emperor traces Burr from the threshold of the presidency in the contested election of 1800, through his duel with Alexander Hamilton, and then across the American West. A daring and perhaps…
Between its founding in 1966 and its formal end in 1980, the Black Panther Party blazed a distinctive trail in American political culture. In Body and Soul, Alondra Nelson chronicles the Black Panther…
Mamie "Peanut" Johnson joins author Michelle Green for this special program. "She looks the batter in the eye, stretches her 5'2" frame and pops a surefire, windup pitch smack dab over the plate -- one…
After sifting through hundreds of documents including articles from the leading black weeklies, the papers of pivotal figures such as Effa Manley, Branch Rickey, and Jackie Robinson, and interviews with…
Larry Doyle is one funny guy. Deliriously Happy is his new collection of short humor writing covering everything from childhood to evil genius, pets to parenthood, Mark Twain to Twitter. A former writer…
Lesa Cline-Ransome's spirited, folksy narrative tells the story of the colorful life of Leroy "Satchel" Paige, and her husband James Ransome illustrates the text with boldly colored paintings. After just…
Neil Lanctot teaches modern American history at the University of Delaware. Recipient of the Seymour Medal from the Society for American Baseball Research, he is the author of Negro League Baseball: The…
Hear tales from an American storyteller. Larry McMurty is the 2011 Pratt Lifetime Literacy Achievement Award Recipient.
Lucia Greenhouse grew up in an affluent and loving family, but her parents never took her to a doctor or hospital, not even when she got chicken pox or was knocked unconscious in a bicycle accident. As…
Across the history of black baseball, ball players and musicians played off each other in a lifetime mutual admiration and inspiration society. They were constantly meeting on their travels, crossing paths…
Through extensive research and hundreds of interviews with Negro Leaguers, Major Leaguers, family and friends. Larry Tye has tracked down the truth about Satchel Paige, the majestic and enigmatic pitcher…
A growing number of black activists and artists claim that rap and hip-hop are the basis of an influential new urban social movement. Simultaneously, black citizens express concern with the effect that…
Grant Wood: A Life tells the often heartbreaking story of the man who became "America's Painter." From the moment his now-iconic American Gothic caught the nation's attention in 1930, Grant Wood and his…
Jesse Billauer was surfing at Zuma Beach in Californis in 1996 and was pushed headfirst into a shallow sandbar, leaving him a quadriplegic. Jesse left the hospital knowing two things: he had to surf again…
With black males graduating at a declining rate -- only 50% will graduate from high school according to the Open Society Foundation's Campaign for Black Male Achievement -- educators, parents and families…
As she approached her 70th year, Dorothy Bailey decided to find women born in or before 1940, listen to their stories, and use their wisdom as a guide to the silver years of her life. In a Different Light…
Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is indisputably one of the "great American novels," yet its length and esoteric subject matter often keep readers at bay. With his trademark enthusiasm, Nathaniel Philbrick…
An annual seminar sponsored by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings. For parents and teens: sessions include information on various financial assistance programs and scholarship opportunities, the college…
1861: The Civil War Awakening chronicles courage and heroism beyond the battlefields and introduces us to a heretofore little-known cast of Civil War heroes. Adam Goodheart takes us from the corridors…
The Johns Hopkins Center to Reduce Cancer Disparities hosts a symposium, including a panel discussion featuring Augustus A. White, III, M.D. and leaders from Johns Hopkins Disparities Centers. The panel…
It's time for all of us to consider how we are individually and collectively hindering the achievement of young girls and women. Miss Representation shows how mainstream media outlets contribute to the…
In July 1942, American prisoners of war were performing Julius Caesar on a makeshift stage in Burma at the same time that the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra played the Hippodrome Theatre on Eutaw Street. In June…
In The Lion of Judah in the New World, Ted Vestal relates how Emperor Haile Selassie helped shape America's image of Africa and how that image continues to evolve in the United States today. Haile Selassie…
A few years ago, journalist McKay Jenkins had surgery for a baseball-sized tumor in his abdomen. Before the operation, researchers asked him about his exposure to toxic chemicals like formaldehyde, weed…
In 1826, visionary leader John H. B. Latrobe founded the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts to help meet pressing skilled labor demands of the Industrial Revolution and to provide…
Dr. Michelle Gourdine, physician and author of Reclaiming Our Health: A Guide to African American Wellness, and Dr. Thomas LaVeist, director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Disparities…
The 2011 Mencken Memorial Lecture, "The Literary Journalist in the Era of H. L. Mencken: Vincent Starrett, Christopher Morley, and Clifton Fadiman," is presented by Michael Dirda, book columnist for…
Barack Obama, father of the American president, was part of Africa's "independence generation." In 1959 it seemed his star would shine brightly: he came to the U.S. from Kenya on a university scholarship…
As part of the Mencken Society annual meeting, Peter Mallios, associate professor of English and American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, presents "H. L. Mencken, 'Foreign' Literature…
