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Learning and Innovation Office
The Library of Congress

Happy Spring – the Season of Webinars.

Join us for our upcoming educator webinars.  All sessions are free and a certificate is available for those attending the live sessions where noted. 

March 26th 4 ET – Exploring Social Justice Through the Arts Part I

Hosted by Carolyn Bennett, our Music Teacher in Residence. 
The Library of Congress has over 900 WPA posters in its free-use online collection. Participants will explore ways to engage students in artistic inquiry through use of these rich primary sources, and strategies for increasing students’ capacity for personal artistic expression. Though the specific webinar content may be used in an elementary classroom or visual arts course, the strategies presented will help ALL students broadly use the performing and visual arts to explore primary sources. Certificate available for live attendance.

Register: https://locgov.webex.com/locgov/onstage/g.php?MTID=e1557046ca3b53943df04ee56638d679f

April 4^th 7 ET – The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AABP) in the Classroom

Join AAPB, LOC and WGBH education staff to learn about the collection and share resources on how to use with students. Former Teacher in Residence, Tom Bober, will share teaching ideas. Leave with knowledge of a digital and openly available online archival collection of historic public broadcasting programs that document important historical and culturally significant topics, events and people of the 20th and 21st centuries. Space is limited.

Register: https://wgbh.zoom.us/meeting/register/d5afddded61ad2c5dc2040ba88984b7b

April 16^th 4 ET - Exploring Social Justice Through the Arts Part II

Hosted by Carolyn Bennett, our Music Teacher in Residence.
The Library of Congress documents over a century of folk music, including diverse recordings of familiar songs.  What can students learn about the cultural, social, and historical context of musicians by comparing these recordings?  In this webinar, participants will explore several recordings of “This Little Light of Mine” to learn how inquiry leads students to learn about music and those who make it.  Though the specific webinar content may be used in a general or vocal music classroom, the strategies presented can engage students across content areas. Certificate available for live attendance.

Register: https://locgov.webex.com/locgov/onstage/g.php?MTID=e18065cd279530569dc5a29589f4bda94

April 30^th 4 ET - Creatively Exploring the 12-Bar Blues

Hosted by Carolyn Bennett, our Music Teacher in Residence. 
The 12-bar blues is a distinctively American musical form, which many diverse musicians have used to express their experiences and connect with others. Blues music provides a rich field for young musicians to create, perform, and respond. It also provides a lens to explore historical periods, and can empower students to express their own historical perspectives in an engaging, multimodal way. In this webinar, participants will experience several blues pieces from the Library of Congress. Participants will discuss how students can use these primary sources to develop musical and historical understandings, and how these understandings empower students’ own creative works. Certificate available for live attendance.

Register: :https://locgov.webex.com/locgov/onstage/g.php?MTID=ebb67ec244f884ed44ea12924542404df

We look forward to seeing you online!

The Library of Congress is continues to accept applications for our 2019 Summer Teacher Institutes for educators interested in using primary sources with their students.  Interested applicants are invited to apply by the deadline of March 10, 2019.  More information on this free professional development opportunity for educators of all disciplines, interested in using primary sources with their students, follows: 2019 Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institutes

Immerse yourself in the practice of teaching with primary sources from the unparalleled collections of Library of Congress. Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., our Summer Teacher Institutes provide educators of all disciplines with resources and strategies to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classroom teaching. Each session will focus on pedagogy, with an emphasis on supporting student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge. While practicing these teaching strategies, attendees will explore some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available in the Library’s collections. They will also conduct research to identify primary sources and develop an activity related to their classroom content.

The Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institutes are appropriate for K-12 educators across many disciplines, including: Social Studies/History, English Language Arts, Science, Art, Music, or any other educators who feel that primary sources could be used with their curricula. Librarians and Curriculum/Professional Development specialists are also encouraged to apply.

Three week-long Summer Teacher Institute sessions will be offered this summer:

General Focus – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• July 8-July 12, 2019
• July 29-August 2, 2019

Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 15-July 19, 2019

Institute and instructional materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Applications for the Summer Teacher Institutes are due March 10, 2019 and require a letter of recommendation. Read more and apply now

The Library of Congress is continues to accept applications for our 2019 Summer Teacher Institutes for educators interested in using primary sources with their students.  Interested applicants are invited to apply by the deadline of March 10, 2019.  More information on this free professional development opportunity for educators of all disciplines, interested in using primary sources with their students, follows: 2019 Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institutes

Immerse yourself in the practice of teaching with primary sources from the unparalleled collections of Library of Congress. Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., our Summer Teacher Institutes provide educators of all disciplines with resources and strategies to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classroom teaching. Each session will focus on pedagogy, with an emphasis on supporting student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge. While practicing these teaching strategies, attendees will explore some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available in the Library’s collections. They will also conduct research to identify primary sources and develop an activity related to their classroom content.

The Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institutes are appropriate for K-12 educators across many disciplines, including: Social Studies/History, English Language Arts, Science, Art, Music, or any other educators who feel that primary sources could be used with their curricula. Librarians and Curriculum/Professional Development specialists are also encouraged to apply.

Three week-long Summer Teacher Institute sessions will be offered this summer:

General Focus – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• July 8-July 12, 2019
• July 29-August 2, 2019

Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 15-July 19, 2019

Institute and instructional materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Applications for the Summer Teacher Institutes are due March 10, 2019 and require a letter of recommendation. Read more and apply now

Do you work in the field of literacy or know someone who does? Consider applying for a Library of Congress Literacy Award.

Applications will be accepted from organizations that have made outstanding contributions to increasing literacy in the United States or abroad. You may apply on behalf of your own organization or for another organization.

The Literacy Awards are made possible through the generosity of David M. Rubenstein.

The deadline for applications is March 8, 2019.

Need more information? Go to http://read.gov/literacyawards/index to learn more.

• Call for Applications 2019.pdf

The Library of Congress launched By the People in the autumn of 2018. The application invites users to transcribe, review, and tag digitized images of manuscripts and typed materials from the Library’s collections. Everyone is welcome to take part! You don't even need to create an account, but if you do you'll have access to additional features such as tagging, and reviewing other people's transcriptions.

Spend an hour with Library experts and hear how all transcriptions are made and reviewed by volunteers before they are returned to loc.gov, the Library's website. Discuss the possibilities of using this tool in your work with students. The transcriptions will improve search, readability, and access to handwritten and typed documents for those who are not fully sighted or cannot read the handwriting of the original documents.

To register for the webinar see https://locgov.webex.com/locgov/onstage/g.php?MTID=efee8818158910ccb5d645c840b1d5e2a

For more information on By the People, please see the blog post Crowdsourcing Helps to Unlock the Mystery of Cursive

The Library of Congress is now accepting applications for several professional development opportunities that will be offered this summer in Washington, D.C.  One Week Long Summer Teacher Institutes

Immerse yourself in the practice of teaching with primary sources from the unparalleled collections of Library of Congress. Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., our Summer Teacher Institutes provide educators of all disciplines with resources and strategies to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classroom teaching. Each session will focus on pedagogy, with an emphasis on supporting student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge. While practicing these teaching strategies, attendees will explore some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available in the Library’s collections. They will also conduct research to identify primary sources and develop an activity related to their classroom content.

The Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institutes are appropriate for K-12 educators across many disciplines, including: Social Studies/History, English Language Arts, Science, Art, Music, or any other educators who feel that primary sources could be used with their curricula. Librarians and Curriculum/Professional Development specialists are also encouraged to apply.

Three week-long Summer Teacher Institute sessions will be offered this summer:

General Focus – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• July 8-July 12, 2019
• July 29-August 2, 2019

Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 15-July 19, 2019

Institute and instructional materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Applications for the Summer Teacher Institutes are due March 10, 2019 and require a letter of recommendation. Read more and apply now !

Two and ½ day Primary Sources Workshop for Library Media Specialists

This multi-day workshop is intended especially for K-12 Library / Media Specialists. Over the 2 ½ day, hands-on session, Library of Congress education specialists will model strategies for using primary sources to engage students, build critical thinking skills, and construct knowledge, with an emphasis on supporting inquiry and research. Participants will reflect on and discuss how these strategies apply to their school libraries, considering various subject areas. While the emphasis is on learning and applying teaching strategies, participants also have opportunities to meet experts from the Library and research in the Library's reading rooms.

The session will take place from June 19 – June 21, 2019.  Institute and instructional materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Applications are due February 22, 2019 and require a letter of recommendation.  Read more and apply now !

Please contact teachinglcsummer@loc.gov with any questions.

The Library’s resolution for 2019 is to offer more opportunities to engage lifelong learners like you with our unique treasures and programs. Make your gift before we close the books on 2018!

Your gift supports FREE exhibitions, events, programs, and activities that connect millions of people across the nation and around the world with our unique collections, experts, and services.

The Library of Congress is your library, your gateway to understanding the world. There is so much to discover, not only the nation’s memory, but the world’s—information from all corners of the earth, in more than 470 languages. With millions of items available online, you can access the Library’s treasures from anywhere and connect with us in ways that are personally relevant and valuable.

The Library’s resolution for 2019 is to offer more opportunities to engage lifelong learners like you with our unique treasures and programs. Make your gift before we close the books on 2018!

Your gift can:

• Inspire curiosity in children to read more books and reflect on the power of books to change their lives
• Ignite thoughtful conversation among current and future generations of students and scholars
• Illuminate the minds of people like you who use the resources of the nation's Library here in Washington or via the Internet in their own homes and communities

With the help of supporters like you, we can spark the imagination of people of all ages with programs that open the Library’s doors wide to all.

Join us TODAY by making your 2018 tax-deductible donation, and together we’ll spark a lifelong adventure of learning.

The day has arrived—#GivingTuesday—a day when your gift makes a difference and a statement.

The Library of Congress depends on donations from people like you to produce exhibitions, events, programs, and activities that connect millions of people across the nation and around the world with our unique collections, experts, and services.

Gifts bring the Library to life with music, dance, film, sound, culture, scholarship, research, discussions and ideas. Your gift, no matter the size, will support diverse programs that are entirely FREE for everyone to enjoy, and will make the Library’s treasures and services more accessible.

Help spread the word today and encourage your friends and family to make a gift to the nation’s library, your gateway to understanding the world!

#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.

This year is the second year the Library of Congress is participating in #GivingTuesday—a global giving movement. On Tuesday, November 27, we are asking you to make a gift to spark a lifelong adventure of learning.

Your gift supports FREE exhibitions, events, programs, and activities that connect millions of people across the nation and around the world with our unique collections, experts, and services.

The Library of Congress is your library, your gateway to understanding the world. There is so much to discover, not only the nation’s memory, but the world’s—information from all corners of the earth, in more than 470 languages. With millions of items available online, you can access the Library’s treasures from anywhere and connect with us in ways that are personally relevant and valuable.

Save the Date to Make Your Gift!

Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving.

Attention subscriber to bulletin services from the Library of Congress:

As you may be aware, on May 25, 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation EU (2016)/679 (GDPR) came into force in all EU member states. The GDPR applies to “personal data,” meaning any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified by reference to an identifier. It requires that personal data be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner, and that personal data be collected for specified and legitimate purposes.

For those who subscribe to the Library’s email and RSS bulletins, the Library of Congress collects email addresses which can include personal data. The Library of Congress relies on its legitimate interests to process this data so that we can keep you up to date with developments for the topics to which you subscribe. The Library does not make any other use of this data.

The Library respects your personal data and takes care to maintain its confidentiality. You have the right to unsubscribe from the Library’s e-mail newsletters and alerts at any time. You can manage your subscriptions by clicking “Subscriber Preferences” in the box at the bottom of this email.

If you have any questions about the Library’s data privacy policy, please email the Library: ogc@loc.gov

K-12 educators interested in attending one of the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute sessions have only one week – until March 21, 2018 – to apply. 

Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., these professional development opportunities provide educators with resources and strategies to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classroom teaching.  Each session will focus on pedagogy, with an emphasis on supporting student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge.

While practicing these teaching strategies, attendees will explore some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available in the Library’s collections.  Finally, they will conduct research to identify primary sources and develop an activity related to their classroom content.

Five five-day sessions will be offered this summer:

General Focus – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• June 18-June 22
• June 25-June 29
• July 30-August 3

WWI Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach some aspect of WWI as part of their curriculum, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 9-July 13

Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do: 

• July 16-July 20

Professional development and materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Applications are due March 21 and require a letter of recommendation. Read more and apply now:

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/teacherinstitute/

Greetings from the Library of Congress!

We are requesting your valuable input as part of our research in envisioning the Library of Congress’ future. Please take a few moments to complete a survey about your work with K-12 students. The information you provide will help us to improve services and deliver high-quality experiences for K-12 students, librarians, and teachers.

Please begin the survey by clicking here.

If the link above does not work, copy and paste this into your browser: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Envisioning_K12.

If you know other K-12 educators interested in sharing their thoughts with the Library of Congress, please feel free to share the survey link.

Thank you in advance for your time and input. We will read every comment we receive.

The Library of Congress Educational Outreach Division is looking for a Performing or Visual Arts teacher to serve as the 2018-2019 Teacher in Residence. This is the first time the Library has specifically recruited a performing arts or visual arts teacher for this opportunity.

The selected teacher will participate in this program via an intergovernmental personnel agreement between the Library and his or her home school district. The Library will reimburse the district for salary and benefits paid to the teacher during the school year, and will release the Teacher-in-Residence for all district holidays and vacations. The term of the appointment will match the dates of the teacher's home school district's school year.

The selected teacher will receive a monthly housing stipend if he or she teaches outside of the Washington DC metropolitan area. The Library cannot pay for travel or moving expenses.

Qualifications of successful candidates include:

• knowledge about the Library's digitized primary sources with experience using them in instruction
• leadership experience, especially in designing and delivering professional development
• an innovative, flexible and collaborative work style, able to work on a team in an office environment
• excellent communication skills
• the ability to live and work in the Washington, DC, metro area for the duration of the school year

The deadline for applications is Monday, April 9, 2018. Direct any questions to edoutreach [at] loc.gov

K-12 educators interested in attending one of the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute sessions still have one month – until March 21, 2018 – to apply. 

Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., these professional development opportunities provide educators with resources and strategies to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classroom teaching.  Each session will focus on pedagogy, with an emphasis on supporting student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge.

While practicing these teaching strategies, attendees will explore some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available in the Library’s collections.  Finally, they will conduct research to identify primary sources and develop an activity related to their classroom content.

Five five-day sessions will be offered this summer:

General Focus – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• June 18-June 22
• June 25-June 29
• July 30-August 3

WWI Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach some aspect of WWI as part of their curriculum, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 9-July 13

Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do: 

• July 16-July 20

Professional development and materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Applications are due March 21 and require a letter of recommendation. Read more and apply now:

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/teacherinstitute/

This spring, the Library of Congress will host two free, one-day workshops for K-12 educators interested in incorporating WWI-related primary sources into their classroom instruction.

In each session, Library of Congress education specialists will model a variety of strategies for using primary sources to engage students, build critical thinking skills, and construct knowledge. Through a series of inquiry-based classroom activities, participants will work with historic photographs, prints, manuscripts, maps, multimedia, and other resources from the Library’s collections. All of these items are digitized and freely available online for teachers to use with their students after the session. Certificates are available for teachers completing the workshop.

Additional Information: 

Audience:  K-12 educators of all disciplines interested in incorporating primary sources into their classroom instruction.

When:  Two separate one-day sessions will be offered.

·         Tuesday, March 27, 2018, and

·         Thursday, April 5, 2018.

Each session will run from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm; building opens at 8:30 am.

Where:  Library of Congress; Washington, D.C.

How to register:  Register online here! Apply now, as space is limited.

Questions? Please contact teachinglcsummer@loc.gov

The Library of Congress is now accepting applications for its week-long summer institutes for K-12 educators. Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., this professional development opportunity provides educators of all disciplines with resources and strategies to effectively integrate primary sources into K-12 classroom teaching.  Each session will focus on pedagogy, with an emphasis on supporting student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge.

While practicing these teaching strategies, attendees will explore some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available in the Library’s collections.  They will also conduct research to identify primary sources and develop an activity related to their classroom content.

Five week-long sessions will be offered this summer:

General Focus – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• June 18-June 22
• June 25-June 29
• July 30-August 3

WWI Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach some aspect of WWI as part of their curriculum, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 9-July 13

Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do: 

• July 16-20

Institute and course materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Applications are due March 21 and require a letter of recommendation. Read more and apply now!

There are still a few slots available for the Teaching with Primary Sources Face to Face workshop, scheduled for November 4,  from 9 am – 4 pm, in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building.

In this free workshop for K-12 educators of all disciplines, Library of Congress education specialists will model a variety of strategies for using music-related primary sources to engage students, build critical thinking skills, and construct knowledge. 

Additional activities and presentations will also be led by staff from the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), as well as reference specialists from the Library’s Music Division. 

For more information and to apply, visit:  http://www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/webinar/musicworkshop/?rssloc=eanft
Register TODAY!!! 

On Saturday, November 4, 2017, the Library of Congress will host a free, one-day workshop for K-12 educators interested in incorporating music-related primary sources into their classroom instruction.

In this hands-on, collaborative session, education specialists from the Library of Congress will model a variety of strategies for using music-related primary sources to engage students, build critical thinking skills, and construct knowledge. Through a series of inquiry-based classroom activities, educators will experience historic audio files, sheet music, song sheets, prints and photographs, and other resources from the Library’s collections. Most of these items are digitized and will be freely available online for teachers to use with their students.

Certificates are available for teachers completing the workshop.

Additional Information:

Audience: K-12 music educators and teachers of other disciplines interested in incorporating music-related primary sources into their classroom instruction.

When: Saturday, November 4, 2017, from 9 am – 4:00 pm. Where: Whittall Pavilion, Ground Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, 10 First St. SE, Washington, DC 20540 Directions here. The room will be open at 8:30 am. Attendees are encouraged to leave plenty of time for travel and to arrive early.

How to register: Register online here! Apply now, as space is limited.

Questions?  Please contact: teachinglcsummer@loc.gov

Teachers familiar with the instructional power of primary sources might also be interested in the opportunity to teach using authentic data and activities from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The recently updated Statistics in Schools program offers free activities and resources that can help you bring statistics into any K-12 classroom.

Statistics in Schools activities use real-life census data to help students understand statistical concepts and gain data analysis skills.

The geography, history, math and sociology activities were created by teachers and correspond with relevant education standards.

Visit census.gov/schools to explore the program and download activities you can start using in your classroom.

Sign Up and Learn More

The Library of Congress invites you and your students to join in a virtual program to celebrate El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children’s Day/Book Day), an official literacy celebration of the American Library Association.

Author, illustrator Lulu Delacre, will lead this bilingual celebration by reading and presenting her award-winning book, “Olinguito From A- Z !” in both English and Spanish.

“Olinguito From A- Z !” will take place on Thursday, April 27 at 10:30 AM EDT, and will be streamed live at this URL: https://youtu.be/vvSRinFRAQ8

We hope you enjoy the program!

In this one-day workshop for K-2 educators, Library of Congress education staff and our current Teacher in Residence, will model a variety of strategies for using primary sources to engage young learners, build critical thinking skills, and construct knowledge. This hands-on, collaborative session will feature maps, prints and photographs, historic audio and film recordings, and other resources from the Library’s collections, all of which are digitized and readily available to teachers after the session. Participants will learn about unique children’s books from the past and ways the Library is making them more accessible. In addition, a specialist from the Young Readers Center will explain resources and non-fiction books that support the K-2 learner.

Attendees will receive a personalized certificate for professional development hours.

Audience:  K- 2 educators interested in incorporating primary sources into their classroom instruction.

When: Saturday, May 6, 2017, from 9:00 am – 1:00 pm.

Where: Room 119 in the Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, 10 First St. SE, Washington, DC 20540. (For directions, go here:  https://www.loc.gov/visit/directions/)

Deadline to apply: April 28, 2017

Questions? Please contact: teachinglcsummer@loc.gov

Interested in attending?  Please fill out the registration form on the page following and email it to teachinglcsummer@loc.gov

• K-2+Workshop+-+Application.docx

The deadline is rapidly approaching to apply for one of the five week-long Summer Teacher Institutes being held at the Library of Congress between June and August this year.  Educators will have until March 17 at midnight Pacific Time to apply online.

Held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., these unique professional development opportunities provide educators of all disciplines with a host of resources and strategies to successfully use primary sources with their students. Each session will focus on practical teaching strategies, with an emphasis on supporting student engagement, critical thinking, and construction of knowledge.

While practicing these core strategies, attendees will also explore some of the millions of digitized historical artifacts and documents available in the Library’s collections. They will meet library experts and conduct research to identify primary sources related to their teaching, with the goal of developing an activity to use with their students in the coming school year.  See what some of our previous Institute’s participants have to say about their experience!

Five week-long sessions will be offered this summer:

General Focus – open to K-12 educators across all content areas:

• June 19-23
• June 26-30
• July 10-14

Science, Technology, and Engineering Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach science, technology, or engineering, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 17-21

World War I Focus – recommended for K-12 educators who teach some aspect of WWI as part of their curriculum, or collaborate with those who do:

• July 31-August 4

Institute and course materials are provided at no cost. Participants will be responsible for transportation to and from Washington, D.C., and any required overnight accommodations.

Apply by March 17!  Note that a letter of recommendation will be required.  Learn more about the program and fill out the application here.

Is tinned fish currency? How do you make ‘jail velcro’? And will bedwetting get you a single cell? Meet Carl Cattermole, whose banged-up bible is making him a hero to prisoners

When Carl Cattermole was released from prison, after serving a year of a two-and-a-half-year sentence for criminal damage, he was “confused and angry, but ready to turn everything I’d seen into a positive”. What he’d seen, inside London’s HMP Wormwood Scrubs and HMP Pentonville, was eye-opening. Prison was not the bloodbath that Hollywood had promised, nor the “Butlins for murderers and paedophiles” that the tabloid press had raged about. But it wasn’t as rehabilitative as earnest politicians had promised either. Instead, Cattermole found a system that was simultaneously underfunded and hugely expensive, that prioritised punishment over reform, and often doled this out through instances of banal cruelty – bad food, bad bureaucracy and incentive systems that pitted prisoners against each other.

Upon his release in 2011, Cattermole wrote the guide he had needed inside. Advice such as: how to make salad dressing from tinned tuna and brown sauce. That the best paid job in prison is “biohazard” (cleaning up your fellow prisoners’ puke and blood). A reminder to cancel your standing orders for your phone or TV, so you don’t come out to debt. That claiming to be a bedwetter won’t get you a single cell as it once did – but hearing voices might. How to make “jail velcro”, a device made from a coat-hanger and a drawstring bag used to move objects between cells. That no one trades in cigarettes any more; it’s all toiletries and tinned fish now. The right forms to fill in to make a complaint against an officer. Or that, if you land the right Albanian cellmates, they might make you yoghurt from prison-issue milk. (“Google says this isn’t even possible,” says Cattermole, “but I saw it live and kicking.”)

Why did synth-pop emerge in Sheffield and trip-hop in Bristol? A voyage through Britain and the bands who wrote the soundtrack to decades of change

“To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world – and at the same time that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.” These words are taken from All That Is Solid Melts into Air, Marshall Berman’s treatise on 20th-century modernity. Used as an epigraph, it begins the 2007 documentary about the English band Joy Division, and highlights one of the film’s essential themes: the relationship between that group and Manchester, and between music and cities in general.

Joy Division – along with Factory records, the pioneering record company that put out both of the band’s albums and curated their posthumous myth – came into being at a point when Manchester’s old industrial communities had been beset by years of decay and decline, which partly explains why the band’s music is so full of melancholia. But in the city’s built-up spaces, they also sensed the futuristic excitement of what Berman called “the expressway world”, instantly evoked by the opening line of their 1979 song “Shadowplay”: “To the centre of the city where all roads meet, waiting for you.”

Three strangers with supernatural powers meet in Liberia’s capital Monrovia in the middle of the 19th century. Gbessa, a member of the Vai tribe, has been cursed as a witch and banished to an otherworldly forest where “yellow and plum-coloured insects piloted through the heat amid the shouts of forest beasts and spectres”. She limps home five dry seasons later, having discovered that she cannot die. Norman Aragorn sails from Jamaica after escaping his father, an odious British “scholar” who kept Norman and his enslaved mother captive, drooling over the chance to make his name by documenting their ability to vanish at will. June Dey is a runaway slave from a Virginia plantation, who fought his way out by flinging off attackers, dogs and bullets alike with supernatural strength, then boarded a ship he thought was bound for New York only to wash up on Africa’s Grain Coast instead.

Wayétu Moore’s compelling debut novel assembles this trio of superhumans on Liberian soil during the waning days of the American Colonization Society’s mission to repatriate freed slaves there. Shot through with magic realism, it conjures up a phantasmagoric vision of the diaspora and its “infinity of broken men” that is grounded in the quotidian horrors of plantation life (“That place where we lost our language, lost ourselves”). All of this is grimly and powerfully evoked. Children are flogged, men beaten raw, women visited in the night by the men who own them. They are the familiar cruelties of this particular time and place but the things that happen in Moore’s novel are decidedly out of the ordinary. For instance, June Dey is born to a ghost, a woman who has already died years before without realising it, having hit her head trying to save a young girl from a whipping. She assumes that “every eye I searched for, even the children’s, avoided my passing” because they were angry that she didn’t intervene quickly enough rather than because they cannot see her. She finally catches on when she stumbles upon her own gravestone, then wonders whether she is “the only one who could not tell the difference between a life in bondage and death”.

Dominican-American Elizabeth Acevedo wins prestigious children’s award for The Poet X, while Jackie Morris takes illustration prize for The Lost Words

Dominican-American slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo has become the first ever writer of colour to win the UK’s most prestigious children’s books award, the Carnegie medal, which has a history stretching back to 1936 and includes Arthur Ransome, CS Lewis and Neil Gaiman among its former winners.

Acevedo, the daughter of Dominican immigrants, took the medal for her debut, The Poet X. A verse novel, it tells of a quiet Dominican girl, Xiomara, who joins her school’s slam poetry club in Harlem and is, according to the judges, “a searing, unflinching exploration of culture, family and faith within a truly innovative verse structure”. Xiomara “comes to life on every page and shows the reader how girls and women can learn to inhabit, and love, their own skin”.

The Rings of Saturn finds an unhappy man walking desolate country and recalling awful history. But the lucid beauty of the writing is cathartic

At the beginning of The Rings of Saturn, the narrator announces that he is setting off “to walk the county of Suffolk, in the hope of dispelling the emptiness that takes hold of me whenever I have completed a long stint of work”.

It’s hard not to think that he might have been better off going to a Greek island. Especially at the start, heading to the coastal town of Lowestoft on “one of the old diesel trains, grimed with oil and soot up to the windows” on a “grey, overcast day”. It gets worse when he finally arrives and finds it “run down” and deserted. “I was unprepared for the feeling of wretchedness that instantly seized hold of me,” he says. When he strolls out of town, walking through “blue petrol fumes” and past “decommissioned and unemployed trawlers”, there is still more desolation in store. The sparse moorlands and dark pebble beaches of Suffolk are hardly a tonic against emptiness – in fact, they often seem to embody the feeling that Sebald’s narrator is seeking to escape.

The journalist, known for pieces on Gwyneth Paltrow and Bradley Cooper, takes on a new challenge: making things up

The journalist who writes a novel has an inhibition to overcome: the reflex guilt about making stuff up. For Taffy Brodesser-Akner, whose first novel, Fleishman Is In Trouble, she wrote while working as a writer at the New York Times magazine, the anxiety of leaving behind fact and transcript was alleviated by the knowledge that at least no one was going to yell at her for hurting their feelings.

