Tag Archives: Author Talk

Word Up: Baseball Preseason Fun with Darren López & Ellen Lindner

Sunday, March 10, 2024 – 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Word Up Community Bookshop Librería Comunitaria
2113 Amsterdam Avenue
New YorkNY 10032

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Come meet authors Darren López (Martín Dihigo: The Greatest Baseball Player You’ve Never Heard Of) and Ellen Lindner (Lost Diamonds) as they tell stories about lost baseball history, share their own diamond tales, and generally get the Heights ready for the 2024 baseball season!

The authors will be signing their books! Books will be available for purchase.

Check out @ellenlindna and @darren_lopez_storyteller for more!

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 30 max attendees. Please register in advance. 

Word Up: NYC Book Launch for The Incarcerated Modern: Golnar Nikpour with Naveed Mansoori

Saturday, February 24, 2024 – 2:00pm to 3:30pm
RECIRCULATION A project of Word Up
876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.)
New YorkNY 10032

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Join us for a reading with Professor Golnar Nikpour for her new book The Incarcerated Modern: Prisons and Public Life in Iran, an examination of the Iranian prison system and its function in modern culture. In conversation with Nikpour will be Naveed Mansoori, political theorist at Princeton University.

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 50 max attendees. Please register in advance. 

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees are encouraged to stay masked at all time.

Recirculation, a project of Word Up Community Bookshop, is located at 876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 157th St., A/C train to 163rd St., and the M4 and M5 to Broadway and 159/160th.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Iran’s prison system is a foundational institution of Iranian political modernity. The Incarcerated Modern traces the transformation of Iran from a decentralized empire with few imprisoned persons at the turn of the twentieth century into a modern nation-state with over a quarter million prisoners today. In policing the line between “bad criminal” and “good citizen,” the carceral system has shaped and reshaped Iranian understandings of citizenship, freedom, and political belonging.

Golnar Nikpour explores the interplay between the concrete space of the Iranian prison and the role of prisons in producing new public cultures and political languages in Iran. From prison writings of 1920s leftist prisoners and communiqu’s of 1950s militant Islamists, to paintings of 1970s revolutionary guerrillas and mapping projects organized by contemporary dissident prisoners, carceral confinement has shaped modern Iranian political movements. Today, mass incarceration is a global phenomenon. The Incarcerated Modern connects Iranian history to transnational carceral histories to illuminate the shared architectures, economies, and techniques of modern punishment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Golnar Nikpour is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Dartmouth College, where she teaches on the political and intellectual history of modern Iran and the Middle East. Her research and writing is particularly focused on histories of law, incarceration, revolution, and rights.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Naveed Mansoori is a political theorist interested in histories and theories of media and mediation, anti- and de-colonial history and theory, and critical theory. He is currently Associate Research Scholar at the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University.


Word Up Recirculation – Reading: WORDS UNWHISPERED by Pamela L. Laskin

Wednesday, December 6, 2023 – 7:00pm to 8:30pm
RECIRCULATION A project of Word Up
876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.)
New YorkNY 10032

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Join us for a reading with Pamela L. Laskin for her latest novel Words Unwhispered (Cervena Barva Press 2023).

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 50 max attendees. Please register in advance. 

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees are encouraged to stay masked at all time.

Recirculation, a project of Word Up Community Bookshop, is located at 876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 157th St., A/C train to 163rd St., and the M4 and M5 to Broadway and 159/160th.

