PBS Books

David Bornstein | Solutions Journalism Collaborative Summit Keynote Speaker
2022-09-19 13:30 - 14:30 (America/Detroit)
David Bornstein, co-founder and CEO of the Solutions Journalism Network, will kick off the Solutions Journalism Collaborative Summit by discussing the role Solutions Journalism can play in helping news organizations confront evolving challenges in the news around trust, audience engagement, equity and sustainability.
David Bornstein co-founded the Solutions Journalism Network in 2013 with Tina Rosenberg and Courtney Martin. He has been a journalist, focusing primarily on social innovation, for more than 30 years. He began his career reporting on metro issues for New York Newsday, then shifted to international reporting, contributing to numerous publications. From 2010-21, he co-authored the “Fixes” column in The New York Times, which examined efforts to solve social and environmental problems. He is the author of: “How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas,” which has been published in 25 languages, “The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank,” and “Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.”
This speaker event is part of the Solutions Journalism Collaborative Summit, hosted by the New York & Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative, the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative and Detroit Public TV.

Amy Goyer, 'Choosing to Care' | Solutions Journalism Collaborative Summit Keynote Speaker
2022-09-20 09:00 - 10:00 (America/Detroit)
Amy Goyer, AARP’s national family and caregiving expert, begins the second day of the Solutions Journalism Collaborative Summit with a presentation, “Choosing to Care,” focusing on the intersection of mental health and caregiving and real-world solutions for journalists to vet and turn into impactful stories.
Amy Goyer is AARP’s national family and caregiving expert and moderates its Family Caregivers Discussion Group on Facebook. She has more than 35 years of professional experience serving and advocating for older adults, children and families, and people with disabilities. She has been a family caregiver her entire adult life, caring for her grandparents, parents, sisters and other relatives and friends. She has written three books and appears regularly as a caregiving authority on network news shows, including more than a dozen times on NBC’s “Today.” She has been a guest on “Dr. Phil” and “The Doctors” and been interviewed by CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and People, among other media outlets.
This speaker event is part of the Solutions Journalism Collaborative Summit, hosted by the New York & Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative, the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative and Detroit Public TV.

Author Talk: ‘The US and the Holocaust: Building Bridges’ with Eboo Patel
2022-09-22 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Thursday, September 22 at 8pm ET
In connection with The US and the Holocaust, PBS Books is pleased to present a conversation with Interfaith America’s Founder and President Eboo Patel, author of We Need to Build: Fieldnotes for Diverse Democracy. It is an inspirational guide for those who seek to promote positive social change and build a more diverse and just democracy. While looking at the Holocaust and some of US’s historical policies, Eboo will discuss his work, his book, and inspiring social activists as he underscores the importance of social infrastructures within today’s society as we build our diverse democracy and ensure there is never another Holocaust.
About Eboo Patel
Eboo Patel is a widely acclaimed civic leader who believes that religious diversity is an essential and inspiring dimension of American democracy. Named “one of America’s best leaders” by US News and World Report, Eboo is Founder and President of Interfaith America (formerly Interfaith Youth Core), the leading interfaith organization in the United States. Under his leadership, Interfaith America has worked with governments, universities, private companies, and civic organizations to make faith a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division. He served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council, has given hundreds of keynote addresses, and has written five books, including “We Need to Build: Fieldnotes for Diverse Democracy” published in May 2022. He is an Ashoka Fellow and holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. Eboo lives in Chicago with his wife, and two sons.

'Carrying Golden Threads' with Michele Oka Doner | The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series
2022-09-23 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
“Carrying Golden Threads” with Michele Oka Doner | Friday, September 23, 8 p.m.
Michele Oka Doner is an internationally renowned artist whose career spans six decades. Her work is fueled by a lifelong study and appreciation of the natural world, from which she derives her formal vocabulary. The breadth of her artistic production encompasses sculpture, drawing, public art, functional objects, video, artist books, and costume and set design. She is well known for creating numerous permanent art installations throughout the United States, including Flight at Reagan International Airport, Arlington, VA, Radiant Site at the Herald Square MTA station, New York and the mile and quarter bronze and terrazzo concourse, A Walk on the Beach at Miami International Airport, seen by 40 million travelers annually.
Learn more
The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Fall 2022 Season
This winter, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series brings respected leaders and innovators from a broad spectrum of creative fields to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater for weekly in-person events.
Detroit Public Television and PBS Books, in partnership with the Stamps School, will stream each week’s event Fridays at 8pm.
See the full schedule of events livestreamed by PBS Books here.
Some programs may not be available online, depending on artist requests. Interested in receiving notifications before online videos go live? Sign up to receive a reminder before each event begins streaming.
Watch Past Penny Stamps Episodes

A Filmmaker Conversation | MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE
2022-09-28 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Wednesday, September 28 8pm ET | 5pm PT
PBS Books, in collaboration with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is pleased to host a conversation with internationally renowned scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ph.D., who is the executive producer, host and writer of MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE, with esteemed scholar Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Ph.D., who is the former past president of ASALH, on Wedneday, September 28 at 8pm ET | 5pm PT.
Explore the themes and content in MAKING BLACK AMERICA as Professor Gates discusses his work and his process for his new documentary in dialogue with his long-time friend and colleague Professor Higginbotham—both are foremost scholars in the field of African American history.
ABOUT MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE
MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE is a four-part series that explores Black Americans’ Centuries-Long History of Establishing Communities and Attaining Social, Political and Economic Success in the face of racial segregation; the documentary premieres on PBS stations across the country starting on Tuesday, October 4 at 9pm ET (check your local listing). In this latest series from the acclaimed Harvard scholar and documentarian, Gates and director Stacey L. Holman chronicle the vast social networks and organizations created by and for Black people beyond the reach of the “White gaze.” During the series, Gates sits with noted scholars, politicians, cultural leaders, and old friends to discuss this world behind the color line and what it looks like today. MAKING BLACK AMERICA takes viewers into an extraordinary world that showcased Black people’s ability to collectively prosper, defy white supremacy and define Blackness in ways that transformed America itself.
ABOUT HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR., Ph.D. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University.Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates’s most recent books are Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow and The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song. He has also produced and hosted more than 20 documentary films, most recently The Black Church on PBS and Black Art: In the Absence of Light for HBO. Finding Your Roots, his groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, is now in its eighth season on PBS. It has been called “one of the deepest and wisest series ever on television,” leveraging “the inherent entertainment capacity of the medium to educate millions of Americans about the histories and cultures of our nation and the world.”
The recipient of 56 honorary degrees and numerous prizes, Professor Gates was a member of the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, and in 1998, he became the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal. He was named to Time’s25 Most Influential Americans list in 1997, to Ebony’s Power 150 list in 2009, and to Ebony’s Power 100 list in 2010 and 2012.
ABOUT EVELYN BROOKS HIGGINBOTHAM, PH.D.
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, where she has been on the faculty since 1993 and has chaired both the Department of African and African American Studies (2006-2013) and the Department of History (2018-2020).
Higginbotham is also the immediate past National President of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which was founded in 1915 by Carter G. Woodson, the Father of Black History.
She is the co-author with the late John Hope Franklin of the ninth edition and now tenth edition of From Slavery to Freedom (2021). A pioneering and prizewinning scholar in African American women’s history, she co-edited with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,
the twelve-volume African American National Biography (2013).
Her numerous awards include most notably the National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barak Obama in September 2015, and most recently the honorary doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University in May 2022.