Not that Brodesser-Akner specializes in hatchet jobs. Her profiles, most famously her deep dive into the world of Gwyneth Paltrow last year, are generous without giving her subjects a free ride. A profile many years ago of the TV anchor Don Lemon, in GQ, was gently satirical without being cruel. At the end of last year, a recalcitrant Bradley Cooper was given the benefit of the doubt by Brodesser-Akner, and the space, quietly, to hang himself.

After leaks showed him banning an LGBT club at the Christian school he co-founded, the novelist apologises for any hurt caused

Romance novelist Nicholas Sparks has apologised for “potentially hurt[ing] young people and members of the LGBTQ community”, after leaked emails showed him banning students from forming an LGBT club at a school he co-founded.

The Daily Beast published emails from Sparks last week, in which the novelist criticised the headmaster of Epiphany school in North Carolina for “what some perceive as an agenda that strives to make homosexuality open and accepted”. Sparks told the former headmaster, Saul Benjamin, who launched a lawsuit against him in 2014, that his decision to stop LGBT students from forming a club was “NOT discrimination”, adding: “Remember, we’ve had gay students before, many of them … [The previous headmaster] handled it quietly and wonderfully … I expect you to do the same.”

The Booker-winning Indian author casts an exacting eye over inequality, gender politics and imperialism

With its gold-striped spine, crimson endpapers and silky leaves, My Seditious Heart is a handsome edition of previously published essays by Booker-winning writer Arundhati Roy. Despite the stately presentation and the fact that some of the essays first appeared 20 years ago, these studies are trenchant, still relevant and frequently alarming. Roy reveals some hard truths about modern India and makes powerful analytical forays into American and British foreign policy, aid, imperialism and attitudes.

Roy’s India is one of extreme wealth and extreme poverty; opportunity and exploitation; cynicism and hypocrisy; ambition and greed; dynamism and thuggery. “India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow we manage to progress and regress simultaneously.” She describes emaciated workers toiling by candlelight through the night to lay broadband cable to accelerate the country’s digital revolution. The Greater Common Good looks at (futile) resistance to the Sardar Sarovar Dam in the Narmada valley, the forced displacement of local people and the slandering of activists as troublemakers. Another essay looks at uranium mining in Jadugoda, while in another piece Roy accompanies tribal anti-government fighters in the forests of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh.

The first typewriter Michael Gustafson fell in love with was a 1930s Smith Corona. As a child he saw it on his grandfather’s writing desk and later, when he was a struggling writer, his grandmother gave it to him. “Click-clacking” on the old typewriter “stirred something” in him: not only did he feel connected to his late grandfather, but the machine “made writing fun again”.

In spring 2013, he and his wife, Hilary, left their jobs in New York City and opened the Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ann Arbor has a proud tradition of independent bookshops: it once had more per capita than any other US city. The original Borders was opened there by Tom and Louis Borders in 1971. But it closed in 2011, amid doom-laden newspaper headlines predicting the death of the high-street bookshop.

A love letter to Greece and its language is full of delightful facts and brims with nerdish, bookish joy

Mary Norris – whose previous book was an entertaining memoir of her time as a copy editor on the New Yorker – is a passionate Hellenophile. She’s not, though, a classicist in the traditional sense. Most people who get their kicks from the dual and the aorist, from Plato and Sophocles, have arrived in that happy place via Latin. But Latin isn’t her thing. Her passport to Greece and Greek was, in fact, Terry Gilliam’s 1981 film Time Bandits – specifically “the mighty figure of Sean Connery” who did a sword-and-sandals turn battling a Minotaur-like creature. In the New Yorker office the next day, she announced her decision to visit Greece. Her employer, astoundingly, funded her modern Greek classes at NYU. Later, it also paid for her to learn ancient Greek, at Columbia. To think the Guardian got my Latin and Greek for nothing, and does not even stump up for my Italian lessons! O tempora, o mores, as a Roman might say.

Norris convinced the New Yorker to pay for her studies by arguing that Greek would help her in her work as a honer and sharpener of English. And her book brims with nerdish joy in language, in how sentences are built – the way, for example, ancient Greek verbs hover like the apex of a pyramid above a pile of adjectives and nouns and the all-important particles, which are little shards of informal speech and are often tough to translate. For serious students, there is a famous tome on such words, Denniston’s Greek Particles, which runs to about 600 pages. Norris points out that Plato used them with particular subtlety. After spending a delicious moment imagining being Plato’s copy editor, she comes up with a suggested translation of one of his particle-rich sentences as “WTF, Socrates?”

A moving, multilayered memoir – both exemplary gay social history and an account of the author’s quest for belonging

Mike Parker’s extraordinary, ambitious, many layered memoir opens with a scene from 2006, a civil partnership ceremony in the town of Machynlleth in rural Wales, only two months after such things became possible. There are two couples at the centre of the book: a fortysomething Parker and his somewhat younger lover Peredur, and – the couple just legally recognised – Reg and George, respectively 79 and 89 years old. “Their 62 years together encompassed the full gamut of society’s attitudes,” Parker writes. “For the first 18 years of their relationship, its very existence was illegal. Yet they were together long enough to go from being outlawed by the state to being married by one of its officials.” The younger couple had become close friends with the older, but they were astounded to discover, when Reg and George died, that they had been bequeathed their grand house, Rhiw Goch, and all its contents, including their diaries, letters and photographs (many of them, says Parker, full of a “shy, sly, homoeroticism”).

Consciously modelled on EM Forster’s Howards End, On the Red Hill revolves around the house and its inhabitants, past and present. But its scope is immense, integrating five distinct strands: the personal histories of the two couples, the history of gay men in the 20th century, the history of the area, nature’s yearly cycle and, a little more fitfully, a meditation on the nature of Welshness. It is nature that provides the metaphorical underpinning. The book’s form is striking: divided into quarters, each divided into four – an element, a season, a direction, a person – it is arranged in a series of concentric circles: crop circles, as one might say. The central thread of the narrative is the profoundly alienated author’s quest for a place in which he feels he belongs. He details his grim childhood, at first alleviated and then blighted by his discovery of the bodies of other boys; his getting drawn along with other lads into a paedophile ring; his growing body dysmorphia, seeing his physical self as somehow different from his inner self; his headlong flight from anyone who expressed too much enthusiasm for him.

The Vagina Monologues writer revisits her childhood in a powerful imagined letter from her father – the words of repentance he never uttered

Eve Ensler begins her memoir with a simple dedication: “For every woman still waiting for an apology.” Ensler counts among these women herself. The award-winning American playwright and activist who has spent decades campaigning globally against anti-female violence, was ritually assaulted by her father, Arthur Ensler. It began as sexual abuse when she was five. By the time she was 10, he was choking her, punching her in the face, threatening to stab her and beating her with belts and paddles in sickening acts of pain and humiliation. Eve’s mother looked on in silence. Her family was pitted against her. Arthur died 31 years ago; he had not uttered any words of repentance.

Earlier this month, the TV presenter and comedian, Ellen DeGeneres, spoke of her sexual abuse at the hands of her late stepfather. Her mother apologised for not originally believing her daughter’s story. It was a cathartic #metoo moment. Eve Ensler can be afforded no such moment.

A psychologist’s study of gay men and a cult 70s novel reveal the experiences of different generations

Given the twerpish, if unsurprising, views of the recently elected MEP Ann Widdecombe, here are two books that could provide some much needed insight and education; one reissued classic and one new read, drawn from a lifetime of thinking about the lives of gay men.

Dancer from the Dance, the 1978 novel by Andrew Holleran, a pen name of Eric Garber, is being revived by Vintage, with a new introduction from Alan Hollinghurst. It charts a life that Garber knew well, the club and cruising scene of 1970s New York, a space he’d immersed himself in while trying to become a writer. As often happens with literature, Garber had to leave to truly write about the place and inhabit its subject. He adopted a pseudonym and chronicled life he’d seen first-hand; the result is a cult gay classic.

To the 15 million global readers of her travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert has become a kind of guru and star of her own multi-season series; she shares each new twist of her life story with her millions of followers on social media and it’s reported by news outlets on both sides of the Atlantic. So it’s sometimes easy for her celebrity status in what the Washington Post called “the Oprahsphere” to eclipse the fact that she is also a very fine novelist.

Her last work of fiction, The Signature of All Things, was a historical novel about an independent young woman pioneering her way in the world of 19th-century botany, but it was also about articulating female desire in an age when well-bred girls did not have the language to do so. Now, in her third full-length novel, City of Girls, she puts that desire quite literally centre stage.

Louise Candlish
Simon & Schuster, £12.99, pp400

Set in Los Angeles in 1942, the latest instalment in James Ellroy’s occult saga of US history centres on Irish-born police sergeant Dudley Smith, a closet Nazi using his rank as a front for activities including drug running and people trafficking.

In his day job, he’s coordinating a manhunt for a blood-drinking necrophile, Tommy Glennon, though Smith’s real reason for wanting to find him isn’t the obvious one, having more to do with Glennon witnessing what Smith once got up to at a Nazi orgy in the company of Orson Welles.

When the American photographer Vivian Maier died at the age of 83 in 2009, impoverished and alone, no one knew who she was. The 150,000 pictures she had taken on her beloved Rolleiflex during her lifetime – street portraits, mostly – had never been published; many of her negatives had never even been printed. But all that changed in 2009, when a collector who had acquired a portion of her archive put the images online. Ever since, she has been both a popular enigma and a celebrated artist, her photographs widely exhibited and increasingly expensive to buy. In 2013, she was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, Finding Vivian Maier, and now we find the bare bones of her life at the heart of a playful, tricksy and sometimes exasperating novel by the Danish writer Christina Hesselholdt.

The polyphonic Vivian, translated by Paul Russell Garrett, is delivered in postcard-size chunks of first-person narrative by a smallish cast of characters (some are fictionalised, others are not): in addition to Maier herself, we hear from those with whom she spent her transient childhood in the US and in France (her mother was French); from Sarah and Peter, a wealthy Chicago couple who employ her as a nanny; and from their daughter, her charge, Ellen. Also, more intrusively, from a “narrator” who elbows her way into the story at various points, sometimes to ponder the significance of this or that event and sometimes to ask whether or not her technique is working.

A Vietnamese-American poet’s debut mines his extraordinary family story with passion and beauty

Ocean Vuong’s grandfather was a US soldier posted to Vietnam; there he fell in love with “an illiterate girl from the rice paddies”. They married and had three daughters, but while his grandfather was visiting family in the US, the fall of Saigon forced the family apart. His grandmother, fearing her children might be taken for adoption in the States, put her three girls into different orphanages, and they weren’t reunited until adulthood. Vuong’s mother worked washing hair in a Saigon salon, and gave birth to him when she was 18. She was discovered to be mixed race, and so banned from working by the new communist regime, before the whole family was evacuated to the Philippines under the sponsorship of a US charity. Vuong was still a toddler when, after months in a refugee camp, they were admitted to the US.

Vuong’s family story is at the heart of his 2017 debut poetry collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which won both a Forward prize and the TS Eliot prize. In it, he writes: “An American soldier fucked a Vietnamese farmgirl. Thus my mother exists. Thus I exist. Thus no bombs = no family = no me. / Yikes.”

The Irish writer Joseph O’Connor is still best known for his 2002 novel, Star of the Sea, but in 2016 he wrote a radio play, Vampyre Man, about the real-life relationship between Bram Stoker and the two greatest stars of Victorian theatre, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. It is easy to imagine these three magnificent characters refusing to be abandoned on the airwaves, and O’Connor has given them an appropriately grand stage in the breathtaking Shadowplay.

It opens with a letter from Stoker to Terry in 1908, explaining the conceit of the book: “a clutch of diary pages and private notes I kept on and off down the years and had begun working up into a novel ... or perhaps a play”. In the subsequent story within a story, Stoker hops from the first to third person, sometimes describing scenes at which he is not present, and introducing sections in “the voice of Ellen Terry”. As he says to his hero Irving, on their first meeting: “Life without imagination would be an unending hell.” But as Irving replies: “Is it not that anyway?” This is as much a novel about existential struggle as greasepaint – though there is plenty of that, too.

Authors who write about marginalised communities are facing abuse, boycotts and even death threats. What is cancel culture doing to young adult fiction?

Earlier this month, the author and screenwriter Gareth Roberts announced that his story was being removed from a forthcoming Doctor Who anthology. Having been shown Roberts’s past tweets about transgender people, BBC Books said that his views “conflict with our values as a publisher”. At least one of the book’s other contributors, Susie Day, had promised to withdraw from the project if Roberts were included. “I raised my concerns, and said if he was in, I was out,” Day said.

A few days before, at the Hay festival, the Irish author John Boyne had described a campaign against his own book, My Brother’s Name is Jessica, about a boy and his trans sister. He was insulted on Twitter for his appearance and his sexuality. (Like Roberts, he is gay but not trans.) Some critics proposed a boycott of Boyne’s novel, which was not withdrawn. Others made veiled threats to his safety. “I don’t feel it’s my job as a reader or a writer to tell anyone what they can or can’t write,” Boyne said. “We are supposed to use our imaginations, to put ourselves into the minds and the bodies of others.”

Guardian research shows that the top 100 illustrated children’s books last year showed growing marginalisation of female and minority ethnic characters

The most popular picture books published in 2018 collectively present a white and male-dominated world to children, feature very few BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) characters and have become more biased against girls in the past year, Guardian research reveals.

In-depth analysis of the top 100 bestselling illustrated children’s books of 2018, using data from Nielsen BookScan, has been carried out by the Guardian and Observer for the second year in a row.

Twenty-year-old Lyra has to flee Oxford by boat for the third time in her life, this time in the company of the old gyptian Giorgio Brabandt. As they sail towards the safety of the Fens, they hear a zeppelin approaching …

As darkness was falling at the edge of the Fens, rain began to fall too. It was the time of day when Giorgio Brabandt usually began to look for a likely spot to moor for the night, but as they were so close to his native waters, he was inclined to keep moving. He knew every twist and turn of these mazy waterways, and the lights he sent Lyra to mount at the stem and the stern were a matter of courtesy to any fellow boaters, not a necessity to show the way.

