Coming next month, on September 19th, 2024, HoCoPoLitSo proudly presents in partnership with Howard Community College and the Howard County Library System, the 2024 installment of the Bauder Lecture Series, featuring a keynote from Elizabeth Acevedo, distinguished bestselling author of “Clap When You Land,” followed by an in-depth conversation hosted by celeste doaks, editor, journalist, and author of “Cornrows and Cornfields.”
Join us for this free and public event, in person at the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center on the HCC campus, or online streamed live via Vimeo at this link. The hybrid event will include sign-language interpretation for patrons joining us both in person and via Vimeo. The day’s events begin with a reading, keynote and stage conversation at 12:30 p.m., followed by a brief reception; a second session follows at 6:00 p.m. HoCoPoLitSo offers books from both authors for purchase and signing, to in-person attendees following both presentations.
In Clap When You Land, Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic and yearns to go to Columbia University in New York City, where her father works most of the year. Yahaira Rios, who lives in New York City, hasn’t spoken to her dad since the previous summer, when she found out he has another wife in the Dominican Republic. Their lives collide when this man, their dad, dies in an airplane crash with hundreds of other passengers heading to the island.
Elizabeth Acevedo is the New York Times-bestselling author of “The Poet X“, which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Carnegie medal, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the Walter Award. She is also the author of numerous other titles including “Family Lore“; “With the Fire on High“, which was named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal; and “Clap When You Land“, a Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor book and a Kirkus finalist. Acevedo has been a fellow of Cave Canem, Cantomundo, and a participant in the Callaloo Writer’s Workshops. In 2022, The Poetry Foundation selected Elizabeth Acevedo as the Young People’s Poet Laureate. She is a National Poetry Slam Champion, and resides in Washington, DC with her husband.
celeste doaks is the author of “Cornrows and Cornfields“, and editor of the poetry anthology “Not Without Our Laughter.” Her chapbook, “American Herstory“, was Backbone Press’s first-place winner in 2018. Herstory contains poems—which have been featured at the Whitney Museum of American art, Brooklyn Museum, and most recently the Smithsonian American Art Museum— about the artwork former First Lady Michelle Obama chose for the White House. doaks is a Carolina African American Writers’ Collective (CAAWC) member and has received fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Atlantic Center of the Arts, Community of Writers Squaw Valley, and the Fine Arts Work Center. doaks is a three-time Pushcart award nominee and a creative writing professor for over a decade. Her poems, reviews, and cultural essays have appeared in multiple US and UK on-line and print publications including “Ms. Magazine”, “The Rumpus”, “The Millions”, “Huffington Post”, “Chicago Quarterly Review”, “Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora”, “The Hopkins Review, Bmore Art Magazine”, “Asheville Poetry Review” and many others.
The annual Bauder Lecture Series is made possible by a generous grant from Dr. Lillian Bauder, a community leader and Columbia resident. Each year, the Howard County Book Connection— a partnership of HoCoPoLitSo and representatives from most departments of Howard Community College— selects one book, whose author is invited to headline the lecture; HoCoPoLitSo provides for a local author to join as a special guest, moderating an on-stage writer-to-writer conversation, and audience Q&A. In addition, up to two Howard Community College students are honored with the presentation of the Don Bauder Awards, for their response to the chosen book in an essay or other creative format. The awards honor the memory of Don Bauder, late husband of Dr. Lillian Bauder and a champion of civil rights and social justice causes.
For more information, or to view recordings of past years’ lectures, please visit Howard Community College’s Bauder Lecture Series event listing, or the home page of the Howard County Book Connection.
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