Author Talk: Honorée Fanonne Jeffers | MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE
2022-10-05 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Wednesday, October 5 8pm ET | 5pm PT
PBS Books, in collaboration with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is pleased to host a conversation award-winning Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of The Love Songs of WEB DuBois in connection with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s latest documentary MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE, on October 5 at 8pm ET| 5pm PT.
In her latest book, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers chronicles the journey of one American family from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil Rights Movement to today’s society. Through the conversation, you’ll learn about her work and process, as well as themes and topics that connect to MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE.

ABOUT HONORÉE FANONNE JEFFERS
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is a fiction writer, poet, and essayist. She is the author of five poetry collections, including the 2020 collection The Age of Phillis, which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award, the George Washington Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was a contributor to The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race, edited by Jesmyn Ward, and has been published in the Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, and other literary publications. Jeffers was elected into the American Antiquarian Society, whose members include fourteen U.S. presidents, and is Critic at Large for Kenyon Review. She is a professor and chair of the English Department at University of Oklahoma. The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois is her first novel and was a New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, longlisted for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and an Oprah Book Club Pick.
ABOUT MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE
MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE is a four-part series that explores Black Americans’ Centuries-Long History of Establishing Communities and Attaining Social, Political and Economic Success in the face of racial segregation; the documentary premieres on PBS stations across the country starting on Tuesday, October 4 at 9pm ET (check your local listing). In this latest series from the acclaimed Harvard scholar and documentarian, Gates and director Stacey L. Holman chronicle the vast social networks and organizations created by and for Black people beyond the reach of the “White gaze.” During the series, Gates sits with noted scholars, politicians, cultural leaders, and old friends to discuss this world behind the color line and what it looks like today. MAKING BLACK AMERICA takes viewers into an extraordinary world that showcased Black people’s ability to collectively prosper, defy white supremacy and define Blackness in ways that transformed America itself.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with Richard Blanco from Poetry In America
2022-10-06 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Thursday, October 6 | 8pm ET | 5pm PT

PBS Books is pleased to host a conversation with award-winning poet Richard Blanco, who a featured guest of PBS broadcast-series Poetry In America, with Poetry In America’s Founder, Director, and Host Elisa New. As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, join us to learn about Richard Blanco, his work, and his creative process.

ABOUT THE POET RICHARD BLANCO
Selected by President Obama as the fifth inaugural poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco is the first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve in such a role. Born in Madrid to Cuban exile parents and raised in Miami, the negotiation of cultural identity characterizes his four collections of poetry: How To Love a Country, City of a Hundred Fires, which received the Agnes Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press; Directions to The Beach of the Dead, recipient of the Beyond Margins Award from the PEN American Center; and Looking for The Gulf Motel, recipient of the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award. He has also authored the memoirs For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey and The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood, winner of a Lambda Literary Award. His inaugural poem “One Today” was published as a children’s book, in collaboration with renowned illustrator Dav Pilkey. Boundaries, a collaboration with photographer Jacob Hessler, challenges the physical and psychological dividing lines that shadow the United States. And his latest book of poems, How to Love a Country, both interrogates the American narrative, past and present, and celebrates the still unkept promise of its ideals. Blanco has written occasional poems for the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, Freedom to Marry, the Tech Awards of Silicon Valley, and the Boston Strong benefit concert following the Boston Marathon bombings. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has received numerous honorary doctorates. He has taught at Georgetown University, American University, and Wesleyan University. He serves as the first Education Ambassador for The Academy of American Poets.

ABOUT ELISA NEW
Elisa New is the Director and Host of Poetry in America, director of Verse Video Education, and Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature at Harvard University. New created Poetry in America, a PBS series, to bring poetry into living rooms and onto screens of all kinds. The show can be seen on public television and streaming platforms, in schools and libraries, and on airlines. Guests include Joe Biden, Herbie Hancock, Gloria Estefan, Shaquille O’Neal, Elena Kagan, Nas, John McCain, Sonia Sanchez, Tony Kushner, Bill Clinton, Julia Alvarez, Bono, Cynthia Nixon, John Kerry, LisaGay Hamilton, Caroline Kennedy, Katie Couric, Al Gore, and Bill T. Jones. Along with the series, New produces educational materials on American poetry for all ages—from middle- and high-school students, to K-12 teachers, to lifelong learners—distributed by Harvard University, Amplify Education, and Arizona State University.
New is the author of The Regenerate Lyric: Theology and Innovation in American Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 1992); The Line’s Eye: Poetic Experience, American Sight (Harvard University Press, 1999); Jacob’s Cane: A Jewish Family’s Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore: A Memoir in Five Generations (Basic Books, 2009); and New England Beyond Criticism: In Defense of America’s First Literature, A Wiley Blackwell Manifesto (Wiley Blackwell 2014).

