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

 

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PODCAST INTERVIEW – THE INJUSTICE NEVER LEAVES YOU: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Munoz Martinez

Brown University American Studies professor Monica Munoz Martinez discusses her new book, THE INJUSTICE NEVER LEAVES YOU,  which focuses on the hundreds of ethnic Mexicans killed in Texas by vigilantes and law enforcement officials between 1910 and 1920.  Martinez grew up in Uvalde, Texas.

PODCAST: Manning Wolfe, Author of GREEN FEES

Austin author Manning Wolfe was interviewed live about her new legal thriller GREEN FEES on the July 29 edition of KAZI Book Review.  I was joined by BookPeople Crime Fiction Coordinator Scott Montgomery and CrimeReads Associate Editor Molly Odintz by phone for the interview.

 

PODCAST: Interview with Austin Playwright Jeanette Hill

On September 15, Jeanette Hill’s latest play, No Ordinary Days, will be opening at the Boyd Vance Theater at the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center.  Her play explores how a black family deals with the mental illness of two family members.  Four actors from the play, Tawanna Jackson, Sabrina Simpson, Adaryll Perry, and Robert Walker, performed two scenes from the play live in studio.  To listen to the interview and performances click the link below.

PODCAST: 2018 Interview With Dr. Daina Ramey Berry, author of THE PRICE FOR THEIR POUND OF FLESH:

THE PRICE FOR THEIR POUND OF FLESH: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation  is a groundbreaking look at how slaves were valued, and more importantly, how they valued themselves  through every phase of life, from birth to death and beyond, in early America.  Dr. Berry is a Professor of History and African and African American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin.  I interviewed her live in the studio for the second time in August 2018, over one year after my original interview with her.  We discussed the need for a more comprehensive teaching of slavery in the schools, Kanye West’s unfortunate  statement that slavery was a choice, and the opening of the lynching museum in Alabama.

PODCAST: Elizabeth Crook, author of THE WHICH WAY TREE

THE WHICH WAY TREE is the story of a young girl’s frightening and poignant odyssey to track down the panther that killed her mother.  To listen to my interview click here:

PODCAST: Lawrence Jackson Discusses Biography of Black Author Chester Himes

In Lawrence Jackson’s monumental biography, CHESTER B. HIMES, readers are introduced to one of the most prolific and underrated Black writers of the 20th century.   Himes, who lived from 1909-1984, was the author of 17 novels and numerous short stories.  Himes was a black literary realist who used fiction to honestly express the rage he felt at racism, despite the criticism of some of his contemporaries that his perspective was too bleak.  It was his Harlem detective novels that paved the path for enduring financial success as two of those novels were made into movies in the 1970s, Cotton Comes to Harlem and Come Back Charleston Blue.

Lawrence P. Jackson is a Professor of English and History at Johns Hopkins University and also the author of RALPH ELLISON: Emergence of Genius.