Emerging from the funky blue-collar Baltimore that gave rise to Edgar Allan Poe, H. L. Mencken, Frank Zappa, and John Waters, Gus Russo nurtured an endless curiosity by inserting himself into the worlds…
Now in his 11th season in the NFL, Dhani Jones has had an unusually long career for a football player. Just a few years ago, however, Dhani thought his playing days were over. Cut by the Eagles and the…
Thad Roberts, a fellow in NASA's prestigious Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, had a romantic, albeit crazy, idea: he wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Roberts convinced his girlfriend, also a NASA fellow…
After World War I, black Americans fervently hoped for a new epoch of peace, prosperity, and equality. Black soldiers believed their participation in the fight to make the world safe for democracy finally…
In 2008, Elizabeth Warren took leave from her job teaching bankruptcy at Harvard Law School to oversee the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the 0 billion bailout of Wall Street banks. In 2010 Congress…
Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon 's two families -- the public one and the secret one. When the two teenage daughters from each family…
Following his award-winning work on inner-city violence, Code of the Street, sociologist Elijah Anderson introduces the concept of the "cosmopolitan canopy" -- the urban island of civility that exists…
In A Chance to Make History, Wendy Kopp shares what she has learned in her 20 years at the center of a growing movement to end educational inequity in America.Kopp shows that we can provide children in…
Nothing could be more important than the health of our children, and no one is better suited to examine the threats against it than Sandra Steingraber. Once called "a poet with a knife," she blends precise…
Citizens of London is the behind-the-scenes story of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain, told from the perspective of three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow…
Beating the Odds is the improbable, inspiring autobiography of financial guru, Eddie C. Brown, one of the nation's top stock pickers and money managers. It details how Brown skillfully kept Brown Capital…
Experts from the University of Maryland Medical Center, Morgan State University School of Community Health & Policy, and the Baltimore City Health Department answer questions and provide resources…
On April 1, Columbia University professor and scholar of African American history Manning Marable died, just days before his landmark work Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention was published.The Pratt Library…
Ralph Nader appeared at the Central Library to launch the paperback edition of his "work of imagination."Nader calls it a major "speculative work of practical utopia" in which he answers the question:…
On March 30, 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot by a would-be assassin. For years, few people knew the truth about how close the president came to dying. In his new book, Rawhide Down, Del Quentin…
From one of the biggest names in rap during the golden era of hip-hop, Prodigy, one half of the group Mobb Deep (currently signed to G-Unit/50cents label), reveals a hidden side of today's biggest rappers…
Andrei Codrescu is an award-winning poet, novelist, essayist and NPR commentator. He edits the online journal Exquisite Corpse and taught literature and creative writing at Louisiana State University for…
On July 16, 2009, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a renowned Harvard University professor acclaimed for his work on racial justice, was arrested by a Cambridge police sergeant. The reasons for his arrest would…
Danielle Evans, author of the new story collection, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, has seen her short fiction and reviews published in The Paris Review, American Book Review, Phoebe, Black Renaissance…
Jaimy Gordon, a Baltimore native, won the 2010 National Book Award for fiction for Lord of Misrule. She is the author of three previous novels: Shamp of the City-Solo, She Drove Without Stopping, and Bogeywoman…
In 1991, Mark Osteen and his wife, Leslie, were struggling to understand why their son, Cameron, was so different from other kids. In a powerful, deeply personal narrative, Osteen recounts the struggles…
In the new book, Hands on the Freedom Plow, fifty-two women -- northern and southern, young and old, urban and rural, black, white, and Latina -- share their courageous personal stories of working for…
A Town Hall Meeting hostedy by Congressman Elijah Cummings covering such economic topics asHow to access health care servicesLearn about foreclosureLearn about financial literacyLearn about free tax preparationLearn…
On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J (James Earl Ray) escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary. Using the alias Eric Galt, Ray drifted through the American South, into Mexico, and then to Los Angeles…
The wives of Woodrow Wilson were strikingly different from each other. Ellen Axson Wilson, quiet and intellectual, died after just a year and a half in the White House and is thought to have had little…
Most of the 18 stories in this collection were written before the devastating earthquake last January. Madison Smartt Bell and Katia D. Ulysse, two contributors to the anthology, will read selections from Haiti…
A panel of four women writers from across the globe discusses the intersection of place, time and culture in literature and in the lives of women. The conversation will be moderated by Linda A. Duggins…
In The Invisible Line, Daniel Sharfstein follows three families, from the Revolutionary Era up to the Civil Rights movement, as they straddle the color line and change their racial identification from…
Senator Mikulski, the longest-serving woman in the U.S. Senate, talks about "Women of the Senate: Making History, Changing History."