ABOUT POETRY IN AMERICA
Poetry in America, created and directed by Harvard professor Elisa New, is a public television series and multi-platform educational initiative that brings poetry into classrooms and living rooms around the world. In partnership with Harvard University, Poetry in America offers free online courses for global learners as well as for-credit and professional development courses for undergraduates, graduate students, highly motivated high-school students, and educational practitioners. Its public television series Poetry in America (presented by WGBH Boston and distributed by American Public Television) first aired nationwide in April 2018. Poetry in America returned for a second season in April 2020, and is airing on public television stations in most major markets across the US. Poetry in America is filmed on location in a rich documentary style. From our base in Cambridge, we follow Allen Ginsberg to San Francisco, Gwendolyn Brooks to the South Side of Chicago, and Emily Dickinson to Amherst. Along the way, scientists and Supreme Court justices, playwrights and journalists, athletes and songwriters, poets and painters, and classroom teachers and their students join us to reflect on essential works of the American literary imagination.

Author & Screenwriter Conversation | Masterpiece’s Magpie Murders
2022-10-11 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
The Magic of Masterpiece
Tuesday, October 11, 8pm ET | 5pm PT
PBS Books is pleased to host a conversation with internationally renowned writer Anthony Horowitz, who is the screenwriter, author, and executive producer of Magpie Murders. Magpie Murders will premiere on Sunday, October 16 at 9/8c on MASTERPIECE on PBS. Join us to get a sneak preview into Anthony Horowitz’s work and creative process as you learn about the characters and Horowitz’s carefully crafted story. Plus, he’ll discuss how his blockbuster novel got to the screen.

ABOUT MAGPIE MURDERS
A beguiling murder mystery with a solution that will both astonish and shock viewers, the plot of Magpie Murders revolves around the character Susan Ryeland, an editor who is given an unfinished manuscript of author Alan Conway’s latest novel, but has little idea it will change her life.
Adapted from Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling mystery by the author himself, Magpie Murders stars Leslie Manville (World on Fire, Phantom Thread, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris) as editor turned amateur sleuth Susan Ryeland and Tim McMullan (Patrick Melrose, Foyle’s War) as world-famous detective Atticus Pünd.
WGBH is the producer of MASTERPIECE.
ABOUT ANTHONY HOROWITZ
Anthony Horowitz is one of the most prolific and successful writers in the UK – and is unique for working across so many media – writing books, television, films, plays and journalism. He has written over 50 books including the bestselling teen spy series Alex Rider, which has sold over 21 million copies worldwide, and has been adapted into a hugely successful television series.
Anthony is also an acclaimed writer for adults. He was commissioned by the Conan Doyle Estate to write two new Sherlock Holmes novels, which were internationally lauded. The Ian Fleming Estate commissioned Anthony to write continuation novels for James Bond with Trigger Mortis and Forever and A Day published in 2015 and 2018 respectively. Anthony’s award-winning novel Magpie Murders was released in 2016 to critical acclaim and has been filmed with Lesley Manville in the lead role to premiere on October 16, 2022 at 9/8c on PBS.
Anthony is responsible for creating and writing some of the UK’s most beloved and successful television series, including Foyle’s War, Collision, Injustice, New Blood, and the first seven episodes of Midsomer Murders. Anthony regularly contributes to a wide variety of national newspapers and magazines and has been a patron to the anti-bullying charity, Kidscape. Anthony was recently awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to literature.

'In Conversation' with Wynton Marsalis and Warde Manuel | The Penny Stamps Distinguished Series
2022-10-14 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Wynton Marsalis sits down with UM Director of Athletics Warde Manuel to explore art, athletics, and the creative process. These two successful New Orleans natives come together in a conversation moderated by Christopher Audain, Managing Director of the Arts Initiative.
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About Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis is a world-renowned trumpeter, bandleader and composer, and a leading advocate of American culture. He presently serves as Managing and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center and Director of Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1961, Marsalis began his classical training on trumpet at age 12, entered The Juilliard School at age 17, and soon thereafter joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He recorded more than 103 jazz and classical recordings, which have won nine GRAMMY® awards. In 1983, he became the first and only artist to win both classical and jazz GRAMMYs® in the same year, repeating the distinction the following year. Today, Wynton is the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards® in five consecutive years (1983−1987). In 1997, Wynton became the first jazz artist to be awarded the prestigious Pulitzer in Music for his oratorio Blood on the Fields. Marsalis has received honorary doctorates from over 25 of America’s top academic institutions including Columbia, Harvard, Howard, Princeton and Yale. In 2001, he was appointed Messenger of Peace by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In 2005 Wynton received The National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States government.
About Warde Manuel
Warde Manuel is the Director of Athletics at the University of Michigan. He was a high school All-American football player, and played for the University of Michigan under Schembechler. After graduating, Manuel was coordinator of U-M’s Wade H. McCree Jr. Incentive Scholarship program from 1990 to 1993, which helps students prepare for higher education at public universities in Michigan. Afterward, Manuel served in several roles within Michigan’s athletic department, and was named associate athletic director with oversight responsibility for operation facets of the university’s athletic program. He also oversaw Michigan’s football and men’s basketball programs. In 2012, Manuel became the director of athletics at the University of Connecticut. UConn teams won six NCAA national championships under Manuel’s leadership. Manuel returned to U‑M following his four-year run at UConn. His return to Ann Arbor brings him full-circle from an accomplished student-athlete and athletic administrator at U‑M to a distinguished career as an athletic director and back again.

The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Fall 2022 Season
This winter, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series brings respected leaders and innovators from a broad spectrum of creative fields to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater for weekly in-person events.
Detroit Public Television and PBS Books, in partnership with the Stamps School, will stream each week’s event Fridays at 8pm.
See the full schedule of events livestreamed by PBS Books here.
Some programs may not be available online, depending on artist requests. Interested in receiving notifications before online videos go live? Sign up to receive a reminder before each event begins streaming.
Watch Past Penny Stamps Episodes

