Howdy! The ice event of the century last weekend thankfully did not turn out as advertised. And yet, we are hearing reports of possible snow accumulations of maybe a foot this weekend. We will believe it when we see it!
If things go off without a hitch this weekend, we have a terrific event on Saturday at 11am. Sylvester Allen, Jr and Belle Boggswill discuss their book, The Legend of Wyatt Outlaw: From Reconstruction through Black Lives Matter, with Mike Wiley.Wyatt Outlawwas a Union League leader, business owner, and the first Black town constable and commissioner in Graham, a small town located in North Carolina’s Alamance County. But in 1870, Outlaw was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, setting off a dramatic series of events: more lynchings, a “war” against the Klan, and a white supremacist crackdown on Black political power that continues today. As a child, Black activist, musician, and Graham native Sylvester Allen frequently passed the site where Outlaw was killed without ever learning his name. Belle Boggs, white and also from the South, taught high school in Alamance County without knowing Outlaw’s importance.
Allen and Boggs both sought to discover why Outlaw had been erased from mainstream history books. In The Legend of Wyatt Outlaw, they share what they found in artful detail and connect Outlaw’s story to the violence against Black people in Alamance and throughout the United States, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow, the civil rights era, and Black Lives Matter.
Then on Sunday, February 1st at 2pm (if we are open-- check mcintyresbooks.com for our status), we hope to hold our first event with the North Carolina Poetry Society with featured readers: Dasan Ahanu, Morrow Dowdle, and Jay Bryan.
Former United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo will give a poetry reading and hold a public conversation on “Poetry and Spirituality” on Tuesday, March 3, at 6:00 p.m. at Duke Chapel. Harjo was the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2022, the first Native American to hold the position and only the second poet to be appointed to a third term. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, she is the author of ten books of poetry, several plays and children’s books, and three memoirs. A free ticket is required to attend the event. Registration for the public begins February 5. Learn more and find the registration link at: https://chapel.duke.edu/news/former-poet-laureate-speak-poetry-and-spirituality/
Margot Lester kicks off another year of Office Hours on Wednesday, February 4th. She will be in house from 1:30-3:30pm, so bring in your writing projects for some solid advice!
The Usual Suspects,,
Pete, Johanna, Sarah C., Tyler, Amy, Juliana, Sarah C. and Keebe