The Greater Baltimore Metropolitan Community celebrates the 100th anniversary of one of the nation's greatest public servants and fellow citizens, Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. As director of the NAACP Washington…
From street parades to nightclubs, from church houses to dance halls, music is key to New Orleans' uniqueness. Robert Cataliotti, producer of the new recording, Classic Sounds of New Orleans, talks about…
Four great migrations defined the history of black people in America: the Middle Passage, the violent removal of Africans to the east coast of North America; the relocation of one million slaves to the…
As part of Black History Month, Paul Coates and Natalie Stokes-Peters talk about the rich history of Black Classic Press and the future for black writers, readers and books.
The Indignant Generation is the first narrative history of the neglected but essential period of African American literature between the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights era. Writers such as Richard…
No other question is more important to city-loving parents than where to send their child to school. For years, the prevailing wisdom was that you had to leave the city to get a good education for your…
The infamous Reverend Curtis Black's sordid past is no secret. But when his long-time mistress and mother of his illegitimate two-year-old daughter dies, Black and his wife Charlotte have no choice but…
Rev. John Arthur Nunes, president and CEO of Lutheran World Relief, delivers the King Commemorative Lecture. Rev. Nunes speaks on "Justice, Dignity and Peace: How Martin Luther King's Legacy Informs…
In The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson chronicles the decades-long migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West through the stories of three individuals and their families…
Shiori was born in Tokyo, Japan, six years after the end of World War II. She describes herself as hapa, half-American, half-Japanese. In her first collection of poetry, she weaves memoir and historical…
Glass House of Dreams celebrates Baltimore's landmark Victorian glass palace, the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in historic Druid Hill Park. An extensive collection of original…
This 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.…
This annual Cave Canem poetry reading at the Pratt features Thomas Sayers Ellis reading from his new collection, Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems. Ellis is known in the poetry community as a literary…
Set 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…
Susan 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…
Jimmy 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…
In Under 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…
An annual seminar sponsored by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings. For parents and teens: sessions include information on various financial assistance programs and scholarship opportunities, the college…
Pratt presents Pat Conroy, the recipient of the 2010 Pratt Lifetime Literary Achievement Award. The author discusses his most recent book, My Reading Life.
A Community Comes to Grips with its Past A tragedy occurred in Greensboro, North Carolina, on November 3, 1979, resulting in the deaths of five anti-Klan demonstrators, and the grave wounding of ten…
Bookish 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…
With 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…
Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national daily independent award-winning news program airing on over 800 TV and radio stations in North America. Goodman is the first…
In the vastly white, Southern world of NASCAR, black drivers are rare and black-owned teams nearly nonexistent. During his decade and a half owning and running Miller Racing, Leonard T. Miller made it…
Sandra 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…
Eugene Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for his insightful commentary on race, President Obama, and the 2008 election. He has reported for the Washington Post for over 25 years and writes a twice-weekly…
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…
In Fierce Angels, 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…
The bestselling author of Bringing Down the House tells the story of the accidental creation of Facebook and the amazing tale of what followed. Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates…
David Plouffe served as the manager for Barack Obama's historic presidential campaign and will play a key strategy role for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections. Plouffe explains the secrets to winning…
In 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…
Paul Reyes' 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…
In 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…
Maryland CASH is a local organization providing financial literacy and assistance. Shani Gibson introduces this organization and describes what it does.
Baltimore CASH is a local organization providing financial literacy and assistance. Monica Copeland introduces this organization and describes what it does.
