Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

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 recent poetry collections are Air Travel, Mortmain, and Dirty Blue Voice. Harriss's poems and short fiction are widely anthologized. She directs BrickHouse Books, Maryland's oldest literary press. Her ongoing research interest is in prison writers. She and Moira Egan recently edited Hot Sonnets (Entasis Press, 2011), a collection of modern erotic sonnets. CityLit has established the Harriss Award for Poetry in her honor. Novelist Geoff Becker says that poems by Harriss "have the clarity of early light and the seductiveness of dreams."Karen Garthe grew up in Baltimore and attended Towson High School. When she graduated in 1968, she went to New York to study dance, then embarked on numerous careers in a broad swath of venues in New York City. Clarinda Harriss was her English teacher at Towson and Faculty Advisor t

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 radar. While the nation's capital was held in thrall by these nighttime activities, the highest levels of the government were involved in covering it up. Or so the conspiracy theorists and UFOlogists would have you believe. Can we look back over the intervening years and discover what happened? Is the veil of secrecy too thick and strong to penetrate? Bruce Press is the chair of the Independent Investigations Group of Washington, D.C., an affiliate of the Center for Inquiry. He is also a member of the National Capital Area Skeptics. His background as an engineer and photographer aid in his extracurricular interests investigating strange phenomena on a foundation of reason and scientific skepticism. Recorded On: Saturday, March 2, 2013

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; her relationship with her grandmother who sheltered her from the meanness of the South Bronx; her dogged and brilliant march through public schools and the Ivy League; and her extraordinary legal career. My Beloved World is a book about self-discovery; Sotomayor, at the pinnacle of legal achievement, is still dazzled by the possibilities in America.The Ivy Bookshop will have copies of the book, in English and Spanish language editions, for sale at the event.  Recorded On: Thursday, February 28, 2013

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 and dignity on an odyssey that takes him from the Civil War through the Indian Wars, Reconstruction and spillover bloodshed from a Mexican Revolution. Bob Rogers, author of Will and Dena, is a former army captain and combat leader during the Vietnam War.Recorded On: Sunday, February 24, 2013

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 a road trip with her mother, told from the young woman's and the mother's point of view. McFadden is the author of eight novels including Sugar, Gathering of Waters, and Glorious. Courttia Newland's new novel, The Gospel According to Cane, tells the story of a woman torn apart by the abduction of her son and the dissolution of her marriage. Years later, once she has pieced together what is left of her life, a young man claiming to be her son follows her wherever she goes.Courttia Newland is the author of six novels including Music for the Off-Key and A Book of Blues. He is coeditor of IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain. Recorded On: Tuesday, February 19, 2013

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 earlier that were misconstrued as reverse racism. In her memoir, Sherrod shares what it was like to be in the center of a very public debate and how growing up in segregated Georgia during the Civil Rights movement helped prepare her for the firestorm.Shirley Sherrod lectures nationally on issues of importance to middle class families, the poor and small communities. She promotes empowerment strategies for economically and socially disadvantaged people and runs educational projects for struggling farmers. Marc Steiner of WEAA-FM leads the conversation with Shirley Sherrod. Recorded On: Sunday, February 17, 2013

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: A Soul on Fire. Charles Reese is a professional performance artist, educator and consultant in television, independent film and theater. He is currently a series regular on the hit comedy web series, "WHO" (available on www.ajakwetv.com).www.JamesBaldwinASoulOnFire.com Recorded On: Saturday, February 16, 2013

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 family farm in northern Virginia that provides healthy vegetables to more than 500 families in the Washington, DC area as part of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. As one of the nation's leading healthy food advocates, Hauter believes that the local food movement is not enough to solve America's food crisis and the public health debacle it has created. In Foodopoly, she takes aim at the real culprit: the massive consolidation and corporate control of food production, which prevents farmers from raising healthy crops and limits the choices that people can make in the grocery store.Recorded On: Tuesday, February 12, 2013

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 on poetry and experimental fiction, and he writes about it for HTMLGIANT. On Twitter he is @pubgen.Chris Mason is a poet and a member of three bands, The Tinklers, Coocoo Rockin Time, and Old Songs, the last of which translates archaic Greek poetry and puts it to music. He is the author of three books of poetry: Hum Who Hiccup, Click Poems, and Poems of a Doggy. A chapbook, Where To From Out, is forthcoming.Read poems by Adam Robinson here and here.Read poems by Chris Mason here and here. Recorded On: Tuesday, February 12, 2013

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 Jews in Israel, she sought out other black communities that had left home in search of a Promised Land, from Africa to Jamaica to the American South. In Searching for Zion, Raboteau overturns our ideas of place and patriotism, displacement and dispossession, citizenship and country in an honest and brave take on the pull of the story of Exodus.Emily Raboteau is an associate professor of English at City College of New York; the author of the novel, The Professor's Daughter; and a recent recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts award. Recorded On: Wednesday, February 6, 2013

