Get Loud: A Celebration of Banned Books

This event is hosted by Jim and Karen Shepard and sponsored by The League of Women Voters, The David and Joyce Milne Public Library, The Friends of the Milne Public Library, and the Williams College English Department. Readers include

• Jamal Ahamad: Dear Martin by Nic Stone and How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
• Tamanika Terry Steward: Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
• Rebecca Tucker-Smith: The Color Purple by Alice Walker and On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• Peggy Kern: Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson
• Manuel Gonzales: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
• Rowan Ricardo Phillips
• Susan Choi: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Jamal Ahamad has nearly a decade of teaching experience in Berkshire County; he was most recently an English Language Arts teacher in the Mt. Greylock Regional School District. He has also taught GED, algebra, and African-American Studies. Jamal earned an MS.Ed. and a B.A. from MCLA where he has served as an adjunct professor in the education department. In his spare time, Jamal frequently facilitates workshops for his fellow educators, choreographs and teaches dance, designs multimedia projects, and writes movie reviews on social media.

Susan Choi is the author of five novels, including Trust Exercise, which received the 2019 National Book Award for fiction. She has also been a recipient of the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction, the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award, a Lamba Literary award, the 2021 Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She serves as a trustee of PEN America and teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

Manuel Gonzales is the author of the collection, The Miniature Wife and Other Stories, which won the Sue Kaufman prize for first fiction, and the novel, The Regional Office is Under Attack!, a recipient of the YALSA Alex Award, awarded to adult books with special appeal to teen readers. He teaches creative writing and literature at Bennington College and is a faculty member of Bennington’s low-res creative writing program, The WritingSeminars.

Peggy Kern is an award-winning young adult fiction author focused on social justice issues including structural racism, substance use disorder, unplanned pregnancy, and domestic sex trafficking. Her books have sold over 500,000 copies, and have been recognized by the American Library Association as Best Fiction for Young Adults. Peggy’s books have also been targeted by book bans across the country, most recently by the Texas state legislature. In addition to writing, Peg is a prison abolition activist and cofounder of the Berkshire Bail Freedom Fund.

Rowan Ricardo Phillips‘s most recent poetry collection, Silver, will be published in March. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Stony Brook University, the Chairman of the Board of The NY Institute of the Humanities, and the poetry editor of both The New Republic and the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets, His numerous awards include the Guillén Outstanding Book Award, the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry. Also a renowned sportswriter, he is a consultant to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and has written on sports for The New York Times, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review.

Tamanika Terry Steward, an administrator at Williams College, has been in education for more than 25 years. Prior to Williams, she taught English at Washtenaw Community College, and spent fifteen years as a tenured member of the English faculty at Henry Ford College. She holds a B.A. from the Univ. of Washington, andan M.A. in English from Eastern Michigan Univ. A native southern Californian, she has always been drawn to the telling and retelling of stories, and to their impact on the lives of African-American women. A mother, wife, and committed community member, she believes in the importance of the literary tradition and its transformative impact on people’s experiences and their quality of life.

Rebecca Tucker-Smith is an educator and writer who lives and works in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Rebecca has taught English at Mt. Greylock Regional School since 2011, published an essay about her relationship with her bitmoji during cancer treatment in O Magazine in 2018, was selected as “Teacher of the Year” by Mt. Greylock seniors in 2022, and is urgently looking for an agent for her first novel, a darkly humorous murder mystery with a high school English teacher protagonist.

Jim Shepard has written eight novels, including The Book of Aron, which won the Sophie Brody Medal for Jewish Literature, the PEN/New England Award for Fiction, and the Clark Fiction Prize, and five story collections, including Like You’d Understand, Anyway, a finalist for the National Book Award and Story Prize winner. Seven of his stories were chosen for the Best American Short Stories, two for the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and two for Pushcart Prizes. He teaches at Williams College.

Karen Shepard is a Chinese-American born and raised in New York City. She is the author of four novels, An Empire of Women, The Bad Boy’s Wife, Don’t I Know You?, and The Celestials, and one story collection, Kiss Me Someone. Her short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and Tin House, among others, and her nonfiction has appeared in O Magazine, Buzzfeed, and The Boston Globe, among others. She teaches at Williams College.

Sponsors

The League of Women Voters is a grassroots organization of both men and women, working at all political levels to educate voters and influence public policy. Strictly nonpartisan, it neither supports nor opposes candidates for office at any government level. The Williamstown chapter recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. Among our events are voter information panels and lobbying our elected officials. For more information, please contact Anne R. Skinner, President, askinner@williams.edu.

The mission of the David & Joyce Milne Public Library is to provide a welcoming and inspiring community center for lifelong learning. The library encourages a love of reading by providing classic literature, popular materials and educational resources.

The Friends of the Milne Public Library are community volunteers who support Williamstown’s David and Joyce Milne Public Library and collaborate with the elected Board of Trustees to promote the objectives and interests of the library. The Friends advocate for the library’s needs, promote literacy and library engagement in the community, and are committed to the belief that a safe, welcoming, and inclusive library best serves the needs of our community.

The English Department at Williams College.

Acknowledgments

We respectfully acknowledge that Williams College stands on the homelands of Native Americans, including the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans. We honor their ancestors as we build a more inclusive and equitable space for all. We gratefully acknowledge the support and assistance of Hannah Cochran, Carrie Greene, Pat McLeod, the Williams College English Dept., Willinet, the Williams College Bookstore, our participants, and, you, our audience.