In 2004 when she knows she's dying, Sydney Stringfellow finally reveals to her son what happened long ago during World War II. At the 1936 Olympics, Sydney had fallen in love with a handsome young German…
Meet food writer and cookbook author Lucie Snodgrass during Baltimore's Summer Restaurant Week. Her book, Dishing Up Maryland, focuses on the rich diversity of Maryland's native foods and food producers…
Baltimore native Joe Gans captured the world lightweight title in 1902, becoming the first black American world title holder in any sport. Gans was a master strategist and tactician and one of the earliest…
Since drawing her first Sylvia strip in 1979, the nationally syndicated cartoonist Nicole Hollander has channeled her ascerbic wit and razor-sharp sensibilities through the incomparable and irascible Sylvia…
Poet Lucille Clifton was a mentor, friend, and teacher to scores of writers in Maryland and around the country. Clifton served as Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland and was Distinguished Professor…
Join us for a morning of dynamic speakers, and stimulating conversation with experts, educators and service providers committed to eradicating intergenerational illiteracy, addressing the learning differences…
Food writer Novella Carpenter tells how she turned a vacant lot in one of the worst parts of Oakland, California, into a working mini-farm, complete with vegetables, herbs, chickens, ducks and bees. Her…
The never-say-die actress/singer/icon opens up and lets the world into her life to witness her triumphs, failures, challenges, and loves -- which include the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Freddie Prinze…
Dr. Hubert G. Locke will discuss the Holocaust and Jewish-Christian relations. Dr. Locke is Provost Emeritus for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Evan School of Public Affairs, University of Washington…
Two boys from Baltimore with the same name -- one becomes the first African American Rhodes Scholar ever from Johns Hopkins University while the other boy serves a life sentence in prison. Violence, drugs…
Since January, 2000, the online journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly has showcased the richness and diversity of authors who live or work in the Washington, DC area. Beltway has published academic, spoken…
In the first comprehensive, single-volume biography since David Herbert Donald's in 1996, Ronald White offers a fresh definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity whose moral compass holds the key to understanding…
Against the backdrop of today's increasingly multicultural society, are America's elite colleges admitting and succeessfully educating a diverse student body?Thomas Espenshade, professor of sociology at…
Immediately after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, Baltimore's liberal school board voted to desegregate and adopted a free choice policy that made integration voluntary. Baltimore's school…
Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and professor at New York University School of Law, and Renee Hutchins, professor at the University of Maryland School of…
Stanley Plumly has written six collections of poetry, including The Marriage in the Trees and Out-of-the-Body Travel (1977) which won the William Carlos Williams Award and was nominated for the National…
Masha Hamilton is the author of four novels, most recently 31 Hours (2009), a Washington Post selection for one of the best novels of the year and an Indie Choice pick by independent booksellers. Her previous…
Reginald Harris serves as host for readings by these poets:Ron Egatz, Beneath Stars Long Extinct (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE3DE103CF933A15750C0A9639C8B63&sec=&spon=&…
Nearly half of all young black men in America are behind bars, on parole or probation. Legal scholars Michelle Alexander and Paul Butler argue that the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a system…
Baltimore is the setting for this examination of bigotry and residential segregation. Antero Pietila shows how continued discrimination practices toward African Americans and Jews has shaped the cities…
Through a series of fictional episodes about a small Midwestern town, Jabari Asim brings into focus how the tumultuous events of 1968 affected real people's lives. The 16 connected stories are set in one…
Young urban black men are overwhelmingly the victims and perpetrators of violent crime in the U.S. Troubled by this tragedy -- and his medical colleagues apparent numbness in the face of it -- Dr. Rich…
Five women writers from various regions of the globe discuss the voice and role of women past, present and future, on the page and living life as only women can. The conversation will be moderated by Linda…
Ted Venetoulis' novel turns the Washington scene upside down when the First Lady kicks her unfaithful husband out of of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Full of twists and turns and a White House filled with…
Born to parents of modest means but middle-class values and aspirations, Jerald Walker spent his early years in a Chicago housing project. Drawn to the streets like so many African American boys, he dropped…
When Elisa New held her great-grandfather Jacob Levy's cane in her hands for the first time in 1997, she realized that her family's story was not the standard coming-to-America tale she had long assumed…
When gold rush fever gripped the globe in 1849, thousands of Chinese immigrants came through San Francisco on their way to seek their fortunes. In The Poker Bride, Christopher Corbett looks at this Chinese…
Neil Sheehan, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, A Bright Shining Lie, tells the story of the nuclear arms race that changed history and the visionary American Air Force officer, Bernard Schriever…
