Fifth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas: Speaking Truth To Power

Iconic black writers Nikki Giovanni and Walter Mosley lead the lineup of authors at the Virtual Fifth Anniversary Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas on January 30, 2021, 10 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. CDT, hosted on Zoom. With a theme of Speaking Truth to Power, the conversations and panel discussions will focus on the role of writers in providing the views of the oppressed and the marginalized. Their “reporting” on the barriers to freedom is a critical part of the conversation in our communities. To RSVP and see agenda click here: Fifth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas.

The event will open with legendary poet Nikki Giovanni reading from her new book of poetry and prose, MAKE ME RAIN. After the poetry reading, Austin journalist Alberta Phillips will interview Giovanni about her life as a voice for freedom.

Beginning at 2:15 p.m., the event will closeout with KAZI Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewing Walter Mosley about his latest Easy Rawlins novel, BLOOD GROVE.

Other sessions for the Celebration include panel discussions featuring the work of Black playwrights, diverse scholars, promising writers of colors, and students writers. The following writers discussing their latest work include:

Jeanette Hill, a playwright and the founder and artistic director of JWHill Productions LLC.

Matthew Pettway, an author, a Cuba and Africana studies scholar and Spanish professor at the University of South Alabama.

Lisa B. Thompson, an award winning playwright, scholar, and professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Other writers featured at the event include Promising Writers of Color Liliana Aleman, Amanda Moore, and Gina E. Springer Shirley.

The Fifth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas is sponsored by KAZI Book Review and cosponsored this year by the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department and PEN America. This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.

Protests and Civil Rights: Diverse Literary Voices July 11

Learn how Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, North Carolina civil rights leader John Hervey Wheeler, Austin NAACP president Nelson Linder and others confronted police brutality, racism, and discrimination at the Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas: Protests and Civil Rights on Saturday, July 11, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. on Zoom.

The featured panelists are Peniel E. Joseph, author of THE SWORD AND THE SHIELD: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Linder, president of the Austin NAACP, Reginald Owens, former chairman of the journalism department at Louisiana Tech University, and Brandon K. Winford, author of JOHN HERVEY WHEELER: Black Banking, and the Economic Struggle for Civil Rights.

Peniel Joseph holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also the founding director of the LBJ School’s Center for the Study of Race and Democracy.  Dr. Joseph is also the author of WAITING ‘TIL THE MIDNIGHT HOUR: A Narrative History of Black Power in America, DARK DAYS, BRIGHT NIGHTS: From Black Power to Barack Obama, and STOKELY: A Life.

Brandon Winford is an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  He is a historian of the late nineteenth and twentieth century United States and the African American experience, and his research focuses on the relationship between civil rights and black capitalism.

Register at Zoom. 

The Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas is sponsored by KAZI Book Review and cosponsored this year by the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department, Capital Metro, HEB, and Velva Price, District Clerk. This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.

Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas

 

Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas is going online with events at 10 a.m. on June 13, July 11, and August 8.

Get your coffee, pastry, and orange juice and join KAZI Book Review for some riveting discussions about books and writing on the second Saturdays of June, July, and August at 10 a.m.  What are the challenges of writing and publishing the first novel, your second book or your third book? With the collection of writers on June 13, we will be discussing novels that are in the literary, crime fiction, science fiction/fantasy genres, and a short story collection. We will explore not only the themes of their most recently published books, but their unique journeys in writing and publishing them. Meng Jin, author of the novel LITTLE GODS, and Richard Santos, author of the novel TRUST ME, just published their debut novels in 2020. For Rion Amilcar-Scott, his short story collection THE WORLD DOESN’T REQUIRE YOU, published in 2019, was his second book. And for science fiction/fantasy writer Nicky Drayden, ESCAPING EXODUS, published in 2019, was her third book. This will be just the first of three events planned for the Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas. It is sponsored by KAZI Book Review and cosponsored this year by the Austin Community College Writing Department, Capital Metro, HEB, and Velva Price, District Clerk. This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department. To register click here.

On July 11 we will focus on civil rights with historians Peniel Joseph, author of THE SWORD AND THE SHIELD: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.; and  Brandon Winford, author of JOHN HERVEY WHEELER, Black Banking, and the Economic Struggle for Civil Rights.

On August 8 we will feature readings of unpublished work by local authors and college students, and recognition to outstanding fiction by student authors.

The Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas is cosponsored by Austin Community College Creative Writing Department, HEB, Capital Metro, and Velva Price, District Clerk. The project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.

Registration information will be available soon.