“When do we get into the Fens, Master B?” said Lyra.

Cambridge graduates Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi have written a guide to help students – and it’s the second title published by Stormzy’s #Merky Books

CChelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi are the co-authors of Taking Up Space: The Black Girl’s Manifesto for Change, the second title from #Merky Books, a partnership between Penguin and grime star Stormzy, who has also announced he is funding two Cambridge scholarships for black students in the UK. The book explores the lack of diversity in education, tackling topics including access, curriculums, mental health, relationships and activism. The two women, both 22, graduated from Cambridge University last year, Kwakye with a degree in history and Ogunbiyi in human, social and political sciences. Kwakye was born and raised in Chingford and is studying at the University of Law in preparation for a training contract with a City law firm. Ogunbiyi was born in Croydon, moved to Nigeria aged seven, then back to England aged 13, when she attended a boarding school. She has just completed a master’s in journalism at Columbia University in New York.

How did the book come about?
Chelsea Kwakye In December 2017, Ore wrote an article titled “A letter to my fresher self: surviving Cambridge as a black girl” [for the student newspaper Varsity], which detailed everything from impostor syndrome and relationships at university to stagnant curriculums. Previously, we were both heavily involved in black access to Cambridge initiatives, setting up Cambridge University African Caribbean Society’s first access conference and mentoring scheme. Earlier that year we shot the #BlackMenofCambridge campaign, which thrust us and our society into the spotlight. We gained a lot of media attention and conversation was buzzing around what it means and looks like to be black within predominately white universities and institutions.

With this week’s show coinciding with Refugee Week, Richard sits down with two authors who were refugees as children: Dina Nayeri, who was eight when her family fled Iran and settled in Oklahoma, and Patjim Statovci, whose family left Kosovo when he was two and grew up in Helsinki. Statovci’s second novel, Crossing, follows two teenagers as they flee Albania for a better life in Europe. And Nayeri’s most recent book The Ungrateful Refugee, which started as a Guardian Long Read, a memoir and journalistic take on the stages in an asylum seeker’s journey, from escape to resettlement.

After the success of Life After Life and A God in Ruins, the novelist shares why she is enjoying writing more as she gets older – and the return of detective Jackson Brodie

After nearly 10 years, Kate Atkinson’s much-loved detective Jackson Brodie returns in her 12th novel Big Sky. “The best mystery of the decade”, Stephen King wrote of Case Histories, Brodie’s first appearance back in 2004, but it looked as if he might have been retired for ever after his fourth outing in 2010. “Brodie did have a really long holiday,” the author says. During which time, Atkinson won the Costa best novel award twice, for her historical novels Life After Life and A God in Ruins, and wrote last year’s Transcription. But she always intended to bring him back, or she would have killed him off, “just to put that to bed”.

Big Sky started as a screenplay about a female detective, and was originally written for the actor and comedian Victoria Wood, who had appeared in one of the BBC’s Brodie adaptations starring Jason Isaacs. Wood did not see the manuscript before her death in 2016 so Atkinson put it aside, before eventually deciding it would work for Brodie, partly because it is set in Yorkshire, where the detective, like his creator, grew up.

The books site editor on the challenges facing publishers, and who she would invite to her dream dinner party

How long have you had this job? What route did you take to get here?

I came to the Guardian’s books desk in a rather roundabout way. I studied journalism and international relations in Australia, my homeland, then began working as a radio producer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. But reading has always been my most beloved pastime, so I simultaneously worked as a bookseller for four years. When I moved to the UK, I initially found it very hard to get into the media. It felt as though there were still a lot of closed doors for people taking less conventional paths. I began working as a bookseller again while I hunted for work, writing for free after hours and on days off, and using my holidays to do internships. But bookselling was unexpectedly helpful for my job now – I understand the trade from the inside. I’m so thankful I was able to do it for so long – yes, customers can be as weird as you think, but it is one of the best jobs you can do. And maybe I will return to it one day.

Politicians including Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg and the Labour leader have lined up to praise the impenetrable novel. Ahead of Bloomsday, Corbyn discusses the power of Joyce’s political vision

In defiance of its reputation for being hard to finish – Philip Roth and Jorge Luis Borges did not manage it, and there is a question mark over Virginia Woolf – James Joyce’s Ulysses has emerged as a favourite of politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, former vice president Joe Biden has been joined by his fellow 2020 Democrat presidential hopefuls Pete Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke in praising the book. In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn revealed in a 2016 Mumsnet Q&A that it has long been his favourite novel too.

When I spoke to Corbyn in advance of this year’s Bloomsday – 16 June, the day in 1904 on which the events of Joyce’s Dublin mock epic are set – he recalled first reading it in the early 80s while travelling round Europe and north Africa by train. “A very great Irish friend of mine told me 15 years or so before the journey that I had to read Ulysses. It was the perfect company on the train journey, which was endless.”

The author explains how The Farm, her novel about an upmarket surrogacy service, shows ‘where we are today, pushed forward a few inches’

After being sure that Donald Trump would never be president, then that his travel ban couldn’t last, or that Brett Kavanaugh would never be appointed to the supreme court, Joanne Ramos no longer trusts her own judgment. “In my heart I’m like, ‘There’s no fucking way this is going to happen,’ but it very well could,” she says. Alabama’s near-total ban on abortion has left her fearing the worst: “I still can’t fully believe it, to tell you the truth. The extremity of it is shocking. It’s everything – it’s rape or incest. I can’t believe that we’re here again.”

When the impossible keeps happening, it can feel disorienting and overwhelming: “It’s like, what is up and what is down? … It’s like you’re living in a world that’s been turned.”

How did a Vietnamese refugee come to write what many are hailing as the great American novel?

While he was an undergraduate, Ocean Vuong formed the habit of writing at night. During the day, he studied literature at Brooklyn College and worked in a cafe. At night, he stayed up writing poems. It wasn’t just the sense of isolation that comes from being the only one awake, when “you look out of the window and it’s completely dark and you’re at sea in this little ship”. It was more that writing in the off-hours relaxed his knack for self-criticism. “You get the last word of the day,” he says. “The editor in your head – the nagging, insecure, worrisome social editor – starts to retire. When that editor falls asleep, I get to do what I want. The cat’s out to play.”

The poems that came out of those night-time efforts were published in 2016 as Night Sky With Exit Wounds, the success of which still amazes the author – the book won a Whiting award that year, and in 2017 scooped both the Forward prize and the TS Eliot prize. Vuong, who is 30, was not from a background from which writers traditionally emerge. As a two-year-old, he had been brought to the US from Vietnam as a refugee and settled with his family in the working-class town of Hartford, Connecticut. No one in his family spoke English. When his father left, his mother got work in a nail salon, menial work for little reward and a quality of life that Vuong had no particular expectation of exceeding. If Night Sky tackled the absent father as myth, then his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, reckons with the mother and grandmother who raised him and it is the influence of these women – courageous, difficult, devastated by the ripple effect of the Vietnam war – that forms the spine of the novel and asks the central question: after trauma, how do we love?

A sharply observed portrait of a comically foreign creature is shadowed by unease about its future

The Bluff

The newt that plays so delicately dead
must be on the qui vive unless terror
just flicks the switch. Its limbs go limp,
its upturned orange underbelly over-ripe:
a toxic flag unfurled from the beyond.
– Clubbed fingers, clammy green and spectral,
appear to have slipped off the frets
of a miniature guitar.

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Welcome to this week’s blogpost. Here’s our roundup of your comments and photos from last week.

A foundational work to start with. Aeschylus’ Oresteia has awed paulburns:

Q: I read Joyce and Beckett as a young man, and reading Milkman by Anna Burns recently and Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders has reawakened my interest in modernist novels. European literature in translation is of particular interest.
Retired health professional, 70, Toronto

A: Alex Preston, author and critic, writes:
Far from being a “dead hand” (thanks for that, Ian McEwan), modernism, the “make it new” spirit of experimentation and risk-taking, is the engine that drives literature forward. If you haven’t read him already, there’s Roberto Bolaño. OK, so he’s not European – he’s from Chile – but his two greatest novels, The Savage Detectives and the epic 2666, will blow your mind. They are both rendered in luminous English by Natasha Wimmer.

The thriller author on the book that explains why writers are ‘plain nuts’, and the William Goldman novel that started him on his career path

The book I am currently reading
Two at the moment: The Wych Elm by the great Irish crime writer Tana French: lyrical, suspenseful, unpredictable. And every year or so, I also reread my favourite writing manual, Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott, a series of hilarious and helpful essays. It gives the reader great insight on why we writers are a tad insecure and just plain nuts. I use it like a coach’s halftime speech to get me fired up to write.

The book that changed my life
Marathon Man by William Goldman, who died recently. My father gave it to me when I was maybe 15 or 16. It was the first time I read an adult thriller where I said to myself: “I can’t put this down – someone could put a gun to my head and I wouldn’t put this down! How lucky is this Goldman guy to do this for a living?” Subconsciously, I think, that started me on this career path. Bill Goldman later became a valued friend and mentor. I miss him greatly.

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” wrote Emily Dickinson. One way to get an oblique angle on today’s truth is to frame it with a narrative borrowed from ancient history, from folklore or myth.

In 1938, in Algeria, Albert Camus wrote the first draft of his play Caligula. Appalled and fascinated by modern dictators’ twinning of brutality with glamour, he turned to first-century Rome for a story to give shape to his response. It was finally performed in 1945, Camus having lived in France under German occupation, working courageously for the resistants’ journal Combat. His Caligula is brilliant and crazy, a despot whose absolute power gives him an absolute licence that frightens him to death. Camus had been expelled from the Communist party for his outspokenness before experiencing Nazi censorship. Only by time-travelling to ancient Rome could he set himself free to explore, with painful clarity, his thoughts on freedom.

Visits are great engines for storytelling – and from Jane Austen to Ali Smith, here are some of the best

Two of the most vivid images I carry with me from my childhood reading concern the arrival of a guest. The first is from Carmilla, the early vampire novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. I found the story in my parents’ library, in an anthology of gothic horror, and scared myself half to death reading it. I still don’t like vampire stories. The second is more benign: the children’s classic The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. Both involve carriages rushing through the dark and the anticipation of change that a guest brings.

Allegedly there are only two kinds of story: someone goes on a journey, or someone comes to town. Either way the person has to stay somewhere, so the houseguest story is everywhere once you start looking for it. When I asked on Facebook for favourite examples, I received a flood of suggestions, many more than I would have guessed and ranging across all forms, from plays (Albee’s A Delicate Balance) to short stories (Gorey’s The Doubtful Guest) to novels (Hartley’s The Go-Between).

After two years of careful reading, moving backwards through time, Robert McCrum has concluded his selection of the 100 greatest nonfiction books. Take a quick look at five centuries of great writing

• Robert McCrum reflects on his 100 greatest nonfiction books list
• The 100 best novels written in English: the full list
• What did Robert miss? Leave your thoughts in the comments

1. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (2014)
An engrossing account of the looming catastrophe caused by ecology’s “neighbours from hell” – mankind.

2. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)
This steely and devastating examination of the author’s grief following the sudden death of her husband changed the nature of writing about bereavement.

After two years of careful consideration, Robert McCrum has reached a verdict on his selection of the 100 greatest novels written in English. Take a look at his list

• Robert McCrum reflects on his choices
• One in five doesn’t represent over 300 years of women in literature: a response
• What is missing: readers’ alternative list
• The world’s 100 greatest novels of all time (2003)

1. The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1678)

A story of a man in search of truth told with the simple clarity and beauty of Bunyan’s prose make this the ultimate English classic.

Mark Haddon and Natalie Haynes took on Greek myth, Queenie made us laugh and Toni Morrison returned with essays. Here are our highlights across fiction, poetry, non-fiction and children’s books

• More of the best: Audiobooks | TV | Music | Films | Games
  

Featured Events 

Friday, June 21
7 p.m.
Presented part of LGBTQ Pride Month.
James Madison Building- West Dining Room 

For a complete list of events happening at the Library between June 17 - June 22: Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Featured Event 

Thursday, June 13
6 p.m.
Changemaker Conversation 

Conversation with the Librarian: Women in Leadership

Please join the John W. Kluge Center and the Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden for a Changemaker Conversation with the Librarian: "Women in Leadership, Featuring Drew Gilpin Faust."

Drew Gilpin Faust is the 2018 recipient of the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. As the first female president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust has led one of the most esteemed educational institutions in the world through a period of intense growth and transformation. 

This event will be livestreamed from both the Library's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/libraryofcongress and the Library's YouTube site (with captions) at https://www.youtube.com/user/LibraryOfCongress.

For a complete list of events happening at the Library between June 10 - June 15: Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress will host the third annual “LOC Summer Movies on the Lawn” outdoor film festival this summer. The six-film series — which showcases iconic films from the Library’s National Film Registry — will be presented on Thursday evenings at sundown from July 11 through Aug. 15 on the north lawn of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, across the street from the U.S. Capitol. 

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

On Thursday, June 13, the Library of Congress invites the public to attend a Changemaker Conversation with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden: “Women in Leadership, Featuring Drew Gilpin Faust.” Faust is the 2018 recipient of the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. As the first female president of Harvard University, Faust led one of the most esteemed educational institutions in the world through a period of intense growth and transformation.

Click here for more information.

Festival Lineup on Aug. 31 Features José Andrés, Barbara Kingsolver, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Among Dozens of Authors

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be among the featured speakers at the 2019 Library of Congress National Book Festival, along with dozens of best-selling authors, novelists, historians, poets and children’s writers, the Library announced today. This year’s festival will be held Saturday, Aug. 31, from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

Ginsburg will discuss her book “My Own Words,” a collection of writings and speeches from throughout her life, discussing gender equality, the workings of the Supreme Court, interpreting the U.S. Constitution, being Jewish, and the law and lawyers in opera. The book, written with her authorized biographers, was Ginsburg’s first book since becoming a Supreme Court justice in 1993. It’s been called witty, engaging, serious and playful.