Alexandra Natapoff, professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, is an award-winning scholar and a nationally recognized expert on snitching in the criminal justice system.In her book, she discusses…
In 2007, David Beckham left the comfort and securiity of European soccer and embarked on a new and risky adventure in the U.S. with the L.A. Galaxy. Sports writer Grant Wahl spent two years following Beckham…
This annual Cave Canem poetry reading at the Pratt features three dynamic young voices: Samiya Bashir, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, and Ronaldo V. Wilson.Samiya Bashir is the author of Gospel and Where…
Folklorist and writer Alison Kahn and photographer Peggy Fox have collaborated to produce a collection of oral history narratives, essays, and photographs that profile the lives of longtime residents of…
Why is race still an uncomfortable subject to talk about in the United States? Join us for this conversation with Rich Benjamin, author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of…
Are you leading an "unwealthy" lifestyle? What's your worst bad habit when it comes to your finances?Financial lifestyle coach Deborah Owens answers your questions and show you how to develp the seven…
Admissions representatives and scholarship organizations discuss information on various financial assistance programs and scholarship opportunities, the college admissions process, and preparation for…
Ariel Sabar's father Yona was born in a tiny village in the Kurdiish region of Iraq, in a Jewish enclave so isolated that the residents still spoke Aramaic. Yona Sabar and thousands of other Iraqi Jews…
Josh Weil's The New Valley, published last year, was honored with a "5 Under 35" National Book Award and was a New York Times Editors Choice selection. It recently was honored with the 2010 New Writers…
Congresswoman Barbara Lee was first elected to represent California's ninth Congressional District in 1998. In addition to being one of Congress' most vocal opponents to the war in Iraq, she has been a…
Kalman Hettleman's book presents a bold, unconventional plan to rescue our nation's schoolchildren from a failing public education system. The plan reflects the author's rare fusion of on-the-ground experience…
Science is more than observation of what exists in nature: science is adventure of the mind. It took many creative leaps of the mind to produce science as sophisticated as modern physics and genetic biology…
In June, 2003, Rear Admiral Barry C. Black was elected the 62nd Chaplain of the United States Senate. Prior to going to Capitol Hill, Chaplain Black served in the U.S. Navy for more than 27 years, ending…
WJZ-TV anchor Vic Carter tells the compelling story of Ozell Sutton, a civil rights pioneer who risked his life to ensure the rights of others. From rural Arkansas, Dr. Sutton conducted voter registration…
Over a seven-year period Bill Clinton talked intimately to Taylor Branch about what it's like to be president, revealing what he thought and felt and could not say in public. Branch includes his own reactions…
Beverly Daniel Tatum, president of Spelman College and author of Can We Talk About Race? And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation, which discusses how American schools are experiencing…
L. T. (Larry) Woody grew up in Baltimore's Harlem Park neighborhood. At age 13 he received an academic scholarship to attend St. Paul's Episcopal School in Concord, NH. In Black In White is his coming-of-age…
The 2009 Mencken Memorial Lecture - "Bryan Debates Mencken: The Confrontation We Missed," by Dr. Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University and author of A Godly Hero: The Life of William…
With the election of President Obama, some say race is no longer an obstacle to success and that the "American Dream" is more reality than not. Ben Jealous, executive director of the NAACP, and Gerald…
Byron Pitts talks about his new book, Step Out on Nothing: How Family and Faith Helped Me Conquer Life's Challenges.The speaker overcame a tough childhood and a debilitating stutter through faith and…
How to Build Success Without Forgetting the StruggleJournalist Gwen Ifill of Washington Week and The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and author of The Breakthrough: Politics & Race in the Age of Obama…
Leonard Pitts reads from his new novel, Before I Forget.In this novel from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, Mo Johnson, a faded soul star of the '70s with early-onset…
Felicia Pearson, who plays Snoop on the HBO hit series The Wire, was a born a three-pound, cross-eyed crack baby in East Baltimore. In Grace After Midnight, she tells about her life as the runt of the…
Robert Egger is the Founder and President of the DC Central Kitchen, where unemployed men and women learn marketable culinary skills while foods donated by restaurants, hotels and caterers are converted…
What does it mean for your organization?Learn about the stimulus/recovery act that has been signed into law and about the many different funding flows that are related to it. This session will give you…
Michael Pollan talks about his most recent book, In Defense of Food.Michael Pollan's last book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating. Now In Defense…
Steve Luxenberg talks about his new book, Annie's Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret.Every family has a secret. Washington Post senior editor Steve Luxenberg discovered that his late mother, who…
Chuck Palahniuk's 10th novel, Pygmy, is a cultural satire featuring a gang of adolescent terrorists trained by an unspecified totalitarian state to infiltrate America. Posing as foreign exchange students…
Jill Jonnes talks about her new book, Eiffel's Tower: And the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count.Built in 1889 as the centerpiece of…
Born in Pakistan, Qaisra Shahraz has lived in Manchester, England since she was nine years old. She is an award-winning author and scriptwriter and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a member…
