Michigan Notable Books Tour

Hear from a Michigan Author

The Michigan Notable Books Program Author's Tour will make a stop at the James White Library on the campus of Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich. on Thursday, April 15, from 7–8 p.m. The featured visiting author is Melba Boyd from Wayne State University, editor of Roses and Revolutions: The Selected Writings of Dudley Randall. Boyd’s presentation will include showing part of a DVD in which she interviews Randall, question-and-answer time with guests and a book signing.

Boyd is distinguished professor and chair of Africana studies at Wayne State University. Roses and Revolutions received the 2010 Library of Michigan Notable Books Award and was a finalist for a 2010 NAACP Image Award in Literature. She has authored 12 other books, including Wrestling with the Muse: Dudley Randall and the Broadside Press, which received the 2005 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Book Honor for Nonfiction.

A poet and publisher, Dudley Randall has been called “the leading exponent of the new black poetry movement of the 1960s.” Randall started the Broadside Press out of his Detroit-area home in 1965 and ran it nearly single-handedly for a dozen years, promoting the work of a generation of black poets. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks was quoted in Detroit Free Press as saying, “…He really sacrificed himself to young poets and the new black poetry, which he was responsible for stimulating in the 1960s. I feel he will go down in history as one of the major progressive black influences of our time.”

The Michigan Notable Books Program is designed to promote reading and raise awareness of Michigan’s literary heritage. This year, 16 authors whose engaging works were chosen as 2010 Michigan Notable Books will visit nearly 45 libraries throughout the state. The selections are reflective of Michigan's diverse ethnic, historical, literary and cultural experience. This event is sponsored by the James White Library, Phi Kappa Phi, English Honors Society, Library of Michigan, Library of Michigan Foundation and Michigan Humanities Council.

For more information, contact Lauren Matacio at the James White Library at 269-471-6062 or e-mail matacio@andrews.edu.