The 2019 festival will invite visitors to Explore America’s Changemakers, part of a yearlong initiative coinciding with a series of exhibitions, events and programs at the Library. Exhibitions opening this year will explore the fight for women’s voting rights and Rosa Parks’ groundbreaking role in civil rights history. Changemakers are everywhere. Everyday citizens become trailblazers and history makers, shaping America.

Among numerous festival programs dedicated to the theme of Changemakers, a special panel will feature new books on Winston Churchill by Andrew Roberts, Frederick Douglass by David Blight and visionary women including Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall and Alice Waters, by Andrea Barnet.

Click here for more information.

The Library of Congress will present a conversation with Singaporean American novelist and changemaker Kevin Kwan, known for his satirical novels “Crazy Rich Asians,” “China Rich Girlfriend” and “Rich People Problems,” who seeks to introduce contemporary Asian culture to an American audience. This event is presented as part of the Library’s Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month programming. 

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Upcoming next week at the Library...

Monday, April 29
10 a.m.
SPECIAL EVENT
To recognize and promote this new Digital Collection as well as Children’s Book Week, local authors and illustrators will each read a select book from the historical collection out loud.

Tuesday, April 30
10 a.m.
Research Orientation 
Designed as a basic introduction for researchers and staff.  Tour the reading room and learn about our favorite databases.

This course is taught by our reference specialists and is designed as a basic introduction for researchers using the Newspaper & Current Periodical Reading Room's collections and resources. Each hour-long session includes a tour of the N&CPR Reading Room, procedures on how to locate and request materials, and using various equipment such as microfilm machines and scanners. 

Register by phone: (202) 707-5690 or online loc.gov/rr/news/classes.html.

11:30 a.m.
Science Talk
Dr. Noah Petro will discuss re-evaluating those samples in a local and regional context which provides improved understanding for what those samples represent. The lecture will celebrate "Appollo at 50" and is being presented part of the annual Earth and Space Science lecture series, now in its fourteenth year. The series is presented in partnership with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Science, Technology, and Business Division at the Library of Congress. The talk will take place in the Pickford Theater, James Madison Memorial Building. 
Contact: (202) 707-1192. 

Wednesday, May 1
1:30 p.m. 
Law Day Event 
Join Law Librarian Jane Sánchez in a conversation with American Bar Association President, Bob Carlson on this year’s Law Day topic. The 2019 Law Day theme—Free Speech, Free Press, Free Society—focuses on these cornerstones of representative government and calls on us to understand and protect these rights to ensure, as the U.S. Constitution proposes, “the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.” 

This event will take place in room LJ119, Thomas Jefferson Building. Contact: (202) 707-1990. 

Friday, May 3
1 p.m.
ART SHOWCASE
A display and workshop with Chicano Artist Mario Torero. A political activist and muralist from the San Diego area, Torero has taught at several schools and colleges and his work has been exhibited around the world. He is the co-founder of the San Diego Commission of Arts and Culture, el Centro Cultural de la Raza, the Chicano Park Murals Outdoor Museum.  San Diego's Chicano Park, which contains a number of Torero's murals, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2016.  The Library of Congress has acquired more than 20 prints, drawings and posters by the artist dating from 1967 - 2016. 

Activities will take place inside the Hispanic Reading Room. Contact: (202) 707-5397. 

9 p.m. 
YOU CAN WATCH!

EMILIO & GLORIA ESTEFAN: THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GERSHWIN PRIZE FOR POPULAR SONG, a PBS music special honoring Emilio and Gloria Estefan’s receipt of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, will premiere nationwide Friday, May 3, 2019 at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS, and on PBS.org and the PBS Video App (check local listings). The program will also be broadcast at a later date via the American Forces Network to American service men and women and civilians at U.S. Department of Defense locations around the world. This is the first time the Gershwin Prize has been awarded to a married couple or to musicians-songwriters of Hispanic descent.

Saturday, May 4
2 p.m.
Baseball Talk 
A conversation between Baseball Americana curator Susan Reyburn and Bill James, the baseball analyst who coined the term and popularized “sabermetrics,” the method of statistical analysis that has revolutionized Major League baseball. The talk will take place in room LJ119, Thomas Jefferson Building. 

Tickets are recommended but not required, and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Contact: (202) 707-8000. 

6:30 p.m.
Pre-concert Lecture
A conversation with David Plylar, PhD, Music Division. Tickets are not required. Contact: (202) 707-5502. 

8 p.m.
Concert
The dynamic sibling duo of Tanja and Christian Tetzlaff is joined by pianist Lars Vogt to form a superstar trio. Tickets are required via Eventbrite.

Planning Your Visit 

The Library of Congress is open Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

https://www.loc.gov/visit/ 

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Upcoming next week at the Library...

Tuesday, April 23
10 a.m.
Research Orientation 
Designed as a basic introduction for researchers and staff.  Tour the reading room and learn about our favorite databases.

This course is taught by our reference specialists and is designed as a basic introduction for researchers using the Newspaper & Current Periodical Reading Room's collections and resources. Each hour-long session includes a tour of the N&CPR Reading Room, procedures on how to locate and request materials, and using various equipment such as microfilm machines and scanners. 

Register by phone: (202) 707-5690 or online loc.gov/rr/news/classes.html.

4 p.m.
Lecture 
Join Bruce Clarke, Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, as he moderates a discussion on the rich cultural impact of the photo on the US space program and the environmental movement. "Earthrise: Celebrating the Photograph that Changed (How we View) the World" will take place in room LJ119. The event is free, but tickets are required, and there may be special restrictions. Click here for more information and to secure your ticket. Contact: (202) 707-3302. 

Wednesday, April 24
Noon
Folklife Talk
In his talk, folklorist and ethnomusicologist Langston Collin Wilkins will discuss how "screw" and "slab" combine form a unique local tradition that has affirmed and empowered working class Black Houstonians across several generations."Street Folk: Hip Hop, Car Culture, and Black Life in Houston, TX" will take place in the Whittall Pavilion. Contact: (202) 707-1743. 

5 p.m. 
Lecture 
Author and diplomat James Ford Cooper worked at the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki during the Cold War, first as Political Counselor and later as Deputy Chief of Mission. He was subsequently Director of the State Department Office of Northern European Affairs. Mr. Cooper’s discussion about Finland and the Cold War is on an important topic given the current international political situation. "On the Finland Watch: An American Diplomat in Finland during the Cold War" will take place in the Whittall Pavilion. Contact: tspi@loc.gov.

Thursday, April 25
2 p.m. 
Symposium 
The U.S. Copyright Office will celebrate World Intellectual Property Day with a special event. This year’s theme, as announced by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), is “Reach for Gold: IP and Sports.”

The Copyright Office’s program will explore the unique and sometimes surprising relationship between sports and copyright. We will look at different points at which sports and copyright intersect, including how people watch games from home, the various ways athletes work with copyright to develop merchandise and more, and the burgeoning world of esports.

Featured speakers include Derrick Heggans, founder and CEO of Global Sports and Entertainment Business Academy (GSB Academy); Delara Derakhshani, counsel, tech policy, Entertainment Software Association; and Robert Garrett, senior counsel, Arnold & Porter.

The event will also be live-streamed on the Copyright Office YouTube site (with captions) at youtube.com/uscopyrightoffice.

“Reach for Gold: IP and Sports” will take place in the Coolidge Auditorium. Contact: (202) 707-0956. 

4 p.m.
Lecture 
Stephen Houston, Dupee Family Professor of Social Science, Brown University, and Library of Congress Kislak Chair for the Study of the History and Cultures of the Early Americas, will discuss ancient Maya warfare and the meanings of conflict and its aftermath.

Drawing on recent explorations, Prof. Houston will showcase the lidar technology now revolutionizing the study of Pre-Columbian civilizations.

"Flint, Shield, and Fire: Exploring Ancient Maya Warfare" will take place in room LJ119. The event is free, but tickets are required, and there may be special restrictions. Click here for more information and to secure your ticket.

A reception will follow. Guests are also invited to visit the “Exploring the Early Americas” exhibit, which displays artifacts from the Jay I. Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress. View the collection online here.

Contact: (202) 707-3302. 

Friday, April 26
1 p.m.
Gallery Talk
Join members of the Library's Preservation Directorate as they discuss conservation and preservation techniques that have been used to restore, refresh and provide long-term access to unmatched collections by evaluating, managing, and responding to the risks and challenges associated with the wide variety of baseball-related materials in the Library’s care.

Experts will be on hand to provide tips on caring for your artifacts and ephemera. Presented part of the Library's 2019 Preservation Week activities. 

"Preserving the Game" will be held inside the Baseball Americana exhibition. Contact: (202) 707-1120.

Saturday, April 27
10:30 a.m.
Led by Young Reader's Center volunteers and staff, the Story Time will focus on books such as My Pen by Christopher Myers, I Have an Idea! by Herve Tullet, The Dot by Peter Reynolds, and Niko Draws a Feeling by Bob Raczka, all of which center on kids taking their ideas and making them into creative works. A puppet show will feature characters working together to create something, debating on who owns the work (children will interactively take sides), and then resolving the conflict through joint ownership and sharing. Songs will be on the themes of writing, drawing, and making ideas into creative products.

This event is great for families with children from 5 to 10 years old. Taking place inside the Library's Young Readers Center. 

This event is an adjunct to the Copyright Matters lecture that will be held April 25, the Copyright Office’s official recognition of World Intellectual Property Day. 

The event is free, but due to expected demand, tickets are recommended, and there may be special restrictions. Tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Click here for more information and to secure your ticket. Entry is not guaranteed. Contact: (202) 707-1950. 

2 p.m.
It is exceptionally rare that we have the opportunity to hear a previously unknown work by a major composer, but that is precisely what the Library will offer in its presentation of the piano/vocal version of Franz Liszt’s Sardanapalo. 

The concert is free, but tickets are required, and there may be special restrictions. Click here for more information and to secure your ticket.

Pre-Concert Lecture will be held at 12:30 p.m. in the Whittall Pavilion. Tickets are not required. 

Contact: (202) 707-5502. 

Planning Your Visit 

The Library of Congress is open Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

https://www.loc.gov/visit/ 

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

]

Award-winning author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o presents his recently released publication titled, “Minutes of Glory And Other Stories” at the Library of Congress.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Walt Whitman in his younger years, as shown in this 1854 engraving by Samuel Hollyer used in the 1855 first edition of "Leaves of Grass." Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Library of Congress will celebrate the 200^thanniversary of American poet and changemaker Walt Whitman’s birthday in spring 2019 with a series of exhibits, public programs and a digital crowdsourcing campaign to showcase the Library’s unparalleled collections of Whitman’s writings and artifacts.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Upcoming next week at the Library...

For a complete list of events happening next week, visit the Library's Public Event Calendar. 

Planning Your Visit 

The Library of Congress is open Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

https://www.loc.gov/visit/ 

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Photo Credit: Benda, Wladyslaw T. (Wladyslaw Theodore), 1873-1948., artist

This month, the Library of Congress will kick off the annual Earth and Space Science lecture series, now in its fourteenth year. The series is presented in partnership with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Science, Technology, and Business Division at the Library of Congress.

The first lecture of the series will be held on Tuesday, April 30 and will celebrate the 50 year anniversary of the Apollo mission.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress invites the public to attend two events hosted by its renowned scholars in residence in April.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Upcoming next week at the Library...

CLOSING NOTICE
Tuesday, April 9

The Library's Thomas Jefferson Building will be closed to the public for a special event. Credentialed researchers may access the Jefferson reading rooms normally, as they will be open during regular hours of service. 

For more information: https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-19-A01/?loclr=eaue 

Monday, April 8
5 p.m. 
Poetry Reading and Conversation 
Portuguese poet Ana Luísa Amaral will participate in a conversation and reading from her new book of poems What’s in a name?. Amaral is one of Portugal’s most exciting poets whose work has been described as “small hypnotic miracles […] reminiscent of Szymborska and of Emily Dickinson”. Hispanic Reading Room, Thomas Jefferson Building. 

Tuesday, April 9
11 a.m.
Hispanic Reading Room Research Orientation 
Sign up for our research orientation and learn about the Hispanic Reading Room services and collections. Orientations are offered to the public the second Tuesday of every month from 11:00am-12:00pm. Those attending should obtain a Library of Congress Reader Identification Card prior to the session. For more information about reader's cards, see: http://www.loc.gov/rr/readerregistration.html. 

Noon
Emergence of the Comic Strip in the 19th Century 
Swann Foundation Fellow Joshua Abraham Kopin will present “Comics in Nineteenth Century Time and Space.” West Dining Room, James Madison Memorial Building. 

Thursday, April 11
Noon
I Spy a Spy: Social Anxiety and Farce in North Korea Comedy Film

This presentation plays out against a ghostly landscape of North Korean society, much of which is tragic: the Korean War, economic crises, tensions along the DMZ, and famine. North Korean comedy films are both a response to the grief and a salve for the wound.

This talk will be presented by Dr. Immanuel Kim, professor of Korean literature and culture studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at George Washington University. Dr. Kim is a specialist in North Korean literature and cinema.

Dining Room A, James Madison Memorial Building.
Registration via Eventbrite is encouraged but not required.

Friday, April 12
8 p.m. 
JerusalemQuartet 
The Jerusalem Quartet deploys a strong sense of drama and a striking range of tonal color to create “an extraordinary unity of sound and purpose” (New York Times). 

The event is free, but tickets are required, and there may be special restrictions. Click the "Get Tickets" link below for more information and to secure your ticket. Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building. 

GET TICKETS

Pre-concert lecture: 6:30 p.m. Tickets are not required. 

