Program Description
About this event:
Tompkins County Public Library is pleased to welcome Willie Mae Brown, author of My Selma, for an in-person reading, Q&A, and book signing.
Willie Mae Brown left Alabama at the age of seventeen in 1970 to start a new life in Brooklyn, New York, where she worked for the New York Telephone Com-pany until 2003. A visual artist and an author, she began writing stories about her childhood in 2012 and reading them in public in 2015. Known for infusing her personal narratives with the vernacular of her Southern upbringing, Brown has read at numerous public events, including Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations at Brooklyn Borough Hall and as part of the 2022 Gandhi-King Scholarly Exchange Initiative at the University of Alabama, as well as at many other special events across New York City, in her home state, and beyond.
My Selma captures the voice and vision of a fascinating young person—clear-eyed, impetuous, resourceful—who gives us a loving portrayal of her household and hometown while also delivering a no-holds-barred indictment of the time and place.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase from Odyssey Bookstore.
Plus, tweens ages 10-14 can join our Tween Book Club, meeting on February 22nd at 4pm, to discuss My Selma.
Presented in celebration of Black History Month and Library Lovers Month. Free and open to the public. Register to get a reminder ahead of the event.
For more information about Willie Mae Brown, visit williemaebrown.com