Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

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 in law enforcement for more than four decades. With his vision intact, Jim proudly wore a police uniform, tracking drug dealers, thieves, and an armed robber in the precarious days before Baltimore cops wore bullet proof vests. While the world’s finest eye doctors kept him from going blind, Jim worked as a deep covert, driving a cab in Baltimore’s notorious red light district. While his eyesight continued to deteriorate, Jim defied a government doctor who ordered him to stop working. Instead, he got a talking computer.No matter the hurdle, Jim performed his duties relentlessly. Eyes of Justice is a memoir of one man’s faith and devotion to duty who refused to be defined by his disability.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On:

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” patient.Angie Kim moved as a preteen from Seoul, South Korea, to the suburbs of Baltimore. She attended Stanford University and Harvard Law School, where she was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, then practiced as a trial lawyer at Williams & Connolly. Her stories have won the Glamour Essay Contest and the Wabash Prize in Fiction, and appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, Salon, Slate, The Southern Review, Sycamore Review, The Asian American Literary Review, and PANK.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.Recorded On: Thursday, May 16, 2019

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 a reading, Q and A, and book signing. Hosted and moderated by fellow MJP author, Justin Sanders.Danny Caine is the author of the chapbook Uncle Harold's Maxwell House Haggadah. His poetry has appeared in Hobart, Mid-American Review, DIAGRAM, and New Ohio Review among other places. He received an MFA in poetry from the University of Kansas in 2017. He hails from Cleveland and lives in Lawrence, Kansas, where he owns the Raven Book Store.Nicole Callihan writes poems and stories. Her poetry books include SuperLoop (2014) and Translucence (with Samar Abdel Jaber, 2018), and the chapbooks: A Study in Spring (with Zoë Ryder White, 2015), The Deeply Flawed Human (2016), Downtown (2017), and Aging (2018). Jaime Fountaine was raised by "wolves." Her work has appeared in places like JMWW, Paper Darts, X-R-A-Y, and Bar

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 Richard Wilbur Award. A co-winner of the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize, he is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts translation fellowship. Balbo was recently a visiting faculty member in Iowa State University’s MFA program in creative writing and environment. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, poet-essayist Jane Satterfield. Learn more at https://nedbalbo.com.G.H. Mosson is the author of Family Snapshot as a Poem in Time (Finishing Line Press, 2019), as well as three prior books of poetry, Heart X-rays (PM Press, 2018, with Marcus Colasurdo), Questions of Fire (Plain  View, 2009), and Season of Flowers and Dust (Goose River, 2007). His poetry and literary criticism have appeared in Measure, Tampa Review, The Cincinnati Review, Smartish Pace, and Loch Raven Review, among other journals, and

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 to provide an understanding of enduring black marriage that is richly lived. The authors offer an in-depth investigation of details and contexts of black married life and seek to empower black married couples whose intimate relationships run contrary to common?but often inaccurate?stereotypes. Husbands and wives tell their stories, from how they met, to how they decided to marry, to what their life is like five years after the wedding and beyond.Katrina Bell McDonald is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, Co-director of the Center for Africana Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, and an Associate of the Hopkins Population Center.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On: Thursday, April 11, 2019

In 1958, the very same year that an unknown songwriter named Berry Gordy borrowed $800 to found Motown Records, a pretty young mother from Nashville, Tennessee borrowed $100 from her brother to run a Numbers racket out of her tattered apartment on Delaware Street, in one of Detroit's worst sections. That woman was Fannie Davis, Bridgett M. Davis's mother.A daughter's moving homage to an extraordinary parent, The World According to Fannie Davis is also the suspenseful, unforgettable story about the lengths to which a mother will go to "make a way out of no way" to provide a prosperous life for her family -- and how those sacrifices resonate over time. Part bookie, part banker, mother, wife, granddaughter of slaves, Fannie Davis became more than a numbers runner: she was a kind of Ulysses, guiding both her husbands, five children and a grandson through the decimation of a once-proud city.Bridgett M. Davis is Professor of Journalism and the Writing Professions at Baruch College, CUNY, where she teaches creative,