7:30 p.m. 
"Nothing But a Man" (Cinema V, 1964)
A groundbreaking work filmed during the tumult of the mounting civil rights movement, this independent film tells the story of Duff Anderson (Ivan Dixon), a proud railroad worker from the wrong side of the tracks who marries a preacher’s genteel schoolteacher daughter Josie (Abbey Lincoln). Packard Campus Theater. 

Saturday, April 13
2 p.m. 
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s ORCHKIDS
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s ORCHKIDSensemble performs with BSO Music DirectorMARIN ALSOPin this special family-friendly matinée concert, a tribute to Scott Joplin’s groundbreaking operaTreemonisha and the birth of jazz. Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building. 

Registration via Eventbrite is encouraged but not required.

Planning Your Visit 

The Library of Congress is open Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

https://www.loc.gov/visit/ 

COMING...

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Part of the 2018-2019 Concerts from the Library series, the Music Division is hosting a series highlighting music compositions and the historical significance and progression video game scores. The video game collection as it now stands consists of about 5,000 games for a wide variety of platforms, 3,000 strategy guides and 1,100 game related periodicals. Additionally the collection includes descriptive documentation that comes through Copyright with the games and about 100 examples of gameplay footage on VHS or DVD. 

In a series of public events over the course of three days, a gathering of composers, designers, performers curators and educators will explore the music of this vital cultural phenomenon through film, lectures, discussions, performance and interactive displays.

Also being presented part of the Augmented Realities Mini- Fest is #LOCArcade. For one day only visitors can experience #LOCArcade. Over 40 years of video game nostalgia at the Library of Congress. Classic Super Mario gaming to Star Wars virtual reality. Game on! Tickets are recommended but not required. For tickets and more information on the arcade, visit http://locarcade.eventbrite.com/.

Click here for more information on the entire mini-fest..

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress and "We Need Diverse Books" present “On Writing, Voice, and Courage: A Conversation with Walter Honorees,” a symposium on diverse children’s literature. 

Newbery Medalist and bestselling author Linda Sue Park will serve as the ceremony’s emcee. Christopher Myers, honored guest and son of the late Walter Dean Myers, will speak. Pura Belpré Award-winning author Meg Medina will act as Symposium Moderator.

The 2019 Walter Awards Ceremony will immediately follow the symposium.

The program is being streamed LIVE NOW!

Watch LIVE on YouTube

Caption: Comic strip by R. F. Outcault showing Buster Brown, his friend Mary Jane and dog Tige meeting up with the Yellow Kid, published in the New York American, July 7, 1907.

Swann Foundation Fellow Joshua Abraham Kopin will give an illustrated lecture at the Library of Congress discussing the cultural and technological contexts surrounding the rise of the comic strip in late nineteenth century America.   

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Upcoming next week at the Library...

Wednesday, March 27
Noon
Alash Ensemble 
Tuvan traditional music and throat-singing trio. Alash Ensemble is a trio of master throat singers (xöömeizhi) from Tuva, a tiny republic in the heart of Central Asia. The ancient art of throat singing (xöömei) developed among the nomadic herdsmen of this region. Alash remains grounded in this tradition, while expanding its musical vocabulary with new ideas from the West. Performance will take place in the Coolidge Auditorium. Tickets are not required. 

Friday, March 29
Beginning at 9 a.m.
We Need Diverse Books Walter Dean Myers Awards Ceremony and Symposium

Newbery​ ​Medalist​ ​and​ ​bestselling​ ​author​ ​Linda​ ​Sue​ ​Park ​will​ ​serve​ ​as​ ​the​ ​Awards Ceremony’s​ ​Emcee​.​  Also, honored guest Christopher Myers, son of the late Walter Dean Myers, will speak.

A morning symposium, titled​ ​“On Writing, Voice and Courage:  A Conversation with Walter Honorees,”​ ​will​ ​precede​ ​the​ ​Awards​ ​Ceremony.​ Pura Belpré Award-winning author Meg Medina​ ​will​ ​act​ ​as​ ​symposium​ ​Moderator. 

The event will take place inside the Coolidge Auditorium. 

The event will also be live-streamed on the Library’s Facebook page at facebook.com/libraryofcongress and its YouTube site (with captions) at youtube.com/LOC.

11 a.m.
Gallery Talk
In honor of Women’s History Month and Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, Music Division specialist Susan Clermont will examine the feminist origins of the baseball classic Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Gallery talk will take place inside the Baseball Americana exhibition. 

Planning Your Visit 

The Library of Congress is open Monday-Saturday, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

https://www.loc.gov/visit/ 

COMING...

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress will bring traditional music and dance drawn from communities across and beyond the United States to the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium stage for mid-day cultural concerts throughout the summer.

The “Homegrown: The Music of America” concert series is presented by AFC in cooperation with the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Folklore Society of Greater Washington. The series brings the multicultural richness of American folk arts from around the country — and a few artists from further afield — to the nation’s capital.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress will honor Tracy K. Smith, who is concluding her two terms as the nation’s poet laureate, with an event exploring her outreach to rural communities and the roles of state, city and county poets laureate across the country.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Upcoming next week at the Library...

Monday, March 11
7:30 p.m.
The Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in conversation with Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song honoree Emilio Estefan regarding his experience as a music mogul, his success in entrepreneurship and the art of cultivating talent. A 19-time Grammy Award winner, Estefan is a musician, songwriter, record and television producer, best-selling author, filmmaker and cultural ambassador. Event will take place inside the Coolidge Auditorium. 

The conversation is being presented as part of the Library’s 2019 initiative Explore America’s Changemakers. You can follow and join in on the #Changemakers conversation via Twitter.

Contact: (202) 707-5503.

Thursday, March 14
Noon
A reading and interview about the writers country of origin, as well as a question and answer session with the audience. Kenyan writer Onjerika is the winner of the 2018 Caine Prize for African Writing. Event will take place in the Pickford Theater. Contact: (202) 707-1982.

Friday, March 15
Beginning at 8 p.m.
Ensemble Signal charts a fresh path at the Library in a program a century in the making. Event will take place inside the Coolidge Auditorium. Tickets are required. Pre-concert lecture will be at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are not required for the pre-performance lecture. Contact: (202) 707-5502.

Visit Eventbrite for concert ticket information. 

Saturday, March 16
Beginning at 10 a.m.
Please join us in the Hispanic Reading Room at the Library of Congress to honor influential Latin American, Caribbean, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latinx women by editing or adding content and quality references to already existing Wikipedia entries. The event will take place in the Hispanic Reading Room. 

Please bring your own laptop, or reserve one of two provided by Wikimedia in an e-mail to info@wikimediadc.org. 

Visit this website for registration. 

Sponsored by the Hispanic Division in collaboration with WikimediaDC. Registration required. 
Contact: (202) 707-5397. 

10 – 11:30 a.m.
The Music Division will be conducting a focused research orientation on film music materials in our holdings. The orientation will be in LJ-139B. Contact: (202) 707-5507. 

COMING...

Thursday, March 21
Noon
Vishten is a powerful trio of Acadian singers and multi-instruments who perform Canadian music with French and Celtic roots and rock energy. Acadians are the descendants of French settlers of Canada’s Atlantic provinces. Tickets are not required. Presented as part of the Homegrown Music of America Concert Series. Contact: (202) 707-1743. 

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress will host several events throughout March that celebrate the contributions of women to American history and culture. All of the following events are free and open to the public.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress will honor the lifetime achievement of novelist Annie Proulx, winner of the Library’s Prize for American Fiction, in a program exploring the role of writers and the intersection between literature and the environment.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden will host a conversation with world-renowned music, television and film producer Emilio Estefan on Monday, March 11 at 7:30 p.m. in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium.

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

In honor of the annual celebration of Japan’s 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees, the Library of Congress announced that it will host two cultural events during the 2019 National Cherry Blossom Festival, the nation’s most celebrated springtime festivity. 

Click here for more information.

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov.

The Library of Congress Web Archiving Program has updated the United States Elections Web Archive to release content archived during the 2016 U.S. Elections, as well as some campaign websites from special elections in 2015 and 2017. As with prior election releases, this release contains campaign sites archived weekly prior to the elections, documenting sites associated with presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial elections. The sites archived in this collection typically include social media channels as well, in order to provide a fuller representation of how candidates presented themselves via the Internet to the electorate.

Just in time for the 100^th anniversary of Children’s Book Week, Children's Book Selections brings together a sampling of digitized children’s books, including rare and beloved titles, that reflect three general themes: Learning to Read, Reading to Learn, and Reading for Fun. The presentation includes both classic works that are still read by children today, and lesser-known treasures drawn from the Library’s extensive collection of historically significant children’s books. It is accompanied by a new guide to help researchers find historical children’s materials on the Library’s web site: Children's Book Selections: Resource Guide

In celebration of the Persian New Year, also known as Nowruz, the Library of Congress has digitized and made available online for the first time the Rare Persian-Language Manuscript Collection, which sheds light on scientific, religious, philosophical and literary topics that are highly valued in the Persian speaking lands.

This collection, including 150 manuscripts with some dating back to the 13^th century, also reflects the diversity of religious and confessional traditions within the Persian culture.

From the 10^th century to the present, Persian became the cultural language for a large region stretching from West Asia to Central and South Asia. Today, Persian is the native language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and some regions of Central and South Asia and the Caucasus.

Click here for more information.

The papers of suffragist and political strategist Carrie Chapman Catt, including her time as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, have been digitized and are now available online for the first time from the Library of Congress.

The collection includes about 9,500 items dating primarily from 1890 to 1920 as Catt helped lead the fight for a federal suffrage amendment. The Catt Papers are online at: loc.gov/collections/carrie-chapman-catt-papers/about-this-collection/.

Click here for more information.

Women's Suffrage in Sheet Music

The Library of Congress just released Women's Suffrage in Sheet Music, a selection of more than 200 pieces of sheet music spanning the years 1838-1923, over half of which highlight women's emerging voices and suffrage efforts. The collection includes published rally songs and songsters written and compiled by notable composers and suffragists, as well as music manuscripts submitted for copyright deposit by everyday citizens. Anti-suffragists raised voices in song as well, and popular music of the era echoed anti-suffrage sentiments of the day with specific references to the movement. Read more and browse the entire collection or take a quick look at the fascinating cover art. 

Joe Smith Collection

The Joe Smith Collection provides recordings of interviews conducted by Smith, a retired music executive, between 1986 and 1988, with musicians, producers, and other music industry icons. He spoke with everyone from Aerosmith to Yoko Ono about different genres of music, the industry, and how it had changed. The contributors are a virtual who’s who from the mid-to-late 20th century and the discussions provide a glimpse behind the curtain.

Lowell Folklife Project

The Lowell Folklife Project from the American Folklife Center (AFC) is the fifth of AFC’s ethnographic field projects to be digitized in full and presented online. The collection is the result of a year-long study conducted between 1987-1988 by AFC fieldworkers. The collection documents contemporary ethnic neighborhoods, occupations, and community life related to the history of industrialization in Lowell, Massachusetts. So much rich material: French, Portuguese, Puerto Rican, Greek, Cambodian, Irish, Polish, Laotian, Vietnamese and Italian communities; work, weddings, sports, parades and festivals; music, winemaking, teens hanging out, and Jack Kerouac’s birthplace are all here.

The Library of Congress has acquired and made available online the Omar Ibn Said Collection, which includes the only known surviving slave narrative written in Arabic in the United States. In 1831, Omar Ibn Said, a wealthy and highly educated man who was captured in West Africa and brought to the United States as a slave, wrote a 15-page autobiography describing his experiences.

Read more about the extraordinary Omar Ibn Said Collection.

Happy New Year! We have new collections and resources to tell you about in this update. 

Occupational Folklife Project

The Occupational Folklife Project began in 2010 as a multi-year project to document the culture of contemporary American workers during an era of economic and social transition. To date, fieldworkers have recorded more than 600 interviews with workers in many areas. The interviews feature workers discussing their current jobs and formative work experiences, training, challenges, rewards, and aspirations. The latest set of interviews added to the site features home health care workers. For example, Nargiza Turanova describes her experiences as a home care worker, what caregivers discuss when they talk to each other, and her job satisfaction.

Nargiza Turanova, home health care worker.

Federal Theatre Project

This collection for theater lovers is now available in a much improved format and features stage and costume designs, photographs, posters, playbills, and playscripts from 1935-1939 including productions of Macbeth and The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus as staged by Orson Welles. 

   
Costume designs from Macbeth and A Christmas Carol.

116th Congress

Did you know that the Library of Congress manages Congress.gov, the official site for U.S. legislation? On this site you can track legislation and find current members of Congress.

Thanks for reading and happy browsing!

The Library’s resolution for 2019 is to offer more opportunities to engage lifelong learners like you with our unique treasures and programs. Make your gift before we close the books on 2018!

Your gift supports FREE exhibitions, events, programs, and activities that connect millions of people across the nation and around the world with our unique collections, experts, and services.

The Library of Congress is your library, your gateway to understanding the world. There is so much to discover, not only the nation’s memory, but the world’s—information from all corners of the earth, in more than 470 languages. With millions of items available online, you can access the Library’s treasures from anywhere and connect with us in ways that are personally relevant and valuable.

The Library’s resolution for 2019 is to offer more opportunities to engage lifelong learners like you with our unique treasures and programs. Make your gift before we close the books on 2018!

Your gift can:

• Inspire curiosity in children to read more books and reflect on the power of books to change their lives
• Ignite thoughtful conversation among current and future generations of students and scholars
• Illuminate the minds of people like you who use the resources of the nation's Library here in Washington or via the Internet in their own homes and communities

With the help of supporters like you, we can spark the imagination of people of all ages with programs that open the Library’s doors wide to all.

Join us TODAY by making your 2018 tax-deductible donation, and together we’ll spark a lifelong adventure of learning.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today the annual selection of 25 of America’s most influential motion pictures to be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress because of their cultural, historic and aesthetic importance to the nation’s film heritage. These films range from Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and Paul Newman’s unforgettable “Hud” to the opulent musical “My Fair Lady” and the rocking sounds of “Monterey Pop.” Selection to the registry will help ensure that these films will be preserved for all time.