Junot Díaz reads from his 2008 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The Pulitzer Prize winning author appeared as part of the annual CITYLIT FESTIVAL, Celebrating the Literary…
In this collection of stories, poems and essays edited by Marita Golden, African American writers celebrate the complexity, power, danger, and glory of love in all its many forms. Two of the writers featured…
Two new novels by Achy Obejas (Ruins) and Robert Arellano (Havana Lunar) are set in Cuba.In Ruins, a true believer is faced with a choice between love for his family and the Cuban Revolution. Obejas is…
Walt Whitman worked as a nurse with wounded Civil War soldiers; his brother George served with the 51st New York Volunteers. Drawing on letters that Walt, George, their mother Louisa, and their other brothers…
Peter Schechter reads from his new book, Pipeline: A Novel of Suspense.Pipeline is a riveting international thriller of oil, greed, and power. Three strangers from Washington, Frankfurt, and Lima are thrown…
In 1973 when the Boston Red Sox played the Orioles in Memorial Stadium, Don Newbery recorded his conversations with Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski. They talked about Carl, and his opinion concerning…
In 1973 when the Boston Red Sox played the Orioles in Memorial Stadium, Don Newbery recorded his conversations with Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski. They talked about Carl, and his opinion concerning…
In 1973 and 1974 (The Championship Years) Don Newbery recorded his talks with Oriole players about playing the game of baseball, and playing their positions. They talked in the Orioles’ dugout at the…
In 1973 and 1974 (The Championship Years) Don Newbery recorded his talks with Oriole players about playing the game of baseball, and playing their positions. They talked in the Orioles’ dugout at the…
In 1973 and 1974 (The Championship Years) Don Newbery recorded his talks with Oriole players about playing the game of baseball, and playing their positions. They talked in the Orioles’ dugout at the…
In 1973 and 1974 (The Championship Years) Don Newbery recorded his talks with Oriole players about playing the game of baseball, and playing their positions. They talked in the Orioles’ dugout at the…
In 1973 and 1974 (The Championship Years) Don Newbery recorded his talks with Oriole players about playing the game of baseball, and playing their positions. They talked in the Orioles’ dugout at the…
In 1973 and 1974 (The Championship Years) Don Newbery recorded his talks with Oriole players about playing the game of baseball, and playing their positions. They talked in the Orioles’ dugout at the…
In 1973 and 1974 (The Championship Years) Don Newbery recorded his talks with Oriole players about playing the game of baseball, and playing their positions. They talked in the Orioles’ dugout at the…
In 1973 and 1974 (The Championship Years) Don Newbery recorded his talks with Oriole players about playing the game of baseball, and playing their positions. They talked in the Orioles’ dugout at the…
A child's mysterious death, a young woman's romantic obsession, and a father's long-hidden secret converge in the gripping plot of Life Sentences, Laura Lippman's new novel. In this blazing tale of twisting…
Bishop Bryant has earned a reputation as one of black America's most charismatic and committed religious leaders. Born in Baltimore, he graduated from Morgan State University and Boston University School…
Michael Bart's parents, Leizer and Zenia, were Lithuanian Holocaust survivors. It was not until after their death that their son began to piece together their history of love, struggle, resistance and…
In Becoming Billie Holiday, Carole Boston Weatherford's poems trace the singer's journey from B-girl to jazz royalty. Her first book for teens, it is illustrated with cinematic, sepia-toned art by Floyd…
In 1980, 13-year-old Helene Cooper's life in Liberia changed forever when a coup d'etat left the President and his cabinet (including her uncle) dead, her father wounded, her mother raped. Cooper's new…
In his new book, Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal, Randall Kennedy grapples brilliantly and judiciously with "selling out," a subject of much anxiety and acrimony in black America.Randall Kennedy…
Following her groundbreaking book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, historian and legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed traces the Hemings family from its origins in Virginia in the 1700's to the dispersal…
Stephen Whitman is an Associate Professor of History at Mount Saint Mary's University. He writes on the history of slavery and emancipation in the 18th and 19th centuries. Whitman's new book, Challenging…
Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about his new book, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood. A coming-of-age story, set in Baltimore in the 1980's.Ta-Nehisi Coates and his six…
Tavis Smiley talks about his new book, Accountable: Making America As Good As Its Promise."Our mission is to equip citizens with the appropriate tools to assess the performance of our elected leaders…
Kate Niemczyk, a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology Department, interviewed Dr. Anne Bailowitz, pediatrician and Director of Immunization at the Baltimore City Health Department about…
Children's Programming Specialist Betsy Diamante-Cohen interviews Andrea Pyatt-Johnson, Coordinator Reach Out and Read of Greater Baltimore Baltimore City. The interview is about tips on reading to…
From 1917 to 1920 the Woman's Land Army (WLA) brought thousands of city workers, society women, artists, business professionals and college students into rural America to take over the farm work after…
Naomi Hafter, the Pratt Library's Business Information Librarian, asks Frank McNeil, Community Development, PNC Bank about predatory lending.