Author Talk | Kwame Alexander on MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE
2022-10-17 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
PBS Books, in collaboration with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is pleased to host a conversation New York Times best-selling Kwame Alexander, author of The Door of No Return and An American Story in connection with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s latest documentary MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE, on October 17 at 8pm ET| 5pm PT.
In his latest book, Alexander’s The Door of No Return chronicles the saga of one African Family in verse and is part of a forthcoming trilogy. Soon to be released, An American Story shares a story about African Americans’ struggle and strength, horror and hope. Through the conversation, you’ll learn about his work and process, as well as themes and topics that connect to MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE.
ABOUT THE KWAME ALEXANDER
Kwame Alexander is a poet, educator, publisher, and New York Times Bestselling author of 36 books, including SWING, BECOMING MUHAMMAD ALI, co-authored with James Patterson, REBOUND, which was shortlisted for prestigious UK Carnegie Medal, The Caldecott Medal and Newbery Honor-winning picture book, THE UNDEFEATED, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, and his NEWBERY medal-winning middle grade novel, THE CROSSOVER. A regular contributor to NPR’s Morning Edition, Kwame is the recipient of numerous awards, including The Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, The Coretta Scott King Author Honor, Three NAACP Image Award Nominations, and the 2017 Inaugural Pat Conroy Legacy Award. In 2018, he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic in Ghana, as a part of LEAP for Ghana, an international literacy program he co-founded. He is the writer and executive producer of THE CROSSOVER TV series on Disney+. The fall of 2022 will see the release of book one of a new trilogy, THE DOOR OF NO RETURN.
ABOUT MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE
MAKING BLACK AMERICA: THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE is a four-part series that explores Black Americans’ Centuries-Long History of Establishing Communities and Attaining Social, Political and Economic Success in the face of racial segregation; the documentary premieres on PBS stations across the country starting on Tuesday, October 4 at 9pm ET (check your local listing). In this latest series from the acclaimed Harvard scholar and documentarian, Gates and director Stacey L. Holman chronicle the vast social networks and organizations created by and for Black people beyond the reach of the “White gaze.” During the series, Gates sits with noted scholars, politicians, cultural leaders, and old friends to discuss this world behind the color line and what it looks like today. MAKING BLACK AMERICA takes viewers into an extraordinary world that showcased Black people’s ability to collectively prosper, defy white supremacy and define Blackness in ways that transformed America itself.

'Wholeness in the Future' with Andrea Carlson | The Penny Stamps Distinguished Series
2022-10-21 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Andrea Carlson (Ojibwe) is a visual artist currently living in Chicago, Illinois. Carlson’s expansive practice cites entangled cultural narratives and institutional practices of possession and display. Her studio work includes multi-part paintings and drawings that feature iterative panoramic views of Indigenous futures. Her large-scale site-specific installations layer together imagery and Indigenous languages in an effort to provide visibility for Indigenous peoples within settler cities.
Learn More

The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Fall 2022 Season
This winter, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series brings respected leaders and innovators from a broad spectrum of creative fields to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater for weekly in-person events.
Detroit Public Television and PBS Books, in partnership with the Stamps School, will stream each week’s event Fridays at 8pm.
See the full schedule of events livestreamed by PBS Books here.
Some programs may not be available online, depending on artist requests. Interested in receiving notifications before online videos go live? Sign up to receive a reminder before each event begins streaming.
Watch Past Penny Stamps Episodes

Author Talk | Dr. Seema Yasmin - The US and the Holocaust: Navigating Misinformation
2022-10-25 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
PBS Books, in collaboration with PBS Newshour Student Reporting Labs, is pleased to present a conversation with Emmy-winning journalist Seema Yasmin, author of What The Fact, in connection with The US and the Holocaust: A film by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein, and in celebration of National Media Literacy Week. Yasmin’s book is an accessible guide that traces the spread of misinformation and disinformation through our fast-moving media landscape and teaches readers of all ages about the skills that will help them identify and counter poorly-sourced clickbait and misleading headlines. Seema Yasmin will be interviewed by PBS Newshour Student Reporting Labs’ Isaac Harte, who is a 10th-grade student at the Shipley School and a MediaWise Teen Fact-Checker. In addition, a PBS Newshour Student Reporting Labs story, created by Thais Giraudet, about misinformation and activism will be shared and discussed as connections are made to US history and the Holocaust.
About the Author: Seema Yasmin
Seema Yasmin is an Emmy Award–winning journalist who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, medical doctor, professor, and poet. She attended medical school at Cambridge University and worked as a disease detective for the US federal government’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. She currently teaches storytelling at Stanford University School of Medicine, and is a regular contributor to CNN, Self, and Scientific American, among others.
About the Film
The U.S. and the Holocaust: A film by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein is a three-part, six hour series that examines America’s response to one of the greatest humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Americans consider themselves a “nation of immigrants,” but as the catastrophe of the Holocaust unfolded in Europe, the United States proved unwilling to open its doors to more than a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of desperate people seeking refuge. Through riveting firsthand testimony of witnesses and survivors who as children endured persecution, violence and flight as their families tried to escape Hitler, this series delves deeply into the tragic human consequences of public indifference, bureaucratic red tape and restrictive quota laws in America. Did the nation fail to live up to its ideals? This is a history to be reckoned with.

Author Talk | 'Woman of Light' with Kali Fajardo-Anstine
2022-11-02 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
PBS Books is pleased to host a conversation with trailblazing writer Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of “Woman of Light: A Novel.” “Woman of Light” is a multigenerational saga published by One World, an imprint of Random House dedicated to telling underrepresented stories. Fajardo-Anstine’s book reclaims Indigenous Chicanas’ place in the history of the American West and Colorado. Protagonist Luz Lopez immerses the reader on an adventurous journey in the West, highlighting important issues of domestic abuse, alcoholism, racism, discrimination, police brutality, Mexican-American ‘Repatriation,’ and more.
This event is offered in collaboration National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and NaNoWriMo’s Executive Director Grant Faulkner welcomes the audience and participates.

About the Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Kali Fajardo-Anstine is the nationally bestselling author of the novel Woman of Light and the story collection Sabrina & Corina, a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Bingham Prize, The Clark Prize, The Story Prize, the Saroyan International Prize, and winner of an American Book Award, she is the 2021 recipient of the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been honored with the Denver Mayor’s Award for Global Impact in the Arts and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Award. She has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, O: the Oprah Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, and elsewhere, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and Tin House. Fajardo-Anstine earned her MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida. She is the 2022 – 2024 Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University.