Read more about this year's selections and find out how we're celebrating the 30th year of the National Film Registry!

Watch Dr. Hayden introduce the 2018 registry and see film clips on our YouTube channel.

Hello subscribers! We have a few quick updates for your weekend browsing. 

Watch: A Conversation with Rod Serling

In our last update we announced the National Screening Room which makes rare movies available on the Library's website and on our YouTube channel. We are still discovering treasures from this collection like this conversation with Rod Serling from 1968 in which he discusses television as a medium for literary writers and artists. Check it out.

In related film news, on Wednesday, December 12, we will announce the 2018 National Film Registry selections. We've been highlighting films previously added to the registry as we get ready for the big reveal! 

World War I: 400 Volumes of WWI Newspaper Content are Now Online

Read all about this extraordinary collection of newspaper front pages, illustrated feature articles, editorial cartoons, and more in a post from our Headlines & Heroes blog. You can also go straight to the collection and start exploring yourself. 

Thanks for reading! Let us know if you have any feedback at news@loc.gov. 

The day has arrived—#GivingTuesday—a day when your gift makes a difference and a statement.

The Library of Congress depends on donations from people like you to produce exhibitions, events, programs, and activities that connect millions of people across the nation and around the world with our unique collections, experts, and services.

Gifts bring the Library to life with music, dance, film, sound, culture, scholarship, research, discussions and ideas. Your gift, no matter the size, will support diverse programs that are entirely FREE for everyone to enjoy, and will make the Library’s treasures and services more accessible.

Help spread the word today and encourage your friends and family to make a gift to the nation’s library, your gateway to understanding the world!

#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.

This year is the second year the Library of Congress is participating in #GivingTuesday—a global giving movement. On Tuesday, November 27, we are asking you to make a gift to spark a lifelong adventure of learning.

Your gift supports FREE exhibitions, events, programs, and activities that connect millions of people across the nation and around the world with our unique collections, experts, and services.

The Library of Congress is your library, your gateway to understanding the world. There is so much to discover, not only the nation’s memory, but the world’s—information from all corners of the earth, in more than 470 languages. With millions of items available online, you can access the Library’s treasures from anywhere and connect with us in ways that are personally relevant and valuable.

Save the Date to Make Your Gift!

Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving.

Hello subscribers. We have big news to share with you in this update!

crowd.loc.gov

We recently launched crowd.loc.gov, an exciting new crowdsourcing project. Volunteer to transcribe, tag, or review documents to make them searchable for everyone and get a front row seat to history while you’re at it. Choose which project to work on -- letters sent to Abraham Lincoln or Clara Barton's diaries among others. If you’re a baseball fan you can examine Branch Rickey’s scouting reports to see how he sized up players. Who knows what you’ll discover? Follow the project on Twitter at Crowd_LOC.  

Watch Live on Nov. 19 at 10 a.m. ET: Tune in for a livestreamed event to commemorate the 155^th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address and to kick off the #LettersToLincoln transcription challenge. Watch the #LettersToLincoln event on YouTube or on loc.gov.

Watch Movies on loc.gov in the National Screening Room

The National Screening Room showcases the riches of the Library’s moving image collection and makes otherwise unavailable movies, both copyrighted and in the public domain, freely accessible to viewers worldwide. The films range from fiction and non-fiction to home movies to newsreels, covering a period of more than a hundred years. More content will be added every month. Watch home movies from George and Ira Gershwin to get started!

Personal Snapshots: Picturing the Vietnam War

The Library’s Veterans History Project (VHP) just launched “Personal Snapshots: Picturing the Vietnam War.” This curated presentation features images of the Vietnam War from those who served in it. One of the collections is from G. Mike Mabe, a self-described “low-rank infantryman” who served with the 101st Airborne Division. Mabe’s photographs depict scenes of his everyday life in Vietnam: pulling kitchen patrol duty, interactions with Vietnamese civilians and eating c-rations on the hood of his jeep.

Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories

This collection is now available in a new and improved format. These extraordinary recordings of former slaves took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine states. Twenty-three interviewees discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. The individuals documented in this presentation have much to say about living as African Americans from the 1870s to the 1930s, and beyond.

Mary Church Terrell Papers

The papers of educator, lecturer, suffragist, and civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) are now online! The collection consists of approximately 13,000 documents and includes diaries, correspondence, speeches and writings primarily focusing on Terrell's career as an advocate of women's rights and equal treatment of African Americans. You can explore Mary Church Terrell's life and work further by helping to transcribe her papers in our new crowdsourcing project!

What would you like to see in these "New on the Web" updates? Let us know at news@loc.gov.

Ever wanted to explore the Library’s collections but didn't know where to start? Join us and Library of Congress Innovator-in-Residence Jer Thorp in a Twitter takeover as he takes a #SerendipityRun through the collections on our Twitter account from 1-4 PM ET, Thursday, November 8.

What’s a #SerendipityRun? Click here to find out – and join us this Thursday!

The largest collection of the papers of President Theodore Roosevelt, documenting his extraordinary career in the White House and as vice president, governor of New York, and as a naturalist, writer and reformer, has been digitized and is now available online from the Library of Congress.

The digitization of the massive collection comes just before the 160^th anniversary of Roosevelt’s birthday. The nation’s 26^th president was born Oct. 27, 1858, and died nearly 100 years ago on Jan. 6, 1919.

The Roosevelt papers are one of the largest presidential collections held by the Library, consisting of about 276,000 documents and comprising about 461,000 images. It includes letters, speeches, executive orders, scrapbooks, diaries, White House reception records and press releases of his administration, as well as family records.

Click here for more information.

Reports from the Library’s Congressional Research Service — objective information on policy, regulation & important issues before Congress — are now available to the public online.

Click here for more information.

The Veterans History Project (VHP) in the Library of Congress today launched a website feature, titled “Cold War Dispatches: Service Stories from 1947-1991,” as part of its “Experiencing War” online series. The feature highlights the stories of veterans who served in non-combatant roles within the military between 1947 and 1991, commonly referred to as the Cold War era.

Click here for more information.

Writings and personal records of the founder of American landscape architecture, Frederick Law Olmsted, known for his work on New York’s Central Park, the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington, the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina and many other landscapes, have been digitized and are now available online from the Library of Congress. The archive was digitized to serve as a resource in advance of the bicentennial of Olmsted’s birth, which will be celebrated with partner organizations in 2022.

Click here for more information.

Home to one of the most prominent North Korean collections in the Western Hemisphere, the Library of Congress has rolled out the North Korean Serials Database, an online indexing tool that offers researchers enhanced access to periodicals and articles published as far back as the 1940s.

Click here for more information.

Attention subscriber to bulletin services from the Library of Congress:

As you may be aware, on May 25, 2018, the EU General Data Protection Regulation EU (2016)/679 (GDPR) came into force in all EU member states. The GDPR applies to “personal data,” meaning any information relating to an identifiable person who can be directly or indirectly identified by reference to an identifier. It requires that personal data be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner, and that personal data be collected for specified and legitimate purposes.

For those who subscribe to the Library’s email and RSS bulletins, the Library of Congress collects email addresses which can include personal data. The Library of Congress relies on its legitimate interests to process this data so that we can keep you up to date with developments for the topics to which you subscribe. The Library does not make any other use of this data.

The Library respects your personal data and takes care to maintain its confidentiality. You have the right to unsubscribe from the Library’s e-mail newsletters and alerts at any time. You can manage your subscriptions by clicking “Subscriber Preferences” in the box at the bottom of this email.

If you have any questions about the Library’s data privacy policy, please email the Library: ogc@loc.gov

The papers of President Woodrow Wilson, from his time in the White House and as a scholar and governor of New Jersey, have been digitized and are now available online from the Library of Congress 100 years after his presidency.

Click here for more information.

The Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project (VHP) today launched an online “Experiencing War” website feature, titled “Equality of Treatment and Opportunity: Executive Order 9981,” marking the 70^th anniversary of the landmark order that abolished racial discrimination in the U.S. armed forces.

Click here for more information.

The Library of Congress has launched three new online interactive applications that highlight creative ways to facilitate the accessibility of thousands of collections, using the Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based tool Story Maps.

Click here for more information.

The papers of American scientist, statesman and diplomat Benjamin Franklin have been digitized and are now available online for the first time from the Library of Congress. The Library announced the digitization today in remembrance of the anniversary of Franklin’s death on April 17, 1790.

Click here for more information.

A poem by Dorianne Laux from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

This is the final Poetry 180 poem of the season. This service will resume distributing Poetry 180 poems on Tuesday, September 3, 2019.

A poem by Laura Kasischke from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Phillis Levin from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Robert Francis from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Anna Denise from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Andrea Hollander from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Jeffrey Harrison from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Lisel Mueller from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Major Jackson from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Dana Gioia from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Linda Gregg from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by R. S. Gwynn from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Richard Brautigan from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Mary TallMountain from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Tomas Tranströmer from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Naomi Shihab Nye from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Julie Lechevsky from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Timothy Murphy from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by William Matthews from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Eamon Grennan from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by James Valvis from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by William Matthews from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Doug Dorph from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Donald Hall from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

A poem by Julie Lechevsky from the Library's Poetry 180 Project.

Saturday, June 8, 1:00 PM
RHYMING THE ARCHIVES: YOUTH POETRY SHOWCASE

Members of the Washington, D.C. Youth Slam Team will perform poems inspired by recordings, photographs, and field notes from the American Folklife Center archive. Free tickets recommended. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress American Folklife Center and presented in partnership with Split This Rock.

Location: LJ-119, first floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Monday, June 3, 2:30 PM - 5:00 PM
WALT WHITMAN OPEN HOUSE

To celebrate the 200th birthday of Walt Whitman, the Library of Congress will present an open house featuring rarely seen collection items including draft poems, artistic renderings, and rare editions of Leaves of Grass. Filmmaker Haydn Reiss will also screen the short film “Walt Whitman: Citizen Poet,” featuring 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith and 8th U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass. This event is free and open to the public; tickets are not required. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Rare Book & Special Collections Division, Music Division, Prints & Photographs Division, Serials and General Collections Division, and presented in partnership with Zinc Films, the Poetry Foundation, the Whitman 200 Festival, and Folger Poetry.

Location: LJ-119, first floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website for more information on upcoming events.

Monday, June 3, 2:30 PM - 5:00 PM
WALT WHITMAN OPEN HOUSE

To celebrate the 200th birthday of Walt Whitman, the Library of Congress will present an open house featuring rarely seen collection items including draft poems, artistic renderings, and rare editions of Leaves of Grass. Filmmaker Haydn Reiss will also screen the short film “Walt Whitman: Citizen Poet,” featuring 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith and 8th U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Music Division, Prints and Photographs Division, Serials and General Collections Division, and presented in partnership with Zinc Films, the Poetry Foundation, and the Whitman 200 Festival.  

Location: LJ-119, first floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Saturday, June 8, 1:00 PM
RHYMING THE ARCHIVES: YOUTH POETRY SLAM

Members of the Washington, D.C. Youth Slam Team will perform poems inspired by recordings, photographs, and field notes from the American Folklife Center archive. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress American Folklife Center and presented in partnership with Split This Rock.

Location: LJ-119, first floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Tuesday, May 14, 7:00 PM
LIFE OF A POET: DIANE SEUSS

Poet Diane Seuss will discuss her work with Ron Charles, book critic at The Washington Post. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required. Co-sponsored by the Hill Center and The Washington Post.

Location: Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital (921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE)
Contact: (202) 707-5394

For more information about upcoming events, please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website.

Saturday, May 11, 4:00 PM
WORDPLAY FESTIVAL: NATASHA TRETHEWEY IN CONVERSATION

19th U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will discuss her work with Rob Casper, head of the Poetry and Literature Center. Tickets required. Book sales and signing to follow. Presented in partnership with The Loft Wordplay Festival.

Location: Guthrie Theater, Dowling Studio, 818 S 2nd St, Minneapolis, MN 55415
Contact: loft@loft.org

Tuesday, May 14, 7:00 PM
LIFE OF A POET: DIANE SEUSS

Poet Diane Seuss will discuss her work with Ron Charles, book critic at The Washington Post. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required. Co-sponsored by the Hill Center and The Washington Post.

Location: Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital (921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE), Washington, DC 20003 
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website for more information. 

Monday, April 15, 7:00 PM
AMERICAN CELEBRATION: POET LAUREATE CLOSING EVENT

22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith will celebrate the conclusion of her laureateship in a conversation with state, city and county poets laureate Jeanetta Calhoun Mish (Oklahoma), Kealoha (Hawaii), Adrian Matejka (Indiana), Tina Chang (Brooklyn, NY) and Vogue Robinson (Clark County, NV). Conversation will be moderated by Jennifer Benka, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets. Book sales and signing to follow. Free tickets required. Presented in partnership with the Academy of American Poets.

Location: Coolidge Auditorium, ground floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website for more event information. 

Monday, April 15, 7:00 PM
AMERICAN CELEBRATION: POET LAUREATE CLOSING EVENT

22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith will celebrate the conclusion of her laureateship in a conversation with state, city and county poets laureate Jeanetta Calhoun Mish (Oklahoma), Kealoha (Hawaii), Adrian Matejka (Indiana), Tina Chang (Brooklyn, NY) and Vogue Robinson (Clark County, NV). Conversation will be moderated by Jennifer Benka, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets. Book sales and signing to follow. Free tickets required. Presented in partnership with the Academy of American Poets.

Location: Coolidge Auditorium, ground floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website for more event information. 