Best Books of 2019

KAZI Book Review Celebrating 10 Years on KAZI 88.7 FM

KAZI Book Review debuted on KAZI 88.7 FM on Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 12:30 p.m. with live interviews with T. J. Stiles, author of THE FIRST TYCOON: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt and W. Randall Jones, author of THE RICHEST MAN IN TOWN: The Twelve Commandments of Wealth. On June 7, 2009 I interviewed my first fiction author, Houston native Attica Locke, who discussed her debut novel, BLACK WATER RISING.  Since then over 500 authors have been interviewed on KAZI Book Review, the longest running broadcast radio book show in Texas.

Be sure to check out new pages I’ll be creating as part of the anniversary.  The newest page features five audio interviews from independent book publisher Akashic Books.

 

 

Writers of Color Featured at Diverse Literary Voices of Texas February 22, 2020

Alberta Phillips

In honor of Black History Month and communities of color, KAZI Book Review invites you to join us at the Austin Community College Riverside Campus, Building G, Room 8100 on Saturday, February 22 for the next event in the Diverse Literary Voices of Texas Writer Series.  It features three panel discussions with writers discussing black journalism, familial love in young adult fiction, and the representation of justice in art.

The writer series kicked off January 23 at Huston-Tillotson University Library with a panel discussion on confronting white nationalism through literature and news.  On February 22 the event starts with a Black History Month panel on The Future of Black Journalism moderated by Alberta Phillips, Journalist and former Editorial Writer, Austin-American Statesman. The panelists will include:

• • • • • • • Kahron Spearman, Freelance Journalist, Austin Chronicle
            • Billy Carr, News Director, KAZI 88.7 FM
            • Roxanne Evans,Owner, Evans Communication and former Chief Editorial Writer, Austin American-Statesman
            • John L. Hanson, Host and Producer of nationally syndicated radio series In Black America

Natalia Sylvester

The second panel is Forever Complicated: Familial Love & the Question of Belonging in YA, moderated by Natalia Sylvester, author of the forthcoming YA novel RUNNING (May 5, 2020).  The panelists are:

• Ruben Degollado, author of THROW,
• Addie Tsai, author of DEAR TWIN
• Sherry Thomas, author of THE MAGNOLIA SWORD: A BALLAD OF MULAN.

Chaitali Sen

And the final panel is Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice, moderated by Chaitali Sen, author of THE PATHLESS SKY.  The panelists are:

• • • • • • • Desiree Evans, MFA Fellow at the Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin
            • Dena Afrasiabi, Publications Editor, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at The University of Texas at Austin
            • Fernando Flores, author of TEARS OF A TRUFFLEPIG

The Diverse Literary Voices of Texas is sponsored in part by PEN America, HEB, Austin Community College Department of Creative Writing and Black Student Success Committee, Capital Metro, and Velva Price, District Clerk.

Copies of the books of the authors participating will be available for purchase through a partnership with Malvern Books on February 22. A portion of the book sales will benefit Austin Community Radio. RSVP at EventBrite.

For more information contact Hopeton Hay via hopeton@kazifm.org.

My Reading List and Recommendations This Month

Here are the nine books on my reading list this month that I’m recommending: THE ETHICAL SELLOUT, BREATHE, TAXING BLACKNESS, CRACK, and JOHN HERVEY WHEELER, BLACK BANKING AND THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS are nonfiction. HI FIVE (crime fiction), AFRICAVILLE (literary fiction), THE FREEDOM ARTIST (literary fiction), HUNTER KILLER (thriller) are novels.

A few books I’m planning to read and recommend for February are THE DARK CORNERS OF THE NIGHT (thriller) by Meg Gardiner, TROUBLE IS WHAT I DO (crime fiction) by Walter Mosley, and REMEMBERED (literary fiction) by Yvonne Battle-Felton. My full list of February recommendations will be posted in late January.

PODCAST: Faith and Struggle in Lives of Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver and Muhammad Ali

Randal Maurice Jelks, author of FAITH AND STRUGGLE IN THE LIVES OF FOUR AFRICAN AMERICANS: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams,Eldrige Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali, was the keynote author at the Celebration of the 10th Anniversary of KAZI Book Review on May 31 at the Carver Museum and Cultural Center in Austin, Texas.  In his book, Jelks examines their autobiographical writings, interviews, speeches, letters, and memorable performances to understand how each of these figures used religious faith publicly to reconcile deep personal struggles, voice their concerns for human dignity, and reinvent their public image.  Randal Maurice Jelks is Professor of American Studies and African American Studies at the University of Kansas.

I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Jelks for participating in the KAZI Book Review 10th Anniversary Celebration.  I also would like to thank to Velva Price and journalist Alberta Phillips-Bledsoe for participating in a panel discussion on faith with Dr. Jelks at the celebration.

