Author Dives Into World Of Hate Crimes
by | Jul 1, 2022 11:26 am | Comments (0)
Author Sarah Darer Littman at WNHH FM.
The reality of what Sarah Darer Littman had gotten herself into with her latest book hit home as she was reading the proofs.
Books
Opera Delivers Visionary Author's Urgent Message
by | Jun 17, 2022 9:12 am | Comments (0)
“The genius of a lot of Octavia’s work,” said Toshi Reagon about visionary science fiction author Octavia E. Butler, is that the circumstances she describes in her books are “applicable to anyone at any time.” Reading Butler’s work, she said, the reader may think, “that could happen to me.” Or: “I hope that never happens.” Or: “I can imagine myself there.”
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Today's Special: Duda's Hawaiian Shave Ice
by | May 30, 2022 2:28 pm | Comments (9)
Book Trader Blue Hawaiian (coconut/vanilla) & Lilikoi (passion fruit) shave ice.
A chilled sweet taste of Hawaii has hit Chapel Street just in time for the summer heat — and to help a local business survive the pandemic with a new passion (fruit) lure.
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City Librarian John Jessen Dies
by | May 27, 2022 3:02 pm | Comments (7)
Thomas Breen photo
City Librarian John Jessen.
A decades-long champion of reading and neighborhood engagement who bolstered the public library system’s social services as he led it through a pandemic, City Librarian John Jessen passed away from cancer on Friday. He was 56 years old.
Winfred Rembert Wins Posthumous Pulitzer
by | May 11, 2022 3:31 pm | Comments (7)
Melissa Bailey Photo
"The guy keeps winning": The late Winfred Rembert in the Newhall Street apartment where he made the magic happen.
Estate of Winfred Rembert / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Looking for My Mother, 2019; reprinted in Chasing Me To My Grave.
Lillian Rembert dropped her mail sack on Shelton Avenue to see why her phone was blowing up with alerts — to discover that her late father won a Pulitzer Prize.
"DiasporaCon" Brings Black Heroes To Life
by | Apr 25, 2022 1:12 pm | Comments (2)
Maya McFadden Photos
Comic fans leave the pages to meet real-life superheros.
Javon Stokes at DiasporaCon.
A justice league of comics creators, collectors, and historians were all signaled to gather for a first annual African DiasporaCon.
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Gentrifiers Invade City From Outer Space
by | Mar 18, 2022 3:15 pm | Comments (8)
Paul Bass Photo
Red-hot author Tochi Onyebuchi at WNHH FM.
Run for cover: Urban pioneers are returning to New Haven — from a space colony to which they originally fled from riots and flames and eviscerated property values. They’re bringing with them “plans” anew for the Model City.
Luckily for us, Tochi Onyebuchi has his eye on them. He has his eye on the “stackers” who never left, as well.
Fair Brings Out The Zines
by | Feb 28, 2022 8:43 am | Comments (0)
Daniel Shoemaker Photo
Bridge & Tunnel Crowd booth: Sometimes wi-fi doesn't reach the loo.
The buzz and joy around the Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op in East Rock was palpable, from the crowds of jacketed chatters outside to the low hum of many people inside the communal space. The community turned out for the NHV Zine Fair — the first such event in years.
The Reproductive Is Political: Author Issues Call For Change From Below
by | Feb 23, 2022 8:54 am | Comments (2)
Everyone who’s raised a child has faced that moment, said professor Laura Briggs, when “you’re trying to get to work and you can’t because your kid won’t put on his shoes.”
It’s a problem because “there’s nobody else who’s going to be home. The kid has to go to day care, and we have to go to work.”
The struggle of maintaining work and family, for many, got even worse during the pandemic. In a talk on Tuesday night, Briggs laid out the ways in which that acute problem is the result of larger fights about reproductive politics that have been raging for over 40 years.
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Bamn! Bloom Gets LIT With Black Lit
by | Feb 21, 2022 9:52 am | Comments (9)
Brian Slattery Photo
The crowd Sunday at Bloom Black History event.
Book lovers descended Sunday on Bloom to sample not only the assortment of flowers and soaps, but the works of James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, Colson Whitehead, and Jesmyn Ward — brought into the Edgewood Avenue lifestyle store and gathering place courtesy of Bamn Books, a New Haven-based mobile bookstore that focuses on the literature of the African diaspora.
FBI Whistleblower Straddles Thin Blue Li(n)e
by | Feb 11, 2022 2:01 pm | Comments (2)
Paul Bass Photo
Whistleblower author Greg Dillon at WNHH FM.
Greg Dillon proudly wore a cop-solidarity “thin blue line” face mask when Covid-19 hit.
At the same time he was working a book about how he watched the cop-solidarity “thin blue line” lead to corruption and cover-ups in law enforcement.
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Sparked By Parable of the Sower, "One City: One Read" Gets Ready To Change New Haven
by | Feb 10, 2022 8:47 am | Comments (1)
Courtesy Octavia E. Butler Estate
Butler.
A new art exhibit, and a panel on migration facilitated by Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS). The screening and discussion of the “first-ever ethnographic acid Western.” A Sun Ra tribute concert.