'Departure' with Cey Adams | The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series
2022-11-04 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Cey Adams is a pioneer in the world of hip-hop graphic design. As the legendary Creative Director of Def Jam Recordings, he created album artwork, logos, as well as advertising campaigns for the likes of Jay-Z, Run DMC, Beastie Boys, Notorious B.I.G., Maroon 5, and many others.
Cey’s vision pushes the boundaries of art and design as it intertwines with Hip-Hop culture and society at large. His artistic practice focuses on themes including pop culture, race and gender relations, and cultural and community issues. He exhibits, lectures, and teaches art workshops at many established institutions including the MoMA, Pratt Institute, and universities nationwide. Cey lives in Brooklyn, New York where he is always creating mind-altering masterpieces.
Learn More>>

The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Fall 2022 Season
This winter, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series brings respected leaders and innovators from a broad spectrum of creative fields to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater for weekly in-person events.
Detroit Public Television and PBS Books, in partnership with the Stamps School, will stream each week’s event Fridays at 8pm.
See the full schedule of events livestreamed by PBS Books here.
Some programs may not be available online, depending on artist requests. Interested in receiving notifications before online videos go live? Sign up to receive a reminder before each event begins streaming.
Watch Past Penny Stamps Episodes

'The U.S. and the Holocaust' Resources Webinar for Libraries
2022-11-08 14:00 - 15:00 (America/Halifax)
Join PBS Books, WETA and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association to learn about THE U.S. AND THE HOLOCAUST, a film by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick & Sarah Botstein and free educational resources available to engage around this important topic.
In this 60-minute session, you’ll meet Sarah Botstein, one of the filmmakers, and hear about programming resources (film screeners, discussion guides, book lists, panel discussions, poster sets and more) related to the film and the topic, as well as learn about what some other libraries have done in their communities to promote connections. The presenters will also share tips to help library workers connect with their local PBS station to collaborate on a program.
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'Power and Participation in Public Art' with Paul Farber | The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series
2022-11-11 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Paul Farber is Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab, a Philadelphia-based organization working with artists, students, educators, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions to facilitate critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments, approaches to public engagement, and collective memory. He also serves as Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Public Art & Space at the University of Pennsylvania.
A highly collaborative pilot project between Monument Lab and UMMA will encompass curatorial research around the intersection of Michigan history, public art, and monuments, and will culminate in an artist commission for 2023 that explores the history of UMMA’s Alumni Memorial Hall as a monument.
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The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Fall 2022 Season
This winter, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series brings respected leaders and innovators from a broad spectrum of creative fields to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater for weekly in-person events.
Detroit Public Television and PBS Books, in partnership with the Stamps School, will stream each week’s event Fridays at 8pm.
See the full schedule of events livestreamed by PBS Books here.
Some programs may not be available online, depending on artist requests. Interested in receiving notifications before online videos go live? Sign up to receive a reminder before each event begins streaming.
Watch Past Penny Stamps Episodes

Redistricting Town Hall | Ford Policy School Speaker Events
2022-11-30 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Halifax)
﻿
Join the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy for a webinar about redistricting and the 2022 midterm election.
Michigan’s new approach to redistricting by an independent citizens commission has now come full circle, from signature gathering for the statewide ballot initiative in 2018, to strong statewide support in that fall’s election, creation of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, their work drawing new districts with extraordinary input from Michigan citizens, and now the new districts being used for the first time in the 2022 elections.
Join the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy for a final webinar in its redistricting series, to look back at this consequential change in state policy and to review how this new approach played out this fall, including its impacts on races and election outcomes, and how it compares to experiences in other states. We’ll hear from an expert panel covering these and related issues, including their reactions to audience questions.
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Moderator:
Matt Grossmann, Director, Institute for Public Policy and Social Research of Political Science at Michigan State University
Panelists:

Moon Duchin, MGMG Redistricting lab
Zach Gorchow, Executive Editor and Publisher at Gongwer News Service Michigan
Nancy Wang, Executive Director, Voters Not Politicians

About this webinar:
This virtual event is hosted by the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, Voters Not Politicians (VNP), and Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research (IPPSR), with support from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
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FBI Director Christopher Wray | Ford School Speaker Events
2022-12-02 11:45 - 13:00 (America/Halifax)
The Ford School presents FBI Director Christopher Wray as the 2022 Josh Rosenthal Memorial Speaker. Director Wray will give brief remarks, followed by faculty and student experts posing questions to the director on topics including cybersecurity, civil liberties, domestic violent extremism, and more.
This event is presented in partnership with University of Michigan’s Ford School.
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About Christopher Wray
Christopher Wray became the eighth Director of the FBI on August 2, 2017.
Wray began his law enforcement career in 1997, serving in the Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. In that role, Mr. Wray prosecuted a wide variety of federal criminal cases, including public corruption, gun trafficking, drug offenses, and financial fraud. In 2001, Mr. Wray was named associate deputy attorney general, and then principal associate deputy attorney general, in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General in Washington, D.C. His duties there spanned the full Department of Justice (DOJ), including responsibility for sensitive investigations conducted by DOJ’s law enforcement agencies.

'Hope for Flowers' with Tracy Reese | The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series
2022-12-02 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Tracy Reese is an American designer whose signature rich, daring colors and unique prints are crafted into joyful, feminine clothing for modern women. Tracy Reese’s design philosophy is rooted in a commitment to bringing out the beauty in women of all shapes, sizes, and colors.
Tracy Reese launched her namesake fashion brand in 1998 in New York City and over the past twenty-plus years, expanded to include sub-brands Plenty, Frock! and Black Label enjoying strong partnerships Barney’s, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Anthropologie. In 2012, First Lady Michelle Obama wore a custom Tracy Reese dress to address the DNC. Other notable fans of the brand include Sarah Jessica Parker, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Oprah Winfrey.
Reese is working to build an artisan studio in Detroit creating economic opportunities for women in under-served communities. Tracy launched an arts enrichment program for Detroit Public School students to broaden their cultural horizons. In this talk she will discuss the journey to responsible design and the mission of Hope for Flowers which is to create a positive social impact by empowering women and young people.
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The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Fall 2022 Season
This winter, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series brings respected leaders and innovators from a broad spectrum of creative fields to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater for weekly in-person events.
Detroit Public Television and PBS Books, in partnership with the Stamps School, will stream each week’s event Fridays at 8pm.
See the full schedule of events livestreamed by PBS Books here.
Some programs may not be available online, depending on artist requests. Interested in receiving notifications before online videos go live? Sign up to receive a reminder before each event begins streaming.
Watch Past Penny Stamps Episodes

'The Great Reset' with SHRM's Johnny Taylor, Jr. | DEC Speaker Events
2022-12-07 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Halifax)
In this time of global upheaval, the greatest challenge business leaders face is access to human capital. As a global leader on the future of employment, culture and leadership, Johnny C. Taylor, Jr is a sought-after voice on all matters affecting work, workers, and the workplace. Mr. Taylor will discuss the complexities of the modern workplace amid a pandemic, fluctuating unemployment, economic uncertainty and a heightened urgency around inclusion and diversity.