Naomi Hafter, the Pratt Library's Business Information Librarian, asks Anne Marie Butterhoff, Branch Manager PNC Bank about checking accounts.
Naomi Hafter, the Pratt Library's Business Information Librarian, asks Michelle Hernandez Branch Manager PNC Bank about kids and finance.
Since 1987 Nancy Pelosi has represented California's 8th District, which includes most of the city of San Francisco, in the House of Representatives. Elected by her colleagues in 2002 as Democratic Leader…
Naomi Hafter, the Pratt Library's Business Information Librarian asks Richard Hunt, Division Head of Business Banking at Provident Bank about financing issues people in small businesses face.
Naomi Hafter, the Pratt Library's Business Information Librarian asks Rahn V. Barnes, Vice President and Community Development Director at Provident Bank, some questions about mortgage issues.
Kate Niemczyk, a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology Department, talked with Corporal William Griffin, Safety Awareness Officer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore on June 24th about…
Kate Niemczyk, a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology Department, talked with Corporal William Griffin, Safety Awareness Officer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore on June 24th for…
Author P. M. Forni talks about his new book, The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude.Many of us find ourselves confronted with rudeness every day and don't know how to respond. In The…
Kate Niemczyk, a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology Department, interviewed Robert Burke, Fire Marshal at the University of Maryland, Baltimore about carbon monoxide.
Kate Niemczyk, a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology Department, interviewed Robert Burke, Fire Marshal at the University of Maryland, Baltimore about fire safety and protection.
Naomi Hafter, the Pratt Library's Business Information Librarian asks Rahn V. Barnes, Vice President and Community Development Director at Provident Bank, some questions about money management.
Naomi Hafter, the Pratt Library's Business Information Librarian asks Rahn V. Barnes, Vice President and Community Development Director at Provident Bank, some questions about money management.
Naomi Hafter, the Pratt Library's Business Information Librarian asks Rahn V. Barnes, Vice President and Community Development Director at Provident Bank, some questions about money management.
Michael Olesker, long-time Baltimore newsman, author, and former WJZ commentator, explores the general decline of local TV broadcast news in Tonight at Six: A Daily Show Masquerading as Local TV News.…
Actor Hill Harper talks about his new book, Letters to a Young Sister: DeFINE Your Destiny.In this follow-up to his national bestseller, Letters to a Young Brother, actor Hill Harper opens up an honest…
Baltimore Sun columnist and WYPR political analyst Fraser Smith traces the roots of Jim Crow laws in Maryland, from Dred Scott to Plessy v. Ferguson. He describes the efforts of those who struggled over…
Winner of six Nebula and nine Hugo awards, Connie Willis is one of the most acclaimed and imaginative authors of our time. Her startling and powerful works have redefined the boundaries of contemporary…
Baltimore's Literati: Three bestselling authors from Baltimore talk about their new novels - Dan Fesperman (The Amateur Spy); Laura Lippman (Another Thing to Fall); and Manil Suri (The Age of Shiva). Hosted…
Dr. Ben Carson shares his insight and advice from his new book, Take the Risk: Learning to Identify, Choose and Live With Acceptable Risk.