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 Harris, Business Banker for PNC, interviewing Anthony McCarthy, Principal of McCarthy Group, Jessy Mejia, CEO Estragica, and Y. Maria Welch Martinez, CEO Respira Medical; all business owners represented are also associated with Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore. The conversation is focused on current issues facing business owners doing business on both a local and national level. A discussion of the library's role in the business community is discussed as well.Recorded On: Tuesday, January 22, 2013

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 the Civil War, 200,000 African American men enlisted in the Union army or navy. Some of them were free men, some escaped from slavery, and some were released by sympathetic owners to join the war effort. African American Faces of the Civil War tells the story of the Civil War through the images of men of color who served as servants, laborers, enlisted men, and junior officers.Ronald Coddington is assistant managing editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education. His work has appeared in USA Today, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the San Jose Mercury News. He is a contributing writer to the New York Times "Disunion" series and writes a monthly column for The Civil War News. He is author of Faces of the Confederacy and Faces of the Civil War, also published by Johns Hopkins University Press.Recorded On: Thur

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 Author Award, given to a poet every four years by the Maryland Library Association. Ms. Thompson has taught at many universities—among them Middlebury, Wesleyan, Binghamton University and the University of Delaware—as well as The Writer’s Center in Bethesda and Annapolis and at the Academy Art Museum in Easton. Her work has been included in the Best American Poetry series, read on National Public Radio by Garrison Keillor, and featured in U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s nationally syndicated newspaper column.Kathleen Hellen is a poet and the author of Umberto’s Night and The Girl Who Loved Mothra. Her poems are widely published and have been featured on WYPR’s The Signal. Awards include The Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers' Publishing House as well as poetry prizes from the H.O.W. Journal, the W

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 to set each passage in historical context. "For nearly 25 years, since publication of Parting the Waters," says Taylor Branch, "teachers have pressed upon me their need for more accessible ways to immerse students in stories of authentic detail and import. The goal here is to accommodate them and others by careful choice."Taylor Branch is the author of Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963; Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65; At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68; and The Clinton Tapes. In addition to the Pulitzer, he has won the National Book Critics Circle Award.Presented in partnership with Open Society Institute - Baltimore. Recorded On: Tuesday, January 29, 2013

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 affection for his regular customers, the perennial underclass. His vignettes show the city, warts and all, and its people, regardless of neighborhood, income or prejudices. Hey Cabbie II is a sequel to Logan's popular 1984 book. Recorded On: Sunday, January 27, 2013

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 in life to work with addicts and educate parents on how to help their kids. In his book, he answers important questions such as: "what are the warning signs of alcohol or drug addiction?" and "how can a parent intervene and find treatment for the child and family?"George E. Leary, Jr. provides mental health services to addicts and those living with HIV/AIDS. He established and operated two recovery houses in Baltimore and served for nine years on a mobile crisis intervention team. Recorded On: Wednesday, January 23, 2013

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 genius. If our personal lives are a disaster, we can blame our spouses, partners, and the economy.Jim Smith's No Excuse Guide to Success shows you how to stop this destructive pattern of making excuses and blaming others.Jim Smith, Jr., president and CEO of JIMPACT Enterprises, is a sought after personal-power speaker and trainer. He spent 16 years working in corporate and consulting leadership positions for a wide variety of industries. He currently serves as an adjunct faculty member for the Rutgers University MBA and Executive MBA programs. His book, No Excuse Guide to Success, has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Recorded On: Tuesday, January 22, 2013

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 guitarist Joni Tiala combine the rich tradition of Finnish folksong with a "retro" sensibility, creating a magical acoustic experience. Recorded On: Tuesday, January 15, 2013

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 had to adjust to economic and political dysfunction and the near-total failure of each pillar institution of our society. Hayes offers an original theory about how we came to this pass and concludes that the meritocratic system upon which we depend to select the country's best and brightest is fatally flawed, creating a ruling elite that is no longer functional.Chris Hayes is editor-at-large of The Nation and host of "Up With Chris Hayes" on MSNBC. He has been a fellow at Harvard University's Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics and at the New America Foundation. Since 2003 he's written about political culture and political economy for numerous publications including the New York Times Magazine, Time, The New Republic, and The Guardian. Hayes is a graduate of Brown University. Recorded On: Wednesday,

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 the myths about our Constitution put forth by a well-organized, well-funded right wing in an effort to cripple the right of We the People to govern ourselves. Garrett Epps provides the tools citizens need to fight back against the flood of constitutional nonsense. In terms every citizen can understand, he tackles ten of the most prevalent myths, providing a clear grasp of the Constitution and the government it established.Garrett Epps teaches constitutional law at the University of Baltimore Law School; he is a regular contributor on legal issues to Atlantic.com and The American Prospect. Recorded On: Thursday, January 10, 2013