Thursday, April 4, 6:30 PM
NATIONAL YOUTH POET LAUREATE COMMENCEMENT

The 2019 National Youth Poet Laureate will be announced. Regional Youth Poets Laureate Kara Jackson (Chicago, IL), Haviland Nona Gai Whiting (Nashville, TN), Jackson Neal (Houston, TX) Azura Tyabji (Seattle, WA), and Maren Wright-Kerr (Baltimore, MD) will participate. Event will be hosted by Mahogany L. Browne and feature Washington, D.C./Prince George's County Youth Poets Laureate. Book sales and signing to follow. Free tickets required. Presented in partnership with Urban Word.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Monday, April 8, 5:00 PM
INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE: ANA LUÍSA AMARAL

Poet Ana Luísa Amaral will share her work and participate in a moderated discussion with Talía Guzmán-González, Luso-Brazilian Specialist in the Hispanic Division. Book sales and signing to follow. Co-sponsored by the Hispanic Division.

Location: Hispanic Division Reading Room, second floor, Thomas Jefferson Building, LJ-240 <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5397

Monday, April 15, 7:00 PM
AMERICAN CELEBRATION: POET LAUREATE CLOSING EVENT

22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith will celebrate the conclusion of her laureateship in a conversation with state, city and county poets laureate Jeanetta Calhoun Mish (Oklahoma), Kealoha (Hawai'i), Adrian Matejka (Indiana), Tina Chang (Brooklyn, NY), and Vogue Robinson (Clark County, NV). Conversation will be moderated by Jennifer Benka, president and executive director of the Academy of American Poets. Book sales and signing to follow. Free tickets required. Presented in partnership with the Academy of American Poets.

Location: Coolidge Auditorium, ground floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Tuesday, April 23, 7:00 PM
POETRY OFF THE SHELF: NATASHA TRETHEWEY & CHARLES WRIGHT

19th U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey and 20th U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Wright will read and discuss their prize-winning work. Free tickets are first come, first served. Co-sponsored by the Poetry Foundation.

Location: Poetry Foundation, 61 W Superior St, Chicago, IL 60654
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Monday, April 29, 6:30 PM
LIBRARIAN AND LAUREATE: A CONVERSATION

Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Kevin Young will lead a conversation between 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith and Librarian of Congress Carla D. Hayden. Free tickets are not required but strongly recommended; ticketed guests are given priority. Co-sponsored by Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Location: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Langston Hughes Auditorium (515 Malcolm X Blvd, New York, NY 10037)
Contact: (202) 707-5394; nyplevents@nypl.org

For more information about upcoming events, visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website.

Wednesday, March 20, 7:00 PM
CLIMATE CHANGE, NATURE, AND THE WRITER’S EYE

Science writer Peter Brannen and internationally acclaimed novelist Amitav Ghosh will join 2018 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction winner Annie Proulx to discuss pressing issues of environmental change and a writer’s responsibilities to them. Book sales and signing to follow. Free tickets required.

Location: Coolidge Auditorium, ground floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

For more event information, visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website.

Thursday, March 14, 12:00 PM
CONVERSATIONS WITH AFRICAN POETS AND WRITERS: MAKENA ONJERIKA

Kenyan author and 2018 Caine Prize winner Makena Onjerika will read from her prize-winning short story “Fanta Blackcurrant” and will participate in a moderated discussion with Eve Ferguson, Africa Area Specialist in the African and Middle Eastern Division. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress African and Middle Eastern Division. Presented in partnership with the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Center for African Studies at Howard University, the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice, and Department of English at Georgetown University.

Location: Mary Pickford Theater, third floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Wednesday, March 20, 7:00 PM
CLIMATE CHANGE, NATURE, AND THE WRITER’S EYE

Science writer Peter Brannen and internationally acclaimed novelist Amitav Ghosh will join 2018 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction winner Annie Proulx to discuss pressing issues of environmental change and a writer’s responsibilities to them. Book sales and signing to follow. Free tickets required.

Location: Coolidge Auditorium, ground floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

For more event information, visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website.

Note: Due to a scheduling conflict, Billy-Ray Belcourt is unable to participate in this event as originally announced. Poet Aisha Sasha John has been added to the program. 

Thursday, February 28, 6:30 PM 
US/CA CAPITAL POETRY EXCHANGE

Canadian poets Aisha Sasha John, Brecken Hancock, and Erín Moure will share their work and participate in a moderated discussion with Rob Casper, head of the Poetry and Literature Center. Presented in partnership with the Embassy of Canada, Washington, D.C. and VERSeFest Ottawa.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

For more event information, visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website.

Thursday, February 28, 6:30 PM 
US/CA CAPITAL POETRY EXCHANGE

Canadian poets Billy-Ray Belcourt, Brecken Hancock, and Erín Moure will share their work and participate in a moderated discussion with Rob Casper, head of the Poetry and Literature Center. This event is free and open to the public. Presented in partnership with the Embassy of Canada, Washington, D.C. and VERSeFest Ottawa.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website for more information.

Wednesday, February 6, 7:00 PM
LIFE OF A POET: ROSS GAY

Poet Ross Gay will discuss his work with Ron Charles, book critic at The Washington Post. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required. Co-sponsored by the Hill Center and The Washington Post.

Location: Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital (921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE)
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Tuesday, February 12, 4:00 PM & 7:30 PM
WHAT WAS, WHAT IS, AND WHAT WILL BE: A CROSS-GENRE LOOK AT AFROFUTURISM

• 4:00 PM

Author/playwright Tananarive Due, novelist N.K. Jemisin, and poet Airea D. Matthews will discuss the origins and extensions of Afrofuturism in a conversation moderated by Sheree Renée Thomas. Free tickets recommended, but not required.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

• 7:30 PM

Tananarive Due, N.K. Jemisin, and Airea D. Matthews will read their work. Tickets required.  

Location: Folger Theatre, Folger Shakespeare Library
Contact: (202) 544-7077

Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress Center for the Book. Presented in partnership with Folger Poetry and PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

For more information about these events, please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website or call (202) 707-5394.

The following event has been postponed to tomorrow, Wednesday, January 30 at 7:00 PM due to inclement weather. All tickets will be honored. 

Tuesday, January 29, 7:00 PM Wednesday, January 30, 7:00 PM
LIFE OF A POET: ADA LIMÓN

Poet Ada Limón will discuss her work with Ron Charles, book critic at The Washington Post. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required. Co-sponsored by the Hill Center and The Washington Post.

Location: Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital (921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE)
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website for more information.

Tuesday, January 29, 7:00 PM
LIFE OF A POET: ADA LIMÓN

Poet Ada Limón will discuss her work with Ron Charles, book critic at The Washington Post. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required. Co-sponsored by the Hill Center and The Washington Post.

Location: Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital (921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE)
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Wednesday, February 6, 7:00 PM
LIFE OF A POET: ROSS GAY

Poet Ross Gay will discuss his work with Ron Charles, book critic at The Washington Post. This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are required. Co-sponsored by the Hill Center and The Washington Post.

Location: Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital (921 Pennsylvania Ave. SE)
Contact: (202) 707-5394

For more information, please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website.

The Library’s resolution for 2019 is to offer more opportunities to engage lifelong learners like you with our unique treasures and programs. Make your gift before we close the books on 2018!

Your gift supports FREE exhibitions, events, programs, and activities that connect millions of people across the nation and around the world with our unique collections, experts, and services.

The Library of Congress is your library, your gateway to understanding the world. There is so much to discover, not only the nation’s memory, but the world’s—information from all corners of the earth, in more than 470 languages. With millions of items available online, you can access the Library’s treasures from anywhere and connect with us in ways that are personally relevant and valuable.

The Library’s resolution for 2019 is to offer more opportunities to engage lifelong learners like you with our unique treasures and programs. Make your gift before we close the books on 2018!

Your gift can:

• Inspire curiosity in children to read more books and reflect on the power of books to change their lives
• Ignite thoughtful conversation among current and future generations of students and scholars
• Illuminate the minds of people like you who use the resources of the nation's Library here in Washington or via the Internet in their own homes and communities

With the help of supporters like you, we can spark the imagination of people of all ages with programs that open the Library’s doors wide to all.

Join us TODAY by making your 2018 tax-deductible donation, and together we’ll spark a lifelong adventure of learning.

The day has arrived—#GivingTuesday—a day when your gift makes a difference and a statement.

The Library of Congress depends on donations from people like you to produce exhibitions, events, programs, and activities that connect millions of people across the nation and around the world with our unique collections, experts, and services.

Gifts bring the Library to life with music, dance, film, sound, culture, scholarship, research, discussions and ideas. Your gift, no matter the size, will support diverse programs that are entirely FREE for everyone to enjoy, and will make the Library’s treasures and services more accessible.

Help spread the word today and encourage your friends and family to make a gift to the nation’s library, your gateway to understanding the world!

#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.

Thursday, December 6, 6:30 PM
BOBBITT PRIZE READING: JORIE GRAHAM

Jorie Graham, winner of the 15th Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, will read selections of Fast. Book sales and signing to follow. Free tickets required.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

For more information, please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website.

This year is the second year the Library of Congress is participating in #GivingTuesday—a global giving movement. On Tuesday, November 27, we are asking you to make a gift to spark a lifelong adventure of learning.

Your gift supports FREE exhibitions, events, programs, and activities that connect millions of people across the nation and around the world with our unique collections, experts, and services.

The Library of Congress is your library, your gateway to understanding the world. There is so much to discover, not only the nation’s memory, but the world’s—information from all corners of the earth, in more than 470 languages. With millions of items available online, you can access the Library’s treasures from anywhere and connect with us in ways that are personally relevant and valuable.

Save the Date to Make Your Gift!

Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving.

The Library of Congress will award the 2018 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry to Jorie Graham for her 2017 book “Fast.” Graham will receive the award and read selections from her work at the Library on 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 6.

Click here for more information.

Friday, November 2, 12:00PM
INTERNATIONAL WRITING PROGRAM: CELEBRATING WOMEN’S VOICES

Program residents Kateryna Babkina (Ukraine), Alisa Ganieva (Russia), and Rumena Bužarovska (Macedonia) will read selections of their work and participate in a moderated discussion with Christopher Merrill, director of the International Writing Program. This event is free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress European Division and presented in partnership with the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. 

Location: Montpelier Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress <view map>

Wednesday, November 7, 4:00 PM
INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE: URUGUAYAN POETS

Poet Silvia Guerra will read excerpts of her work and translators Jesse Lee Kercheval, Jeannine Pitas, Anna Deeny, and Seth Michelson will share new translations of Circe Maia, Marosa di Giorgio, Amanda Berenguer, and Melisa Machado. This event is free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress. Presented in collaboration with the Embassy of Uruguay.

Location: Whittall Pavilion, ground floor, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress <view map>

Saturday, November 10, 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
THE ROAD BACK: VETS AND LITERARY WRITING

In honor of Veterans Day, a day-long symposium featuring two panels and a screening of the newly restored film “The Road Back.” All events are free and open to the public. Tickets required for film screening. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress Exhibits Office and Veterans History Project. Presented in collaboration with Echoes of the Great War: American Experiences of World War I exhibit.

11:00 AM - Kristin Windbigler, executive director of the Western Folklife Center; Niyati Dhokai, program manager of the Veterans and the Arts Initiative, Hylton Performing Arts Center; and Mohammed Sheriff, division coordinator of the National Endowment for the Art’s Literature & Arts Education Division will discuss writing and literature as a means of coping with service experience.

Location: LJ-119, first floor, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress <view map>

1:30 PM - Poets Bill Jones, Vess Quinlan, Dave Richmond, and Bruce Weigl will discuss their favorite World War I writers, share selections of their work, and participate in a discussion moderated by Anya Creightney, programs manager of the Poetry and Literature Center.

Location: LJ-119, first floor, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress <view map>

3:00 PM - Film screening of “The Road Back,” sequel to “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Restored by the Library of Congress in association with UCLA Film & Television Archive, Universal Studios, and The Film Foundation. Restoration funding provided by The Film Foundation and the Library of Congress. Screening rights provided by New York University, executor of the Erich Maria Remarque Estate. 

Location: Mary Pickford Theater, third floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress <view map>

Sunday, November 18, 1:30 PM 
TWO POETS LAUREATE: READING AND CONVERSATION

Former U.S. Poets Laureate Billy Collins and Juan Felipe Herrera will read selections from their recent books and discuss the necessity of poetry with Robert Casper, head of the Poetry and Literature Center.

Location: Miami Dade College - Wolfson Campus, Building 1, second floor, #1261 (300 NE 2nd Ave, Miami, FL 33132) 

For more information about these events, please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website or call us at (202) 707-5394.

Friday, November 2, 12:00PM
INTERNATIONAL WRITING PROGRAM: CELEBRATING WOMEN’S VOICES

Program residents Kateryna Babkina (Ukraine), Alisa Ganieva (Russia), and Rumena Bužarovska (Macedonia) will read selections of their work and participate in a moderated discussion with Christopher Merrill, director of the International Writing Program. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress European Division and presented in partnership with the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. 

Location: Montpelier Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

For more information, please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website. 

Tuesday, October 30, 6:30 PM
BAGLEY WRIGHT LECTURE: POETS ON CRITICISM

Poet-critics Maureen McLane, Srikanth Reddy, and Matthew Zapruder will discuss the role of criticism in contemporary American poetry in a conversation moderated by Robert Casper, head of the Poetry and Literature Center. This event is free and open to the public. Presented in partnership with the Bagley Wright Lecture Series.

Location: Mumford Room, sixth floor, James Madison Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

For more information, please visit the Poetry and Literature Center's website. 

Tuesday, October 16, 4:00 PM
INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE: CRISTINA RIVERA GARZA

Novelist Cristina Rivera Garza will read excerpts of her work and participate in a moderated discussion with her translators Suzanne Jill Levine and Aviva Kana. This event is free and open to the public. No tickets required. Co-sponsored by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress. Presented in partnership with the Mexican Cultural Institute.

Location: Whittall Pavilion, ground floor, Thomas Jefferson Building <view map>
Contact: (202) 707-5394

Please click here for more information.