Gary Marcus talks about his new book, Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind. In his new book, New York University psychologist Gary Marcus argues that the mind is not an elegantly designed…
Michael Kinsley talks with Frank Foer of The New Republic about his new book, PLEASE DON'T REMAIN CALM. One of our nation's leading journalists, Michael Kinsley has been editor of The New…
Nathan McCall reads and signs his novel, THEM. From the author of the memoir, Makes Me Wanna Holler, a new novel set in Atlanta. In this fiction debut from the author of the bestselling…
Film and music critic Hardy has been a juror at Sundance and other film festivals around the country.Ernest Hardy writes about film and music from his home base of Los Angeles. His criticism has appeared…
Former Maryland Poet Laureate reads his own poems and those of his favorite poets.Michael Collier is professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park, and director of the Bread Loaf Writers'…
Are fresh vegetables more nutritious that frozen vegetables?Does margarine have fewer calories than butter?There are many common questions surrounding dieting and other nutrition matters.Kate Niemczyk…
If my cholesterol is high, should I avoid eggs?Is oatmeal or oat bran my ticket to cholesterol management?There are many common questions surrounding dieting and other nutrition matters.Kate Niemczyk,…
Does eating at night make you more likely to gain weight?There are many common questions surrounding dieting and other nutrition matters.Kate Niemczyk, a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology…
There are many common questions surrounding dieting and other nutrition matters.Kate Niemczyk, a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology Department, interviewed Robin Spence from Union Memorial…
There are many common questions surrounding dieting and other nutrition matters.Kate Niemczyk, a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology Department, interviewed Robin Spence from Union Memorial…
The author talks about her book, We Gotta Have It: Twenty Years of Seeing Black at the Movies, 1986-2006The year 2006 marked the 20th anniversary of the "New Wave" in black film, that upstart artistic…
There are many common questions surrounding dieting and other nutrition matters.Kate Niemczyk, a librarian in the Business, Science, and Technology Department, interviewed Robin Spence from Union Memorial…
Vivien Theodore Thomas (August 29, 1910 – November 26, 1985) was an African-American surgical technician who helped develop the procedures used to treat blue baby syndrome in the 1940s. He was an assistant…
Presidential Historian and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author An equally gifted historian and storyteller, Doris Kearns Goodwin illustrates lessons in leadership relevant to today’s issues and headlines…
discusses her new book, Sole Sisters: The Joys and Pains of Single Black WomenMore black women today are single -- and likely to remain single -- than are married, in numbers that have reached historic…
talks about "The Impact of Ghetto Mores, Attitudes and Lifestyles on American Culture."Cora Daniels is an award-winning journalist and the author of GHETTONATION: A Journey into the Land of Bling and Home…
Find out the answers to all your flu shot questions. Dr. Anne Bailowitz, a pediatrician with the Baltimore City Health Department, is interviewed while providing free flu shots at a public health flu…
Hosted by the Center for Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University.Yusef Komunyakaa, Carl Phillips and Natasha Trethewey gave a special reading as part of the 30th anniversary celebration for Callaloo …
Author and national radio personality Garrison Keillor reads from his new Lake Wobegon novel, PONTOON.Evelyn was a Sanctified Brethren woman of good standing, a devoted mother, a serious quilter. Only…
This performance was part of the Playin' o' the Green Casual Concert series at Central Library, which featured traditional irish folk music. Recorded March 14, 2007 at 12:00 p.m.John Damond - guitar…
This performance was part of the Playin' o' the Green Casual Concert series at Central Library, which featured traditional irish folk music. Recorded March 14, 2007 at 12:00 p.m.John Damond - guitar…
This performance was part of the Playin' o' the Green Casual Concert series at Central Library, which featured traditional irish folk music. Recorded March 14, 2007 at 12:00 p.m.John Damond - guitar…
This performance was part of the Playin' o' the Green Casual Concert series at Central Library, which featured traditional irish folk music. Recorded March 14, 2007 at 12:00 p.m.John Damond - guitar…
This performance was part of the Playin' o' the Green Casual Concert series at Central Library, which featured traditional irish folk music. Recorded March 14, 2007 at 12:00 p.m.John Damond - guitar…
This performance was part of the Playin' o' the Green Casual Concert series at Central Library, which featured traditional irish folk music. Recorded March 14, 2007 at 12:00 p.m.John Damond - guitar…
This performance was part of the Playin' o' the Green Casual Concert series at Central Library, which featured traditional irish folk music. Recorded March 14, 2007 at 12:00 p.m.John Damond - guitar…