Pamela Reynolds, Professor Emerita at Johns Hopkins University, is RC Visiting Scholar. She reads from her recent book, War in Worcester: Youth in the Apartheid State. She has received the NOMA Literary Prize.
Literati is proud to be the bookseller for the 2016 Jill Harris Memorial Lecture, presented by the University of Michigan’s Institute for the Humanities.
Laila Lalami is the author of the novels Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award; Secret Son, which was on the Orange Prize longlist, and The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and was on the Man Booker Prize longlist. The Moor’s Account was also a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, the Guardian, the New York Times, and in many anthologies. She is the recipient of a British Council Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship and is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside.
Geraldine Markel, PhD, a board certified executive coach, enhances leadership and workplace productivity. As principal of Managing Your Mind Coaching & Seminars, Geri provides systematic processes to enhance business performance and profits. Geri helps leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners cut to core issues and apply practical strategies to move from good intentions to cost-effective actions. Her style of providing feedback using compassionate candor leads to accelerated learning and change.
Dr. Markel is an educational psychologist and served as faculty in the School of Education and as seminar leader of the Instructional Design Workshop at the Executive Education Center, School of Business, University of Michigan. For over 15 years, she helped develop instructor-led and self-directed learning materials to enhance performance, productivity and effectiveness for corporate, governmental and educational organizations. As a consultant and trainer, Geri worked with companies such as Ford Motor Company, Disney Corporation, and Department of Agriculture. As a speaker, she has worked at corporate offices of VIACOM, Time Warner, Merrill Lynch, and TIAA-CREF; educational institutions such as University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Michigan State University; and law firms such as Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Kelly, Drye & Warren.
She is an award winning author; her most recent books are:
Actions Against Distractions: Managing Your Scattered, Distracted and Forgetful Mind
Defeating the 8 Demons of Distraction: Proven Strategies to Increase Productivity and Reduce Stress
Finding Happiness with Aristotle as Your Guide: Action Strategies Based on 10 Timeless Ideas
Finding Your Focus: Practical Strategies for the Everyday Problems Facing Adults with ADD
“Slugg: A Boy’s Life in the Age of Mass Incarceration” is a blueprint for survival and a demonstration of the power of love, sacrifice, and service. The son of a Kingpin and the prince of a close-knit crime family, Tony Lewis Jr.’s life took a dramatic turn after his father’s arrest in 1989. Washington D.C. stood as the murder capital of the country and Lewis was cast into the heart of the struggle, from a life of stability and riches to one of chaos and poverty. How does one make it in America, battling the breakdown of families, the plague of premature death and the hopelessness of being reviled, isolated, and forgotten? Tony Lewis’ astonishing journey answers these questions and offers, for the first time, a close look at the familial residue of America’s historic program of mass incarceration.
