All events will be held at Austin Central Library Special Events Center
710 W. Cesar Chavez St., Austin, Texas
The 3rd Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas kicks-off with an evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Leonard Pitts, Jr. at the Austin Central Library Friday, February 22, 2019 at 7 p.m. Pitts, a nationally syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald, is the author of the new historical black novel set during World War II, The Last Thing You Surrender. The discussion will be moderated by Hopeton Hay, host and producer of KAZI Book Review on KAZI 88.7 FM in Austin, and founder of the Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas.
Other participating authors include Carol Anderson, author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy, Jennifer Baker, editor of Everyday People: The Color of Life-A Short Story Anthology; Daina Ramey Berry, author of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave in the Building of a Nation; Nicky Drayden, author of Temper; Carrie Fountain, author of I’m Not Missing; Jacob Grovey, author of The Differenters; Monica Muñoz Martinez, author of The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in the Texas Borderlands; Jasminne Méndez, author of Night-Blooming Jasmin(n)e: Personal Essays & Poems; ire’ne lara silva, author of Blood Sugar Canto; Chaitali Sen, author of The Pathless Sky; and Natalia Sylvester, author of Everyone Knows You Go Home.
Registration and book sales for Saturday’s main event begin at 10 a.m. at Austin Central Library.
Panels begin at 10:30 a.m. with “Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracoon: The True Story of One of the Last Known Survivors of the Atlantic Slave Trade,” a special Black History Month discussion with Baker and Berry, moderated by Julie Hudson, Assistant Professor of English, Huston-Tillotson University.
Other panels include “From Roots to Bloom: Deconstructing Latinidad” with Fountain, Méndez, and lara silva, moderated by Sylvester; “Everyday People: Diversity In Fantasy, Young Adult, and Short Story Fiction” with Baker, Drayden, and Grovey, moderated by Billy Carr of KAZI 88.7 FM; “Voter Suppression and Role of Press in Safeguarding Democracy” with Anderson, Bledsoe, and Pitts, moderated by Austin author and journalist Alberta Phillips-Bledsoe; “Violence Against Black Slaves/Prisoners and Ethnic Mexicans in Texas: From South Texas to Sugar Land” with Berry and Martinez, moderated by John Moran Gonzalez, Director, UT Austin Center for Mexican American Studies; and “The Depiction of Immigration in Fiction and the Media Bots, Trolls, and Truth” with Pitts, Sen, and Sylvester, moderated by Douglas Criss, Digital Trending News Writer, CNN.
The event will close with book sales from 4:15 to 5 p.m.
PARK & RIDE will be available to the 3rd Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas. Capital Metro, KAZI Book Review, and the Austin Public Library invite you to park for free at one of four branch library locations and ride for free with a Transit Day Pass.
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.