Join the Detroit Economic Club and #OneDetroit THIS WEDNESDAY for a live conversation with global leader on the future of employment, culture and leadership Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.

Taylor will discuss the complexities of the modern workplace amid a pandemic, fluctuating unemployment, economic uncertainty and a heightened urgency around inclusion and diversity.

Watch the livestream right here on PBS Books, on #FacebookLive or YouTube.

'To Be Heard: Public Art Interventions' with Tatyana Fazlalizadeh | The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series
2022-12-10 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh is a Brooklyn based artist working primarily in oil painting, public art and multimedia installations. Her work is rooted in community engagement and the public sphere. She makes site specific work that considers how people, particularly women, queer folks, and Black and brown people, experience race and gender within their surrounding environments – from the sidewalk to retail stores, and from church to college campuses.
Currently, Fazlalizadeh is Artist in Residence at the UM Institute for the Humanities where her exhibition Pressed Against My Own Glass is on view. During her residency, she will produce a public mural To Be Heard as a community engagement project in order to hear and amplify the voices of marginalized groups on the ways that they experience race and gender on campus, exploring how others engage with them based upon their identities.
Fazlalizadeh will discuss her methodology and cover her most well known works such as Stop Telling Women to Smile, the international street art series addressing gender based street harassment, and America is Black, a series of portrait and text pieces that explore and amplify the stories of non-White people in the United States.
Learn More>>

The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Fall 2022 Season
This winter, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series brings respected leaders and innovators from a broad spectrum of creative fields to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater for weekly in-person events.
Detroit Public Television and PBS Books, in partnership with the Stamps School, will stream each week’s event Fridays at 8pm.
See the full schedule of events livestreamed by PBS Books here.
Some programs may not be available online, depending on artist requests. Interested in receiving notifications before online videos go live? Sign up to receive a reminder before each event begins streaming.
Watch Past Penny Stamps Episodes

Trailblazing Women Writers Talk: Imani Perry
2022-12-13 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
PBS Books, in collaboration with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is pleased to host a conversation with award-winning Imani Perry, author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction. For anyone who enjoys learning about how nation, this author shares thought-provoking stories, facts, and personal narratives and takes readers on a fantastic journey throughout the South to understand our nation. Imani shares about her work with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., including her role in Making Black America: Through The Grapevine, and the important work of Zora Neale Hurston, whose new documentary will air on PBS AMERICAN EXPERIENCE in January 2023. Don’t miss this incredible conversation.
ABOUT THE BOOK
An essential, surprising journey through the history, rituals, and landscapes of the American South—and a revelatory argument for why you must understand the South in order to understand America
We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.
This is the story of a Black woman and native Alabaman returning to the region she has always called home and considering it with fresh eyes. Her journey is full of detours, deep dives, and surprising encounters with places and people. She renders Southerners from all walks of life with sensitivity and honesty, sharing her thoughts about a troubling history and the ritual humiliations and joys that characterize so much of Southern life.
Weaving together stories of immigrant communities, contemporary artists, exploitative opportunists, enslaved peoples, unsung heroes, her own ancestors, and her lived experiences, Imani Perry crafts a tapestry unlike any other. With uncommon insight and breathtaking clarity, South to America offers an assertion that if we want to build a more humane future for the United States, we must center our concern below the Mason-Dixon Line.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University where she also teaches in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Law and Public Affairs and Jazz Studies. She has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D in the history of American civilization from Harvard University. Perry is the author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, winner of the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction, and Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, winner of the Bograd-Weld Biography Prize of 2019 from the Pen America Foundation. She is also the author of Breathe: A Letter to My Sons, Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation, and May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, which was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Nonfiction. Perry, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, who grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Chicago, lives outside of Philadelphia with her two sons.

'Exploring Our Nation' with Ken Burns | Author Talk
2022-12-14 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
PBS Books is pleased to host a conversation with award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, author of Our America: A Photographic History. This stunning book explores the greatest human experiment through 261 images between 1839 and 2019 representing all 50 states including portraits, landscapes, and event photographs. This stunning book makes the perfect holiday gift to anyone who is curious and loves our nation and Ken Burns documentaries. Learn insights from the Ken Burns as his reflections on the United States as he shares insights into making the book and his

ABOUT THE BOOK
From one of our most treasured filmmakers, a pictorial history of America—a stunning and moving collection of some of Ken Burns’ favorite photographs, with an introduction by Burns, and an essay by longtime MoMA photography curator Sarah Hermanson Meister.
Burns has been making documentaries about American history for more than four decades, using images to vividly re-create our struggles and successes as a nation and a people. As much as anyone alive today, he understands the soul of our country.
In Our America, Burns has assembled the images that, for him, best embody nearly two hundred years of the American experiment, taken by some of our most renowned photographers and by others who worked in obscurity. We see America’s vast natural beauty as well as its dynamic cities and communities. There are striking images of war and civil conflict, and of communities drawing together across lines of race and class. Our greatest leaders appear alongside regular folks living their everyday lives. The photos talk to one another across boundaries and decades and, taken together, they capture the impossibly rich and diverse perspectives and places that comprise the American experience.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for over forty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; Prohibition; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; The Vietnam War; Country Music; and, most recently, The U.S. and the Holocaust.
Future film projects include The American Buffalo, Leonardo da Vinci, The American Revolution, Emancipation to Exodus, and LBJ & the Great Society, among others.
Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including sixteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations; and in September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Future of Work: Author Talk with Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.
2022-12-15 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
FUTURE OF WORK SERIES: Today’s workforce and workplace have undergone massive upheaval. The Detroit Economic Club in partnership with Detroit Public Television presents a Future of Work Series that will examine the multi-faceted trends and issues every company faces.

In this time of global upheaval, the greatest challenge business leaders face is access to human capital. As a global leader on the future of employment, culture and leadership, Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. is a sought-after voice on all matters affecting work, workers, and the workplace. Mr. Taylor will discuss the complexities of the modern workplace amid a pandemic, fluctuating unemployment, economic uncertainty and a heightened urgency around inclusion and diversity.

