Eight Writers Take on Color and Culture in the USA

The Tannery Series presents a provocative panel of 21st century American voices

What’s happening to the melting pot? Do we live in a post-racial world, as some now claim? And what does the phrase even mean? The Tannery Series takes on all this and more with RACE IN YOUR FACE, an evening event featuring eight award-winning authors who will explore the state of the nation, less than 50 years after integration. The authors will read from their works in rapid-fire succession and participate in a discussion with the audience. Come join the conversation!

Highlights Will Include:

Poet and Whiting Writers’ Award winner, Thomas Sayers Ellis (Skin, Inc.) and Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis converse in a jazz duet.

NEA Fellowship winner David Mura (Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire), a third-generation Japanese-American, explores the connections between race, sexuality and history in an increasingly diverse America.

Novelist, poet, and columnist for the BBC, Mukoma Wa Ngugi (Nairobi Heat) describes the differences America makes between being African, Black, and African-American.

Earnest J. Gaines Award winner, Stephanie Powell Watts (We are Taking Only What We Need)depicts in her short stories the rural and urban worlds of the American South forging a new social contract.

PEN/New England Award winner Jerald Walker (Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption) addresses the American dream.

PEN/New England Award winner Rishi Reddi (Karma and Other Stories) takes on being Indian-American, female and the forging of a political identity.

Join us for our most provocative event to date!

Free to AWP attendees, $10 for others.

For more information email: info@tanneryseries.com.