Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Through her photographs and personal experiences, Maria Drumm takes us on a journey through the ancient countries of Sagdiana, Burma, and Ceylon, across China and the Taklamakan desert and into the rock-cut caves of India. Drumm follows the caravan trading routes of the “Silk Road,” as well as the maritime routes around the straits of Malacca, Cambodia and Vietnam.

After a 20-year career in law, Maria Drumm retired to teach at Anhui University in Bengbu, China from 2002-2005. She has also taught in India and won awards for her teaching and her photography.

Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a grant from PNC Bank.

Recorded On: Monday, June 15, 2015

Join us for the Baltimore book launch of Kimberla Lawson Roby’s new Rev. Curtis Black book. It’s been four years since Alicia Black, daughter of Rev. Curtis Black, divorced her second husband. Since then Alicia has been dating her first husband who has asked her to marry him again. But Levi Cunningham, the drug dealer who caused the breakup of marriage number one, has just been released from prison, and Alicia can’t get him out of her mind.

Kimberla Lawson Roby has won numerous awards for her writing, including a 2013 NAACP Image Award for The Reverend’s Wife.

Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a generous grant from PNC Bank.

Recorded On: Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Allison Leotta draws on her experience as a federal prosecutor to capture the inner workings of criminal investigations. Her new novel, A Good Killing, follows prosecutor Anna Curtis as she heads home to Michigan to defend her sister in a case that will bring her to her knees.

In The Bullet, former NPR and BBC correspondent Mary Louise Kelly tells a heart-pounding story about fear, family secrets, and one woman’s hunt for answers about the murder of her parents. Kelly is the author of Anonymous Sources.

Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a generous grant from PNC Bank.

Recorded On: Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Through her restaurant reviews and bestselling memoirs, Ruth Reichl has earned a special place in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers. In her debut novel, she tells the story of Billie Breslin, who travels from her home in California to take a job at Delicious!, New York’s most iconic food magazine. When the magazine is abruptly shut down, Billie agrees to stay on in the empty office maintaining the reader complaint hotline. In the magazine’s library she finds a cache of letters written during World War II by a 12-year-old girl to the legendary chef James Beard. The letters provide Billie with a deeper understanding of the history of food as well as insight into her own fears and anxieties.

Ruth Reichl was the restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times and editor of Gourmet magazine. Her bestselling memoirs include Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me with Apples, Garlic and Sapphires, and For You Mom, Finally. She has been honored with six James Beard Awards.

Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a generous gift from PNC Bank.

Recorded On: Wednesday, May 20, 2015

In The Hidden History of America at War, Kenneth Davis provides a unique, myth-shattering, and insightful look at war – why we fight, who fights our wars, and what we need to know but perhaps never learned about the growth and development of America’s military forces. Starting with the founding of the nation and progressing through the war in Iraq, Davis analyzes six landmark battles in our nation’s history, introducing some of the little known but important faces behind the conflicts.

Kenneth Davis is the author of the bestselling Don’t Know Much About series and America’s Hidden History.

Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a generous grant from PNC Bank.

Recorded On: Monday, May 18, 2015

What is gentrification? And how can we prevent it from happening during the revitalization of a neighborhood?

These are the questions social worker/professor-turned-filmmaker Judith Lombardi asks in  her documentary "The Gentrification (k)NOT Movie," which explores the term "gentrification" as an element of a system that displaces people from their communities. Though gentrification is a global issue, this 47-minute documentary focuses on one particular neighborhood, Station North in Baltimore, Maryland.

"One of the most important ways to generate social transformation today is through media and the arts," says Lombardi, whose film presents multiple views about this changing neighborhood from artists, academics, ministers, politicians and everyday people.

Judith Lombardi leads this film discussion about neighborhoods in flux and the possibilities of change.

More about the film:
gentrificationknotproject.net

"Gentrification (k)NOT" Trailer

jlombardi.net

Recorded On: Sunday, May 17, 2015

Poets Abdul Ali and Venus Thrash read from and talk about their work.

Abdul Ali, author of Trouble Sleeping, winner of the 2014 New Issues Poetry Prize, teaches in the English department at Towson University. His poetry, essays, and interviews have appeared in Gargoyle, A Gathering of the Tribes, National Public Radio, New Contrast (South Africa), The Atlantic, and the anthology Full Moon on K Street, among other publications. He has received grants, awards, and fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, American University, College Language Association, and the Mount Vernon Poetry Festival at The George Washington University. He is a member of the board of directors of the Hurston/Wright Foundation.

Venus Thrash is the author of The Fateful Apple which was longlisted  for the 2015 PEN America Open Book Award and was a Split This Rock recommended poetry book of 2014.  She was a finalist in the 2012 Jean Feldman poetry prize and the 2009 Arktoi Books poetry prize. Her poetry is published in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Arkansas Review, and Beltway Quarterly. She has read at the Split This Rock Poetry Conference, the Atlas Center for the Performing Arts, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Library of Congress.

Read "Uptown Looking Down" and other poems by Abdul Ali.

Read "Ritual" and other poems by Venus Thrash.

Recorded On: Wednesday, May 13, 2015

When the seeds were sown for The House of Ruth in the 1970s, the issue of intimate partner abuse was not well understood or documented. There were few places of refuge for abused women and their children.

Kathleen O’Ferrall Friedman and Barbara J. Parker tell the story of how a small group of earnest, determined women came together in Baltimore to combat such violence. This is not only an historical account of the development of a vital program, but also an inspiring blueprint for practical, results-oriented social activism in today’s society.

Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a generous gift from PNC Bank.

Recorded On: Tuesday, May 12, 2015

The stunning advances of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have put all ethnic and religious groups in the area, including moderate Sunni Arabs, at risk. For some groups, the threat approaches genocidal proportions. Yet from President Obama on down, everyone agrees there is no military solution. But past and present U.S. policies leave the U.S. unable to do the heavy political and diplomatic lifting needed to quell the violence. While there is lip service to the idea that there is no military solution, the discourse in the U.S. is almost solely about military means. 

Jim and Deb Fine, who worked for the Mennonite Central Committee in Iraq, will talk about what needs to change to bring about the end of the Islamic State.

Sponsored by the Baltimore Quaker Peace and Justice Committee.

Recorded On: Wednesday, May 6, 2015

In conversation with Marc Steiner, Tom Hayden will discuss his new book, Listen, Yankee!, an account of Cuban politics and a memoir of a U.S. revolutionary leader and founder of SDS. The book is based in part on conversations between Hayden and Ricardo Alarcon, a top leader of the Cuban Revolution, foreign minister, and U.N. representative.  

A leader in the student, antiwar, and civil rights protests in the 1960s, Tom Hayden served in the California legislature for 18 years. He is the director of the Peace and Justice Resource Center in California.

Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a generous gift from PNC Bank.

Recorded On: Sunday, May 3, 2015