The Fire This Time: A Tribute to James Baldwin with Amy Bloom, Nikky Finney, Randall Kenan and Kevin Young

WEDNESDAY 11 FEBRUARY AT 7 PM

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

—James Baldwin

James Baldwin (1924–1987), the great American novelist, poet, essayist, playwright and social critic, is celebrated in an evening of readings by poets and writers Amy Bloom, Nikky Finney, Randall Kenan and Kevin Young.

Amy Bloom is the author of three story collections and two novels, including the recent, Lucky Us of which The New York Times said, “She writes sharp, sparsely beautiful scenes that excitingly defy expectation, and part of the pleasure of reading her is simply keeping up with her.”

Nikky Finney is the author of four books of poetry and a collection of short stories. Born in South Carolina to activist parents, Finney came of age during the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements, noting, “I’ve never been far away from the human-rights struggle black people have been involved with in the South. That has been one of the backdrops of my entire life.”

Randall Kenan is the author of the novel A Visitation of Spirits and the story collection Let the Dead Bury Their Dead. His other books include Walking on Water: Black American

Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century and The Fire This Time, a combination of memoir and essays in which the author asks how far have we come since Baldwin’s pivotal examination of our “racial nightmare” of the 1960s.

Kevin Young often finds meaning and inspiration for his poetry in African American music, particularly the blues. His publications include Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels and his recent poetry collection, Book of Hours, a work of both grief and birth. His book The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness combines essay, cultural criticism, and lyrical chorus to illustrate ways African American culture is American culture.