ABOUT THE BOOK

WORDS UNWHISPERED is a book of ghazals written during the pandemic. Why the ghazal? It is a lyric form that expresses sorrow and grief in the best possible way. I would like to think of these poems as songs of sorrow since the beginning of COVID and the subsequent months that followed were times of isolation, loneliness, and enormous despair. In amidst these myriad of feelings were the small moments of grace: watching television indoors with a loved one; a special phone call; dreams of a time when we could all emerge outside of this black box, when our words would spin in the wind, unwhispered.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pamela L. Laskin is a lecturer in the English Department at City College, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate Children’s Writing, and directs the Poetry Outreach Center. Several of her children’s and poetry books have been published. RONIT AND JAMIL, A Palestinian/Israeli ROMEO AND JULIET in verse was published by Harper Collins in 2017, and was named among the 35 books to have on your radar for 2017. BEA, a picture book, was a finalist for the Katherine Paterson Prize for Children’s Fiction in 2018. She is the winner of the 2018 International Fiction Prize from Leapfrog Press, and WHY NO BHINE, an epistolary novel about the Rohingya Muslims, was published in 2019. The Operating System published a bilingual picture book, MONSTER MARIA, which is about Hurricane Maria, and is being used as a fundraiser for after-school programs in Puerto Rico. Linus Press published MY SECRET WISH about families seeking asylum, and is also being used as a fundraiser for Immigrant Families Together.

Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice with Sonali Kolhakar Workshop

Friday, October 20, 2023 – 7:00pm to 8:30pm
RECIRCULATION A project of Word Up
876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.)
New YorkNY 10032

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Award-winning multimedia journalist and author Sonali Kolhatkar leads a workshop for nonprofit organizers, communicators, publicists, and storytellers about building narrative power to further racial justice.  Kolhatkar will lead a discussion on the importance of understanding the impact of narratives on racial justice, how to identify and interrogate existing racist narratives in popular culture and news media, and how to build narrative power as a critical component of organizing to further racial justice.

Kolhakar’s new book Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice is a timely exploration of how truthful narratives by and about people of color can be used to advance social justice in the United States.

Sonali Kolhatkar reminds us we are the stories we tell. Our stories can cast a spell of hate, division, and fear, or they can break the powerful grip of racial injustices that have held us since our country’s beginning. With personal and collective wisdom, Kolhatkar guides us in the storytelling that liberates.”

–Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loco/Gang Days in L.A.

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 50 max attendees. Please register in advance. 

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees are encouraged to stay masked at all time.

Recirculation, a project of Word Up Community Bookshop, is located at 876 Riverside Drive (near 160th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 157th St., A/C train to 163rd St., and the M4 and M5 to Broadway and 159/160th.

ABOUT THE BOOK

While people of color are fast becoming the majority population in the United States, the perspectives of white America still dominate the vast majority of the media created and consumed every day. Media makers of color, long shut out of the decision-making process, are rising up to advance a set of different narratives, offering stories and perspectives to counter the racism and disinformation that have long dominated America’s political and cultural landscape.

In Rising Up, award-winning journalist Sonali Kolhatkar delivers a guide to racial justice narrative-setting. With a focus on shifting perspectives in news media, entertainment, and individual discourse, she highlights the writers, creators, educators, and influencers who are successfully building a culture of affirmation and inclusion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sonali Kolhatkar is the host and producer of Rising Up with Sonali, a weekly television and radio program that airs on Free Speech TV and on Pacifica Radio station affiliates around the United States. Winner of numerous awards, including Best TV Anchor and Best National Political Commentary from the LA Press Club, she is currently the Racial Justice editor at Yes! Magazine and a Writing Fellow with the Independent Media Institute. Co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence with Jim Ingalls, Kolhatkar is Co-Director of the Afghan Women’s Mission. She resides with her husband and two sons in Pasadena, California.

NYC Book Launch: THERE WAS A PARTY FOR LANGSTON by Jason Reynolds, Jerome Pumphrey, Jarrett Pumphrey, and Jacqueline Woodson

Celebrate bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds’s debut picture book along with the illustrators Jerome & Jarrett Pumphrey, all in conversation with award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson. “There Was a Party for Langston” is a snappy, joyous ode to Word King, literary genius, and glass-ceiling smasher Langston Hughes and the luminaries he inspired. Join us at the Langston Hughes Auditorium in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.

Reynolds & the Pumphreys will discuss the inspiration behind and creation of their new book, discuss the significance of Hughes’s life, and take pictures with attendees. All books will be presigned (no personalization) and attendees will be able to take pictures with the authors.

