“This Is a Story About Music”: A Creativity Conversation with Rita Dove, Alvin Singleton, and Robert Spano
Monday March 21, 6pm
Presentation Room, Oxford Rd Building, Emory University
Rita Dove is the Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987 and was Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 through 1995. A canonical figure in American and African American literature, Professor Dove is known for her interdisciplinarity and her collaborative ventures with composers, musicians, and other artists.

Rita Dove talks with Alvin Singleton, the prize-winning composer who has adapted Dove’s work to music, and Robert Spano, music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and an Emory University Distinguished Artist in Residence. Moderated by Lois Reitzes, host of Second Cup Concert on WABE 90.1.

And Still Peace Did Not Come: A Memoir of Reconciliation by Agnes Kamara-Umunna
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
Thursday, March 24, 7pm
Some stories may seem better left buried under piles of time, hidden in the dark void of silence. But Agnes Kamara-Umunna knows better. A survivor of the unfathomably brutal Second Liberian Civil War, she has for years dedicated her life to bringing her country's painful past into the light of day, where some sort of reconciliation can take root.

In 2004, Kamara-Umunna helped start a United Nations-sponsored radio show in Monrovia called "Straight From The Heart," immersing herself in the city's slums and using the show as a vehicle to coax confessions out of former child soldiers. Now, in the book And Still Peace Did Not Come: A Memoir of Reconciliation, written along with Emily Holland, she steps back to tell her remarkable tale of investigating the horrors that ripped her homeland apart. On Thursday, March 24th at 7 p.m. at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Kamara-Umunna will take the stage to speak about the still-unfolding toll of Liberia's civil wars and the healing process she has been trying so hard to foster.

Kamara-Umunna began her quest collecting narratives on behalf of the Monrovia-based Liberia Truth & Reconciliation Commission. She found she had a talent for connecting with the tortured former torturers, and so a few years ago she left Liberia to move to New York, where she took on the difficult task of questioning refugee victims and former soldiers in Staten Island's Park Hill neighborhood.

"A lot of stories, a lot of stories I hear," she told The New York Times in 2007, looking back on her work. "Some are victims telling me how hurt they are, especially seeing the perpetrators walking the streets of Liberia or living in the same community with them."

"I feel that these boys were like used," she added, "and they were victims and turned to perpetrators."

These days, Liberia is on a path toward progress, led by Africa's first female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. But, as Kamara-Umunna reminds us in And Still Peace Did Not Come, much work remains to be done to heal the country's deep wounds.

The event is free and open to the public. Following Ms. Kamara-Umunna's talk, she will sign copies of her book.

Fiona Zedde: Dangerous Pleasures
Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse
Thursday, Mar. 24th 7:30 PM
This event is free and open to the public
Free of a demanding ex-husband who left her feeling worthless, Renee Matthews is starting over and she is ready for a purely physical connection, on her terms: Sex in the dark with a total stranger – a night of breathless passion without complications. No exchange of words. No pressure. No pretense.

An online ad leads to the first of many anonymous trysts, but when one partner takes her into a darker realm of pleasure, Renee discovers hungers she never knew she possessed. Even though she knows these encounters are risky, nothing has ever compared to such exhilarating desire. But as the excitement escalates, so does the danger. Renee soon discovers that walking away from her midnight lover may be more difficult than she ever expected
FIONA ZEDDE, author of Hungry For It, Every Dark Desire, Bliss and A Taste of Sin, is a transplanted Jamaican currently living in Tampa. Her short stories have appeared in many collections and magazines including Issues, Eleanor’s Eyes and Clikque Magazine.

Don't forget to listen to Daren in conversation weekly onWABE's City Cafe with John Lemley to promote book and author events around the region.