Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

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 increasing and underreported resegregation, will talk with David Hornbeck, former Philadelphia superintendent of schools. Hornbeck is the author of Choosing Excellence in Public Schools: Where There's a Will, There's a Way, about how race plays out in our classrooms.Part of the year-long speaker series, "Talking About Race," presented in partnership with the Open Society Institute-Baltimore.Recorded On: Monday, November 2, 2009

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 story, an intimate glimpse into two very different worlds. Woody's journey from the tough streets of West Baltimore to the ivy-covered halls of his New England boarding school serve as a survival guide for young people seeking something better.Larry Woody received a degree in therapeutic recreation from Temple University in 1976. He lives in Philadelphia where he works with Focus on Fathers.Recorded On: Tuesday, September 29, 2009

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 Jennings Bryan.Dr. Kazin is an expert in U.S. politics and social movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. He has taught at American University, Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and Stanford University. His academic honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, fellowships from Georgetown University, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Fulbright Program, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.Recorded On: Saturday, September 12, 2009

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 Torres, professor at the University of Texas Law School and co-author of The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy, will grapple with this erroneous supposition.Part of the year-long speaker series, "Talking About Race," presented in partnership with the Open Society Institute - Baltimore.Recorded On: Wednesday, September 16, 2009

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 a few key people who "stepped out on nothing" to make a diffrence in his life. Pitts is chief national correspondent for CBS News and a contributing correspondent for 60 Minutes. He has received national and regional Emmy Awards and was named NABJ Journalist of the Year in 2002 for his coverage of the 9/11 attacks. From his challenged youth in Baltimore to his award-winning work as a journalist, Pitts' story will resonate with those who struggle with any sort of disability.Recorded On: Tuesday, October 6, 2009

 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, and Sherrilyn A. Ifill, civil rights lawyer and law professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century, will discuss this pivotal moment in American history -- what has brought us to this moment, why our history is important, and how we can make this a new beginning for equity and social justice.This was the first program in a new speaker series, How We Talk About Race, presented in partnership with Open Society Institute-Baltimore.Recorded On: Thursday, June 4, 2009

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 Alzheimer's, takes his 19-year-old son on a cross-country road trip to visit his estranged father. This in-depth anatomy of black fatherhood is a brilliantly plotted multigenerational road story spanning rural Mississippi in the '40s, South Central L.A. in the '50s, the '70s soul music scene, and present-day L.A., Vegas, and Baltimore.Leonard Pitts writes for the Miami Herald. He is the author of Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood.Recorded On: Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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 ghetto, a baby gangsta who landed in the Jessup state penitentiary at 14 after killing a woman in self defense. Now a student at the Baltimore School for the Arts, she's currently shooting two feature films and working with kids at risk.Recorded On: Friday, November 14, 2008

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 into balanced meals. Since opening in 1989, the Kitchen has distributed over 20 million meals and helped over 700 men and women gain full-time employment. While Robert still maintains a day to day presence at the Kitchen, he devotes much of his time nationally, as the Director of the V3 Campaign (www.v3campaign.org), which is working to get the voice, value and votes of the nonprofit sector recognized in every election in America.Recorded On: Wednesday, May 6, 2009

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 a basic understanding of how your organization can utilize the funding coming from the stimulus package in order to best serve your customers.Neil Bergsman from the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations speaks about the state's budget and how nonprofits will be affected. Representatives from Maryland Governor's Grants Office, Volunteer Maryland, Department of Labor Licensing and Regulation, Department of Housing and Community Development, Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention, and the Maryland Energy Administration were also present to speak about funding through their agencies.Download the Presentation Slides.Recorded On: Wednesday, May 20, 2009

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 of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time.Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.Recorded On: Saturday, May 16, 2009

 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 had always claimed to be an only child, erased nearly every trace of a sister named Annie who lived in the family home until she was committed to a mental hospital at the age of 21. In his new book, Annie's Ghosts, he explores the personal motives and cultural forces that influenced his mother's decision to create and harbor the secret.Steve Luxenberg has worked at the Washington Post for more than 20 years. Raised in Detroit, the primary setting for Annie's Ghosts, he now lives in Baltimore.Recorded On: Tuesday, May 12, 2009

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, Pygmy and his cohorts are planning something big, something truly awful, that will bring the country to its knees.Palahniuk's bestselling books include The Fight Club, Snuff, and Choke. Aaron Henkin of WYPR will moderate the conversation with Chuck Palahniuk.Recorded On: Thursday, May 7, 2009

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 the World's Fair, the Eiffel Tower has been an iconic image of modern times, as much a beacon of technological progress as an enduring symbol of Paris and French culture. But as engineer Gustave Eiffel built the now-famous landmark, he stirred up a storm of vitriol from Parisian tastemakers, lawsuits, and predictions of certain structural calamity.  Historian Jill Jonnes presents a compelling account of the tower's creation and Belle Epoque France: Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley transfixed Parisian audiences in sold-out shows at the tower's opening, Edison took stock of European technology, and Gaugin, van Gogh and Whistler mingled under the gaze of Gustave Eiffel and his tower.Jill Jonnes is the author of Conquering Gotham, Empires of Light, and South Bronx Rising. She was named a National Endowmennt for the Hu

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 of the Royal Society of Literature. Shahraz has written numerous short stories and screen plays, as well as two novels, The Holy Woman and Typhoon. She has also worked as an education consultant and teacher trainer and has taught workshops and seminars in creative writing.Recorded On: Tuesday, April 28, 2009

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 Arts in Baltimore!Explicit language advisory!Recorded On: Saturday, April 18, 2009

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 in the collection -- Reginald Dwayne Betts and Felicia Pride -- will join Marita Golden for this reading.Marita Golden is the founder of the Hurston-Wright Foundation and the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the award-winning novel After.Recorded On: Sunday, March 29, 2009

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 the author of the novel Days of Awe; she translated into Spanish Junot Diaz' award-winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. She is currently Writer in Residence at DePaul University in Chicago.In Robert Arellano's hypnotic noir novel, a young doctor, the teenage prostitute he befriends, and her pimp and his bodyguards are caught in a violent chain reaction that plunges them into the catacombs of Havana's criminal underworld. Robert Arellano is the author of two other novels, Fast Eddie: King of the Bees and Don Dimaio of La Plata.Recorded On: Monday, March 23, 2009

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 wrote to each other, Robert Roper chronicles the experiences of this famous family enduring its long crisis alongside the anguish of the nation.Robert Roper is a professor at Johns Hopkins University where he teaches writing. He is the author of several award-winning works of fiction and nonfiction, including Fatal Mountaineer.Recorded On: Tuesday, March 24, 2009

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 together in a maelstrom of danger and intrigue, with the fate of America and the world resting in their hands.Peter Schechter's first novel, Point of Entry, was hailed by the Chicago Tribune as a "frighteningly believable look at a possible near-future scenario." Schechter is a seasoned political and communications consultant based in Washington, DC.Recorded On: Thursday, March 12, 2009