'The Inherent Politics of Design' with Studio Safar | The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series
2022-12-16 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
Studio Safar is a design agency and publisher with offices in Beirut and, now, Tiohtia:ke (Montréal). The studio adopts an experimental approach to design. Evoked by its name, the studio is concerned with notions of communication across cultural and linguistic barriers. Projects span different media and design frameworks such as communication strategies, publications, visual identities, exhibitions and sets, and websites. Most of the work services the extended cultural sector, and is engaged in social and political discourse.
Learn More>>

The Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series Fall 2022 Season
This winter, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series brings respected leaders and innovators from a broad spectrum of creative fields to Ann Arbor’s historic Michigan Theater for weekly in-person events.
Detroit Public Television and PBS Books, in partnership with the Stamps School, will stream each week’s event Fridays at 8pm.
See the full schedule of events livestreamed by PBS Books here.
Some programs may not be available online, depending on artist requests. Interested in receiving notifications before online videos go live? Sign up to receive a reminder before each event begins streaming.
Watch Past Penny Stamps Episodes

Trailblazing Women Writers Talk: Julie Andrews & Emma Walton Hamilton
2022-12-20 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
PBS Books is pleased to host a conversation with legendary Julie Andrews and award winning writer, Emma Walton Hamilton, authors of “The First Notes: The Story of Do Re Mi.” The book introduces readers to the remarkable story of the development of written music, and speaks to the beauty of music and the power of perseverance through the story of Guido d’Arezzo from one thousand years ago. For anyone who loves music, this book is the perfect children holiday gift celebrating curiosity, perseverance, and creativity. Join us for a fun evening with a mother-daughter creative team!
ABOUT THE BOOK
A stunning new picture book from beloved icon Julie Andrews and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, that introduces readers to the remarkable story of the development of written music, and speaks to the beauty of music and the power of perseverance. Featuring the illustrated lyrics to “Do-Re-Mi” and an author’s note about Julie Andrews’s connection to the classic Rodgers & Hammerstein song!
Centuries ago, a young Italian monk named Guido longed to find a way to write and teach music. Eventually, he created the musical scale, using the words Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do…one syllable for each note. Though the other monks thought it was a waste of time, Guido’s music couldn’t be silenced. His discovery remains the foundation for learning music today, and inspired the famous song “Do-Re-Mi,” which Julie Andrews sang in the beloved movie The Sound of Music.
This richly illustrated picture book from beloved icon Julie Andrews and her daughter, bestselling author Emma Walton Hamilton, introduces readers to the remarkable story of Guido d’Arezzo’s development of musical notation. In addition to the lyrics of “Do-Re-Mi” illustrated in full color, the backmatter includes an author’s note, extensive historical notes, and a glossary.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Julie Andrews’s legendary career encompasses the Broadway and London stages, as well as multiple films, television shows, album releases, concert tours, directing assignments, and the world of children’s publishing. She was married to film director Blake Edwards for 41 years, and the couple have 5 children, 10 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren.
Emma Walton Hamilton is an award-winning writer, producer and arts educator. Together with her mother, Julie Andrews, she has written over thirty books for children and young adults, including the New York Times bestselling Very Fairy Princess series. Emma is on the faculty of Stony Brook University’s MFA in Creative Writing.

Highlights of Exploring Our Nation: Ken Burns
2022-12-21 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
PBS Books is pleased to host re-release the highlights of our digital program with award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, author of Our America: A Photographic History. This stunning book explores the greatest human experiment through 261 images between 1839 and 2019 representing all 50 states including portraits, landscapes, and event photographs. This stunning book makes the perfect holiday gift to anyone who is curious and loves our nation and Ken Burns documentaries. Learn insights from the Ken Burns as his reflections on the United States as he shares insights into making the book.
ABOUT THE BOOK
From one of our most treasured filmmakers, a pictorial history of America—a stunning and moving collection of some of Ken Burns’ favorite photographs, with an introduction by Burns, and an essay by longtime MoMA photography curator Sarah Hermanson Meister.
Burns has been making documentaries about American history for more than four decades, using images to vividly re-create our struggles and successes as a nation and a people. As much as anyone alive today, he understands the soul of our country.
In Our America, Burns has assembled the images that, for him, best embody nearly two hundred years of the American experiment, taken by some of our most renowned photographers and by others who worked in obscurity. We see America’s vast natural beauty as well as its dynamic cities and communities. There are striking images of war and civil conflict, and of communities drawing together across lines of race and class. Our greatest leaders appear alongside regular folks living their everyday lives. The photos talk to one another across boundaries and decades and, taken together, they capture the impossibly rich and diverse perspectives and places that comprise the American experience.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for over forty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; Prohibition; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; The Vietnam War; Country Music; and, most recently, The U.S. and the Holocaust.
Future film projects include The American Buffalo, Leonardo da Vinci, The American Revolution, Emancipation to Exodus, and LBJ & the Great Society, among others.
Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including sixteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations; and in September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Masterpiece: All Creatures Great and Small with Ben Vanstone
2023-01-04 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
The Magic of Masterpiece﻿
Join PBS Books for a conversation with Ben Vanstone, Writer and Executive Producer of MASTERPIECE's All Creatures Great and Small.
As the writer and Executive Producer, Vanstone will discuss and examine the adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small, the timeless story written by James Herriot. Season 3 premieres Sunday, January 8, 2023, 9/8c on MASTERPIECE on PBS. All Creatures Great and Small returns for a third season filled with compassion, trials, and triumph in the Yorkshire Dales. Tag along on adventures with Siegfried Farnon, Tristan Farnon, Mrs. Hall, and more as James and Helen prepare for a wedding! Will Tristan earn Siegfried's approval? How will James fair with local farmers? More adventures, more antics, and more animals to come in Season 3!
Running 6 episodes, Season 3 of All Creatures Great and Small is slated to premiere January 8, 2023, on MASTERPIECE on PBS. Season 2 will be available to view on-air, online, and on the PBS Video app. Season 2 aired January 8 – February 19, 2021 on MASTERPIECE on PBS.

ABOUT BEN VANSTONE
Ben has created and Executive Produced All Creatures Great & Small for MASTERPIECE on PBS. He is currently writing and show-running Season 4. Prior to that, Ben wrote and was Co-Executive Producer on The English Game for Netflix. Ben created and is show-running the series adaptation of Amor Towle's novel A Gentleman in Moscow for eOne/Showtime starring Ewan McGregor, which is currently in production.

