READING BY REMARKABLE FICTION WRITER ANGELA JACKSON FROM HER NEW BOOK WHERE I MUST GO

Please join us for this special reading by the remarkable fiction writer, poet and dramatist, ANGELA JACKSON, who is a major figure in contemporary African-American literature.

Northwestern University Press is the publisher of Angela Jackson's new novel,Where I Must Go, a portrayal of African-American students at a university greatly resembling Northwestern, during the 1967-68 school year. Trying to reconcile their individual aspirations and dreams, their social conscience with violent and tumultuous historical moments of struggle against racism, the students choose different paths toward the future.

In Where I Must Go, Jackson moves from the privileged yet racially exclusive atmosphere of the fictional Eden University to the black neighborhoods of a Midwestern city to ancestral Mississippi. The story includes a wide range of characters--black and white, male and female, favored with opportunity or denied it, the young in love and elders wise with hope. With and through each other, they struggle to understand the history they are living and making.

Angela Jackson was born in Greenville, Mississippi, raised on Chicago's South Side, and educated at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. Her book Dark Legs and Silk Kisses:The Beatitudes of the Spinners, winner of the 1993 Chicago Sun-Times Book of the Year Award in Poetry and the 1994 Carl Sandburg Award for Poetry, and her selected poems, And All These Roads Be Luminous, are both published by TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press.

Q&A session will following reading. There will also be a book-signing.  

READING BY VISITING WRITER IN RESIDENCE CHRIS ABANI

Chris Abani is the Fall Quarter 2009 Visiting Writer in Residence teaching Writing 301: The Art of Fiction.

A native of Nigeria, Abani is the author of The Virgin of Flames, GraceLand,  Masters of the Board and Becoming Abigail, and four collections of poetry. He has received 2009 Guggenheim in Fiction, the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the PEN Hemingway Book Prize.

Dave Eggers, author of  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and editor ofMcSweeney's magazine, said, "If you want to get at the molten heart of contemporary fiction, Abani is the starting point."

After his reading there will Q&A, plus a book signing.

LECTURE BY VISITING WRITER IN RESIDENCE CHRIS ABANI: THE ETHICS OF NARRATIVE

Chris Abani is the Fall Quarter 2009 Visiting Writer in Residence teaching Writing 301: The Art of Fiction.

A native of Nigeria, Abani is the author of The Virgin of Flames, GraceLand,  Masters of the Board and Becoming Abigail, and four collections of poetry. He has received 2009 Guggenheim in Fiction, the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the PEN Hemingway Book Prize.

Dave Eggers, author of  A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and editor ofMcSweeney's magazine, said, "If you want to get at the molten heart of contemporary fiction, Abani is the starting point."

After his reading there will Q&A, plus a book signing.

SO YOU WANT TO WRITE A SONG...WITH SINGER/SONGWRITER TOSHI REAGON

This series focuses on the art of songwriting and its special place within the genre of writing. Singer and songwriter Toshi Reagon will not only share her thoughts on the craft, but will also perform original music. Plus there will be Q & A. 

In some ways, singer Toshi Reagon is a throwback to classic R & B artists, like Stevie Wonder or Prince, or old school rock group like Led Zeppelin; she can take any style, update it, and make it her own with incredible ease. Toshi is an artist who’s known for energetic performances and an exemplary gift for writing engaging songs that provoke listeners to think and have fun at the same time. She has also shared the stage with numerous musicians including Chaka Khan, Nona Hendryx, Pete Seeger, Chocolate Genius, Dar Williams and Ani Difranco. She was picked by Lenny Kravitz himself to be his opening act. Elvis Costello, who was hooked after one high-energy evening in NYC—he even invited Toshi and her band, BIGLovely, to back him up on a ”Late Show with David Letterman” appearance. 

Songwriting is an art and has been lauded by our culture as such. Please join us as we explore this art form together with insight from this gifted artist. 

All events are FREE and open to the public

THE DISCUSSION OF THE LITERATURE OF JOURNALISM WITH ALESSANDRA STANLEY: REPORTING ON POPULAR CULTURE

Please join us for a special afternoon of discussion with Alessandra Stanley,New York Times cultural columnist and critic, former NY Times Rome bureau chief and co-chief of the NY Times Moscow bureau, and former correspondent for Time magazine. 

Sponsored by Medill, The Center for the Writing Arts, Communications Residential College and the Alumnae of Northwestern.