Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021
10:30-11:45 a.m.
Union

Jason Reynolds

Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author who writes novels and poetry for young adult and middle-grade audiences. He is the current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (2020-2021). A native of Washington, D.C., Reynolds began writing poetry at 9 years old. His many books include Stamped, When I Was the Greatest, The Boy in the Black Suit, All American Boys (co-written with Brendan Kiely), As Brave as You, For Every One, the Track series (Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu), and Long Way Down, which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. He recently won the UK’s most prestigious prize for children’s books, the Carnegie medal, for Look Both Ways. Reynolds is on faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA Program.

 

 

 

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021
3:00-4:00 p.m.
Union

Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries

Hasan Kwame Jeffries is associate professor of History at The Ohio State University where he teaches courses on the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement. Jeffries is the author of Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt and editor of Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, a collection of essays by leading civil rights scholars and teachers that explores how to teach the Civil Rights Movement accurately and effectively. Jeffries’s current book project, In the Shadow of Civil Rights, examines the black experience in New York City from 1977 to 1993. During this session, he will talk about the African American experience from a historical perspective and why it is important to confront the painful parts of U.S. History.

 

 

Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Union

Saeed Jones

As a black gay kid growing up in Texas in the 1990s, poet Saeed Jones remembers getting negative messages about his identity from every aspect of his life. In his coming-of-age memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives, Jones reflects on his struggle to embrace his identity. How We Fight for Our Lives was the winner of the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction. Jones’ accomplishments also include his debut poetry collection, When the Only Light Is Fire and his second collection, Prelude to Bruise. He is a winner of The Joyce Osterwell Award for Poetry from the PEN Literary Awards, the Stonewall Book Award-Barbara Gittings Award for Literature, and he was a nominee for the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. Jones lives in Columbus, Ohio. During this session, Jones will tackle the questions of race and gender.

 

 

Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021
3:15-4:15 p.m.
Union

Jeni Britton

Jeni Britton Bauer is an American ice cream maker and entrepreneur — and a lover of all things libraries! A pioneer of the artisan ice cream movement, she introduced a modern, ingredient-driven style of ice cream making that has been widely emulated across the world but never duplicated. Jeni opened her first ice cream shop, Scream, in 1996, then founded Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in 2002. Her first cookbook, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller and won the coveted James Beard Award in 2012. It quickly became the de facto bible for anybody making their own ice cream or thinking about opening a new-style ice cream shop. Her second cookbook, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Desserts (2014), took ice cream to the next level with an array of incredible plated, layered, and piled-high ice cream-centric desserts. As Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Jeni remains the beating heart of the company and is in charge of all creative output—from the ice cream itself to the supporting details that enhance the experience of eating it. During this session, Jeni will take you on a journey of flavor and her creative process, of which libraries — many libraries — have a starring role.

 

Friday, Oct. 15
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Union

Fobazi Ettarh

Fobazi Ettarh is currently the Undergraduate Success Librarian at Rutgers Newark.  Creator of the concept Vocational Awe, her research is concerned with the relationships and tensions between the espoused values of librarianship and the realities present in the experiences of marginalized librarians and users. She also studies equity, diversity, and inclusion in libraries, in particular, ways in which social and organizational infrastructures privilege the works of certain groups over others. Ettarh is the author of the article “Vocational Awe: The Lies We Tell Ourselves” and the blog “WTF is A Radical Librarian,” which examines issues at the intersections of librarianship, education, activism, and social justice.

 

 

 

 

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