TICKETS

$22 entrance with a signed book
$10 entrance (no book)
Free tickets are available for teachers (limited amount) and discounted bulk tickets & books available for youth organizations & schools. Email events@wordupbooks.com for more information.

Guests. Please note that holding seats in the Langston Hughes Auditorium is strictly prohibited and there is no food or drinks allowed anywhere in the Schomburg Center.

E-Transportation. NYPL policy prohibits electric transportation devices (e.g., motorbikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards) from being brought into or stored at library sites for any length of time, as this is the best way to keep our spaces & people safe.

Audio & Video Recording. Programs are photographed and recorded by the Schomburg Center. Attending this event indicates your consent to being filmed/photographed and your consent to the use of your recorded image for any all purposes of the New York Public Library.

Press. Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to: events@wordupbooks.com. Please note that professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

Public Notice & Disclaimer. By registering for this event, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending an in-person program at The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold The New York Public Library, its Trustees, officers, agent and employees liable for any illness or injury. If you have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or suspect you have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive, please stay home.

Accessibility. There is an electric door switch at the front door. All parts of the collections and the public restrooms are accessible to persons using wheelchairs. Programs and events at the Langston Hughes Auditorium and Atrium are accessible for people using wheelchairs. There are accessible restrooms for women and for men.

Getting there. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is located at 515 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, NY 10037 between 135th St. and 136th St. The 2 and 3 train stops are located at 135th St. The M7 and M102 stops at Malcolm X Blvd/W 135 St. and the Bx33 stops on W 135 St/Malcolm X Blvd. You may also take the C or B train to 135th St. and walk 3 blocks east.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Word Up Community Bookshop’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jason Reynolds is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, a Newbery Award Honoree, a Printz Award Honoree, a two-time National Book Award finalist, a Kirkus Award winner, a UK Carnegie Medal winner, a two-time Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award Winner, an Odyssey Award Winner and two-time honoree, the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors, and the Margaret A. Edwards Award. He was also the 2020–2022 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His many books include “All American Boys” (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); “When I Was the Greatest”; “The Boy in the Black Suit”; “Stamped; As Brave as You; For Every One”; the Track series (“Ghost,” “Patina,” “Sunny,” and “Lu”); “Look Both Ways”; “Stuntboy, in the Meantime”; “Ain’t Burned All the Bright” (recipient of the Caldecott Honor) and “My Name Is Jason. Mine Too.” (both cowritten with Jason Griffin); and “Long Way Down,” which received a Newbery Honor, a Printz Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Honor. He lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS
Jerome Pumphrey is a designer, illustrator, and writer, originally from Houston, Texas. His work includes “It’s a Sign!,” “Somewhere in the Bayou,” “The Old Boat,” and “The Old Truck,” which received seven starred reviews, was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and received the Ezra Jack Keats Writer Award Honor—all of which he created with his brother Jarrett. They also illustrated Jason Reynolds’s “There Was a Party for Langston.” Jerome works as a graphic designer at The Walt Disney Company.

Jarrett Pumphrey is an award-winning author-illustrator who makes books for kids with his brother, Jerome. Their books include “It’s a Sign!,” “Somewhere in the Bayou,” “The Old Boat,” and “The Old Truck,” which received seven starred reviews, was named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly and received the Ezra Jack Keats Writer Award Honor. They also illustrated Jason Reynolds’s “There Was a Party for Langston.”

ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Jacqueline Woodson received a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 2020 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award, and she was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Her NY Times bestselling memoir, “Brown Girl Dreaming,” won the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, and the NAACP Image Award. Her dozens of books for young readers include Coretta Scott King Award and NAACP Image Award winner “Before the Ever After,” NY Times bestsellers “The Day You Begin” and “Harbor Me,” Newbery Honor winners “Feathers,” “Show Way,” and “After Tupac and D Foster,” and “Each Kindness,” which won the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award.