Genevieve West and Monica Miller | Trailblazing Women Writers
2023-01-12 20:00 - 21:00 (America/Halifax)
PBS Books, in collaboration with the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), is pleased to host a program about Zora Neale Hurston’s latest book You Don’t Know Us Negroes & Other Essays with co-editor Genevieve West, Ph.D. in conversation with Monica Miller, Ph.D., in connection with AMERICAN EXPERIENCE ZORA NEALE HURSTON: CLAIMING A SPACE. Co-editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. will welcome viewers to the program on January 12 at 8pm ET| 5pm PT.
Join us and learn about this important collection of Zora Neale Hurston’s work that spans more than three decades and how it came to be released in 2022. Also, you’ll hear a bit about another essay collection by Hurston–Hitting A Straight Lick with A Crooked Stick.
Don’t miss AMERICAN EXPERIENCE’s ZORA NEALE HURSTON: CLAIMING A SPACE premieres on January 17 at 9pm ET on PBS, check your local listing or stream at pbs.org.
ABOUT THE BOOK: YOU DON’T KNOW US NEGROES & OTHER ESSAYS
You Don’t Know Us Negroes is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world’s most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military, and school integration, Hurston’s writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could. Collectively, these essays showcase the roles enslavement and Jim Crow have played in intensifying Black people’s inner lives and culture rather than destroying it. She argues that in the process of surviving, Black people re-interpreted every aspect of American culture—”modif[ying] the language, mode of food preparation, practice of medicine, and most certainly religion.” White supremacy prevents the world from seeing or completely recognizing Black people in their full humanity and Hurston made it her job to lift the veil and reveal the heart and soul of the race. These pages reflect Hurston as the controversial figure she was—someone who stated that feminism is a mirage and that the integration of schools did not necessarily improve the education of Black students. Also covered is the sensational trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy Black woman convicted in 1952 for killing her lover, a white doctor. Demonstrating the breadth of this revered and influential writer’s work, You Don’t Know Us Negroes and Other Essays is an invaluable chronicle of a writer’s development and a window into her world and mind.
ABOUT THE EDITOR: GENEVIEVE WEST, Ph.D.
Genevieve West, Ph.D. is Professor of English and Chair of the Department of Language, Culture, and Gender Studies at Texas Woman’s University, the nation’s largest public institution primarily for women, where she teaches African American, American, and women’s literatures and serves as an Affiliate Faculty in the Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies program. Her scholarship takes intersectional, historically situated, archival approaches to the literary productions of American women writers. She has published on Zora Neale Hurston in journals such as African American Review, AmerikaStudien/American Studies, Receptions, and Women’s Studies. Her book, Zora Neale Hurston and American Literary Culture (2005) examines the ebb and flow in Hurston’s reputation by accounting for her marginalization beginning in the 1930s and her recovery in the years following her death in 1960. Recently, West edited a volume of Hurston’s Harlem Renaissance short fiction, Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick (2020), which made available for scholars and popular readers alike a number of “lost” stories. With Henry Louis Gates, Jr., she co-edited the first comprehensive collection of Hurston’s essays and reportage, You Don’t Know Us Negroes (2022). This volume, too, restored a number of previously unpublished works to Hurston’s oeuvre. Her essay ”Subversions of Boasian Anthropology in Zora Neale Hurston’s Great Migration Fiction and Ethnography” appeared this year in African American Literature in Transition, 1920-1930. Her essay on “lost” works by Marita Bonner is forthcoming in African American Review.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR: MONICA L. MILLER, PH.D.
Monica L. Miller is Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Africana Studies and English at Barnard College, Columbia University. A specialist in contemporary African American and Afro-diasporic literature and cultural studies, she is the author of the award-winning book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. A grantee from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, she is a frequent commentator in the media and arts worlds and teaches and writes about black literature, art, and performance, fashion cultures, and contemporary Black European culture and politics
ABOUT THE EDITOR: HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates’s most recent books are Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow and The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song. He has also produced and hosted more than 20 documentary films, most recently The Black Church on PBS and Black Art: In the Absence of Light for HBO. Finding Your Roots, his groundbreaking genealogy and genetics series, is now in its eighth season on PBS. It has been called “one of the deepest and wisest series ever on television,” leveraging “the inherent entertainment capacity of the medium to educate millions of Americans about the histories and cultures of our nation and the world.” The recipient of 56 honorary degrees and numerous prizes, Professor Gates was a member of the first class awarded “genius grants” by the MacArthur Foundation in 1981, and in 1998, he became the first African American scholar to be awarded the National Humanities Medal. He was named to Time’s25 Most Influential Americans list in 1997, to Ebony’s Power 150 list in 2009, and to Ebony’s Power 100 list in 2010 and 2012.
ABOUT THE FILM: ZORA NEALE HURSTON: CLAIMING A SPACE
Raised in the small all-Black Florida town of Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston studied at Howard University before arriving in New York in 1925. She would soon become a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best remembered for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. But even as she gained renown in the Harlem literary circles, Hurston was also discovering anthropology at Barnard College with the renowned Franz Boas. She would make several trips to the American South and the Caribbean, documenting the lives of rural Black people and collecting their stories. She studied her own people, an unusual practice at the time, and during her lifetime became known as the foremost authority on Black folklore.
Directed by Tracy Heather Strain, produced by Randall MacLowry and executive produced by Cameo George, Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space is an in-depth biography of the influential author whose groundbreaking anthropological work would challenge assumptions about race, gender and cultural superiority that had long defined the field in the 19th century.

"The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr." with Jeh Johnson, Former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security | Ford School Events
2023-01-16 15:00 - 16:30 (America/Halifax)
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson reflects on the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and what that means to him as a fellow Morehouse Man. Following his remarks, he’ll sit down for a conversation with Dean Celeste Watkins-Hayes alongside Ford School faculty experts to reflect on his work with the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense through questions submitted from the Ford School community on policy issues ranging from immigration to civil liberties.
About Jeh Johnson
Jeh Johnson is a partner in the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP, who in public life was Secretary of Homeland Security (2013-2017), General Counsel of the Department of Defense (2009-2012), General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force (1998-2001), and an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York (1989-1991). As Secretary of Homeland Security, Johnson was the head of the third largest cabinet department of the U.S. government, consisting of 230,000 personnel and 22 components, including TSA, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Services, U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, and FEMA.
Learn More>>