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 Him Michael (Ink Press, 2017) and the novel There (Emergency Press, 2013). Her poetry and short works of fiction have appeared in numerous publications, including PANK, Big Lucks, Smokelong Quarterly and Atticus Review. Visit her at http://www.heatherrounds.com/Matthew Nino Azcuy was born in 1994 in Olney, a small town in Maryland, USA where he and his family still reside. He is the author of "Views & Haikus", "The Seeker", "The Lion Kicks", "Matthew Nino Azcuy", and "My Castle" published by Adelaide Books (to be released in November). Writing poems is Matthews passion; and his work consists of a spiritual, romantic, and motivational nature. All works available on Amazon.com.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On: Thursday, Apri

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" life. Despite that prognosis and because she sought treatment,  Charita went on to marry,  raise a family, earn a master's degree in teaching and enjoy a fulfilling career in education.  Her powerful story is chronicled in her debut book,  Defying the Verdict: My Bipolar Life.Charita Cole Brown is in conversation with Emma Snyder, owner of the Ivy Bookshop.Presented in partnership with NAMI Metropolitan Baltimore.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On: Thursday, March 28, 2019

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 face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States.Leonard Pitts, Jr. is the author of the novels The Last Thing You Surrender, Grant Park, Freeman, and Before I Forget, as well as two works of nonfiction. He is a nationally syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald and winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, in addition to many other awards. Born and raised in Southern California, Pitts lives in Maryland outside Washington, DC.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On: Wednesday, March 27, 2019

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 decisions made by the “best and the brightest” through the prism of recent research in cognitive science, psychology, and organizational theory. Drawing upon decades of archival research, his own interviews with many of those involved, and a wealth of previously unheard recordings by McNamara and Clark Clifford, VanDeMark explains how those in charge exhibited unfounded overconfidence, ignored essential information, became blind to the obvious, and were illogically inconsistent, all of which ultimately led to the death of almost 60,000 Americans and more than 3 million Indochinese.Brian VanDeMark teaches history at the United States Naval Academy, where for more than twenty-five years he has educated midshipmen about the Vietnam War. He has also been a visiting fellow at Oxford University. VanDeMark was the res

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 the Underground Railroad, relationships tested by oppression, and the struggles of life after emancipation. The result is an exposé of the thorny racial politics of the abolitionist movement and the pervasive colorism that dictated where white sympathy lay―one that sheds light on a shameful legacy that still affects us profoundly today.Jessie Morgan-Owens is the dean of studies at Bard Early College in New Orleans, Louisiana. A photographer with the team Morgan & Owens, she received her doctorate from New York University and lives in New Orleans with her family.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.Recorded On: Tuesday, March 19, 2019

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 celeste doaks is the author of Cornrows and Cornfields. Most recently, she is the editor of the poetry anthology Not Without Our Laughter. Her newest poems appear in Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America Anthology. She is University of Delaware’s Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing for 2017-2019, and the recipient of a 2017 Rubys Literary Arts Grant Award. For more visit www.doaksgirl.com or check out the podcast she co-hosts called Lit!Pop!Bang! on ITunes.Brion Gill b.k.a. Lady Brion is an international spoken word artist, poetry coach, activist, organizer, and educator. She is the 2016 National Poetry Slam Champion and 2017 Southern Fried Regional Slam Champion. She received her BA in Communications from Howard University and her MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Desi

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 were thousands of little Black children experiencing the same quality of life in Cherry Hill, a post WWII planned suburban community containing a public housing project on a southeastern peninsula of Baltimore City. In Cherry Hill: Raising Successful Black Children in Jim Crow Baltimore, Linda G. Morris shares what life was like to grow up in a special place and time.Linda G. Morris was born and raised in Baltimore, MD. She attended Baltimore City Public Schools, including Cherry Hill Elementary School #159, Garrison Jr. High School, and Edmondson High School. She began freelance writing in the mid-1970s; her work appearing in Essence and Baltimore Magazine. Linda now resides in Germantown, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubba

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 Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore" using newly discovered information found in the Baltimore City Archives, Maryland Historical Society, Enoch Pratt Free Library, and private archives. Muller has presented widely throughout the DC-Baltimore metropolitan area at venues including the Library of Congress, Newseum, Politics and Prose, American Library in Paris and local universities. He is currently working on a book about the lost history of Frederick Douglass on Maryland's Eastern Shore.John Muller will be in conversation with Dr. Ida E. Jones, Morgan State University archivist.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.Recorded On: Thursday, February 28, 2019

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 is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves. More than any other subject, Gay celebrates the beauty of the natural world—his garden, the flowers in the sidewalk, the birds, the bees, the mushrooms, the trees.Ross Gay is the author of three books of poetry, including Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, Against Which, and Bringing the Shovel Down. He is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard, a nonprofit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He teaches at Indiana University.Writers LIVE programs are supported in

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, is desperate to play an important role in her father's court. These two women's lives converge as infighting among Wurche's people threatens the region, during the height of the slave trade at the end of the nineteenth century. Based on true events in precolonial Ghana, The Hundred Wells of Salaga offers a remarkable view of slavery and how the scramble for Africa affected the lives of everyday people.Born to two Ghanaian journalists, Ayesha Harruna Attah grew up in Accra and was educated Columbia University and NYU. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Asymptote Magazine, and the Caine Prize Writers’ 2010 Anthology. Her debut novel, Harmattan Rain, was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2010. Ayesha was awarded the 2016 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship for non-fiction and

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 Girl and Voice Lessons. Her work also appears in the anthologies Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC and Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry (with Danna Ephland). Her work has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She also blogs (occasionally) at thehomebeete.com and her manuscript "Falling Still" is currently in circulation. Find her on Twitter as @mouthflowers.Kathleen Hellen is the author of The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin (2018), the award-winning collection Umberto's Night, and two chapbooks, The Girl Who Loved Mothra and Pentimento. Nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net, and featured on Poetry Daily, her poems have been awarded the Thomas Merton poetry prize and prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Squ

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 big that when Germany cut supplies with the Atlantic blockade, cork companies and their workers got caught up in the life-and-death geopolitical struggle. What began as a simple trade in bark and bottle caps quickly grew into a global drama with sabotage, espionage, and profiteering.In Cork Wars, David A. Taylor traces the fascinating story through the lives of Charles McManus, Frank DiCara, Melchor Marsa, and their families.Journalist David A. Taylor teaches science writing at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America and Ginseng, the Divine Root: The Curious History of the Plant That Captivated the World.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.Recorded On: Thursday, January 3

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 into dementia. The arrival of a revivalist minister further upsets the balance in Alden's rural hometown, for the minister's vehemence to save souls has no bounds. Quickly the town's carefully constructed boundaries begin to crumble. Alden must face the truth about her grandfather's disease and the damning accusations of the minister and decide whether love is the thing that will save her or if it will destroy the only life she's ever known.Christianna McCausland is an independent writer based in Maryland. Ms. McCausland is a graduate of Emory University and attended the Johns Hopkins University’s Masters in Writing program. Her nonfiction articles have appeared in publications including The Christian Science Monitor, Better Homes & Gardens, Baltimore magazine, The Baltimore Sun, People, and at CNN.co

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 of memoir, cultural history, literary criticism, and reportage, The Recovering turns our understanding of the traditional addiction narrative on its head, demonstrating that the story of recovery can be every bit as electrifying as the train wreck itself. Leslie Jamison deftly excavates the stories we tell about addiction--both her own and others'--and examines what we want these stories to do and what happens when they fail us. All the while, she offers a fascinating look at the larger history of the recovery movement, and at the complicated bearing that race and class have on our understanding of who is criminal and who is ill.Leslie Jamison is the author of the essay collection The Empathy Exams, a New York Times bestseller, and the novel The Gin Closet, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is a