Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

Allison Leotta and Sujata Massey talk about the writing life and read from their new books.

Former federal prosecutor Allison Leotta's third novel, Speak of the Devil, features her series heroine, sex-crimes prosecutor Anna Curtis. On the same night that she gets engaged, one of Anna's cases takes a vicious turn when a man named "Diablo" leads an attack on a brothel. Soon Anna's routine human trafficking case becomes an investigation of MS-13, one of the country's most brutal street gangs. Leotta's previous Anna Curtis novels are Law of Attraction and Discretion.

Sujata Massey is the author of ten Rei Shimura mystery novels set in Japan. Her new book, The Sleeping Dictionary, is the first in a series of historical suspense novels featuring Bengali women who play a role in making modern India. Kamala, born to a peasant family in West Bengal, makes her way to Calcutta of the 1930s. Haunted by a forbidden love, she is caught between the raging independence movement and the British colonial society in this portrait of late Raj India. Sujata Massey has won the Agatha and Macavity awards for her Rei Shimura mysteries.

Recorded On: Wednesday, September 18, 2013

MK Asante was born in Zimbabwe to American parents. A little more than a decade later, he found himself alone in North Philadelphia -- his mother in a mental hospital, his father gone, his older brother in prison on the other side of the country -- forced to find his own way. Asante sought refuge in the poetry of hip-hop giants -- from Tupac to Jay-Z to Nas -- and later in the words of Kerouac, Whitman, Orwell, and even the diary of his own mother. Buck: A Memoir is the unforgettable story of Asante's rise from dealer and delinquent to writer, filmmaker, poet, and professor.

MK Asante is professor of creative writing and film at Morgan State University. He received the Langston Hughes Award in 2009, and won the Jean Corrie Prize from the Academy of American Poets for his poetry collection Like Water Running Off My Back. He directed The Black Candle, a film he co-wrote with Maya Angelou, and he directed and produced the award-winning film 500 Years Later.

Recorded On: Monday, September 16, 2013

Jasmine Hogan and Peggy Houng, students of Professor Ruth Inglefield at the Peabody Institute of Music, perform in a monthly recital in the Fine Arts & Music Department.  Works by J.S. Bach, Franz Liszt, Ludwig Spohr and other composers are played by the harpists. 

Recorded On: Saturday, September 14, 2013

A Genealogy Circle Fall Program

Best practices for preserving paper-based materials and objects: books, paper documents, photographs and more.  Topics will include: proper storage and handling methods/techniques, appropriate environmental issues, and disaster preparedness.

Martha Edgerton is a Preservation Expert and Book Conservator with over 38 years of experience.  Martha has worked at the Johns Hopkins University as a Book Conservator and as supervisor of the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Bindery department.

Recorded On: Saturday, September 14, 2013

Just Tell Me I Can't: How Jamie Moyer Defied the Radar Gun and Defeated Time is pitcher Jamie Moyer's memoir, (written with Larry Platt). Longtime baseball fans have known Jamie Moyer's name for more than 25 years because he pitched in the big leagues through four different decades beginning in the mid-1980s. Moyer's won-lost record actually got better as he got older. He is only a few wins shy of 300 for his career.

Just Tell Me I Can't provides a frank, intimate look at the mystery and mastery of pitching. Moyer also reveals the powerful teachings of Major League Baseball's best kept secret, sports psychologist Harvey Dorfman. With Dorfman's guidance, Jamie Moyer began to reinvent himself in his mid-20s and went from being a marginal big leaguer to one of the winningest pitchers of all time, a Major League All-Star and a World Series champion.

Recorded On: Thursday, September 12, 2013