 

Enclosed is an interview I taped with Dr. Jelks about his book:

PODCAST: The Story of Integration at The University of Texas at Austin

On December 16, 2018 I interviewed Virginia Cumberbatch, co-editor of AS WE SAW IT: The Story of Integration at The University of Texas at Austin.  Included in the interview are excerpts from an interview I previously did with retired Colonel Leon Holland in 2016, who was part of the first class of African Americans to enroll as undergraduates in 1956 at UT Austin.

Ret. Colonel Leon Holland

Virginia Cumberbatch

 

Third Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas February 22-23, 2019 at Austin Central Library

The Third Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas is sponsored by KAZI Book Review, hosted by the Austin Public Library and supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department and PEN America.  It is also supported by sponsors HEB, Capital Metro, Travis County Commissioner Jeffrey Travillion, Austin Spurs, Velva Price. and Walter Muse.  Special thanks to the Austin Revitalization Authority for their support.

ALL EVENTS WILL BE HELD AT AUSTIN CENTRAL LIBRARY SPECIAL EVENTS CENTER

710 W. Cesar Chavez St., Austin, Texas

 

February 22, 2019 – RSVP For Friday

7 p.m. – 9 p.m.

Diverse Literary Voices of Texas Presents: An Evening With Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Leonard Pitts, Jr.

Author of the new historical black novel set during World War II, THE LAST THING YOU SURRENDER, and nationally syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald

Moderator: Hopeton Hay, Host and Producer, KAZI Book Review; Founder, Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas

 

February 23, 2019 – RSVP For Saturday

10:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.

Registration and Book Sales

 

10:30-11:15 a.m.

Zora Neale Hurston’s BARRACOON: The True Story of One of the Last Known Survivors of the Atlantic Slave Trade

Jennifer Baker, editor, EVERYDAY PEOPLE: The Color of Life—A Short Story Anthology, and host of Minorities in Publishing Podcast

Daina Ramey Berry, Professor of History at UT Austin and author of THE PRICE FOR THEIR POUND OF FLESH

Moderator: Julie Hudson, Assistant Professor of English, Huston-Tillotson University

 

11:20-12:05

From Roots to Bloom: Deconstructing Latinidad

Carrie Fountain, author, I’M NOT MISSING

Jasminne Méndez, author, NIGHT-BLOOMING JASMIN(N) e: Personal Essays & Poems

ire’ne lara silva,author, CUICACALLI/House of Song poetry collection

Moderator: Natalia Sylvester, author, EVERYONE KNOWS YOU GO HOME

 

12:10-12:55 p.m.

Everyday People: Diversity In Fantasy, Young Adult, and Short Story Fiction

Jennifer Baker, editor, EVERYDAY PEOPLE: The Color of Life—A Short Story Anthology, and host of Minorities in Publishing Podcast

Nicky Drayden, author, TEMPER

Jacob Grovey, author, THE DIFFERENTERS (YA)

Moderator: Billy Carr, KAZI 88.7 FM

 

12:55 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.

Book Sales 

 

1:15-2:15 p.m.

Voter Suppression and Role of Press in Safeguarding Democracy

Carol Anderson, author, ONE PERSON, NO VOTE: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy and Professor of African American Studies, Emory University

Gary Bledsoe, President, Texas NAACP and Interim Dean, Texas Southern University School of Law

Leonard Pitts, Jr., nationally syndicated columnist, Miami Herald, and author, THE LAST THING YOU SURRENDER

Moderator: Alberta Phillips-Bledsoe, Austin writer and journalist

 

2:30-3:15 p.m.

Violence Against Black Slaves/Prisoners and Ethnic Mexicans in Texas: From South Texas to Sugar Land

Diana Ramey Berry, author, THE PRICE FOR THEIR POUND OF FLESH: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave in the Building of a Nation

Monica Munoz Martinez, author, THE INJUSTICE NEVER LEAVES YOU:  Anti-Mexican Violence in the Texas Borderlands

Moderator: John Moran Gonzalez, Director, UT Austin Center for Mexican American Studies

 

3:30-4:15 p.m.

The Depiction of Immigration in Fiction and the Media Bots, Trolls, and Truth

Moderator: Douglas Criss, Digital Trending News Writer, CNN

Leonard Pitts, Jr., nationally syndicated columnist, Miami Herald, and author, THE LAST THING YOU SURRENDER

Chaitali Sen, author, THE PATHLESS SKY

Natalia Sylvester, author, EVERYONE KNOWS YOU GO HOME

 

4:15-5 p.m.

Book Sales