All these events and more, happening between now and the middle of May, are organized around a single novel by a science-fiction visionary that is the focus of this year’s One City: One Read, a campaign organized by the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, in partnership with Yale’s Schwarzman Center, the New Haven Free Public Library, Artspace, and Best Video.
Mom-Daughter Authors Target Tough Talk
by | Feb 8, 2022 1:54 pm | Comments (3)
Abby Cadet with the new book she wrote with her mom.
A mom who started seeking to fill her daughter’s home library with more books featuring Black characters has begun publishing some of those books herself — with her daughter.
Fernanda Franco Books New Gig At New Haven Reads
by | Feb 1, 2022 8:43 am | Comments (2)
Fernanda Franco Photo
Fernanda Franco
Fernanda Franco brings every aspect of her artistic self to her new job as outreach director of New Haven Reads. “I walk into the office at Bristol Street, and I feel like Belle from Beauty and the Beast because you walk in and the walls are lined with books and it’s beautiful,” she said. She sang that last line, not unlike the character did in the movie.
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Her Book Aims To Nurture "Lost" Imagination
by | Jan 25, 2022 12:04 pm | Comments (0)
Author Megan Shaughnessy with her new children book.
Megan Shaughnessy remembers the day her son came home from kindergarten “embarrassed” to show his artwork with his family.
As she watched his confidence in his artwork dissipate, she thought back to her childhood. when her art teacher “selected students” to be in an advanced class. Shaughnessy was not chosen.
But she didn’t give up.
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The Rise Of Toad’s Place: How Hip Capitalism Redefined The Mainstream
by | Oct 14, 2021 3:54 pm | Comments (5)
Samuel Hadelman Photo
Fans at Cardi B’s five-minutes-before-superstardom Toad’s show.
Paul Bass Photo
Randall Beach, co-author of new history of Toad’s Place, at WNHH FM.
Toad’s Place outlasted decades’ worth of music-club competitors in New Haven.
It also outmaneuvered Yale — and pivoted and mastered digital marketing while competitors were still addicted to print advertising.
A new book offers a look at how that happened.
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How Winfred Rembert Made It Home
by | Oct 1, 2021 1:56 pm | Comments (4)
Estate of Winfred Rembert / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Looking for My Mother, 2019; reprinted in new book about the art and life of Newhallville’s Winfred Rembert.
The railroad tracks stretched ahead for miles and miles. Winfred Rembert walked them all day and half the night, searching.
It would take a full 60 years for him to reach his destination, to find what he was truly looking for. He found it right before he died. And laid it out for the rest of us to see.
Oppenheimer Finds Light In The Darkness
by | Sep 30, 2021 12:22 pm | Comments (0)
Lotta Studio photo
Author Mark Oppenheimer.
In a new book about the largest anti-Semitic murder in U.S. history, Westville-based author Mark Oppenheimer offers a new twist on a pressing question: not why bad things happen to good people, but what people can do about it when bad things happen.
Spoken Word Keeps Dixwell “Lit”
by | Sep 13, 2021 1:08 pm | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photos
In a Dixwell parking lot, literature came to life and spoken words about loss, faith, injustice, family, and self-love filled the air.
Police Captain Pens “Forgotten Prophecy”
by | Aug 5, 2021 9:13 am | Comments (1)
Natalie Kainz Photo
Capt. Von Narcisse, children’s book author.
One stormy night on the heels of Hurricane Sandy, the power in Yale Police Capt. Von Narcisse’s house went out. Winds billowed around the house. His two children D’Artagnan and A’ramus — named after characters from The Three Musketeers — anxiously waited for comfort from their father.
So Narcisse began telling them a story.
Indigenous Writers Form The Backbone At A&I “Big Read”
by | Jun 4, 2021 8:34 am | Comments (1)
“I am welcoming you from my home on Quinnipiac land,” said Elizabeth Nearing on behalf of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.
The greeting, which has become standard in meetings all over town, took on added meaning with the festival’s presentation, “Indigenous Writers of Connecticut,” part of the National Endowment of the Arts’s Big Read, and held in partnership with the New Haven Museum.
In the virtual event, five Indigenous writers presented a convincing case for us to acknowledge not merely that we live on Indigenous land, but with Indigenous people, whose cultures thrive among us today — and have much to teach about the history and possible future of the state — if we are willing to pay attention.
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Baby Inspires Dad’s First Children’s Book
by | May 31, 2021 9:12 am | Comments (1)
Maya McFadden Photo
Chazareé and Darius Good.
When New Haven native Darius Good looks up at the stars, he sees his 1‑year-old daughter’s shining future.
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ArtWalk 2021 Brings Out The Community
by | May 10, 2021 9:01 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Thabisa’s band, augmented by members of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, was in the full flower of the music it was making. Thabisa herself took a moment to pause in her singing and instead turn and dance intricate, powerful steps on the Edgewood Park stage set up for ArtWalk.
The people on the ground in front of her followed suit.
Friday night’s concert, uniting two institutions of New Haven’s music scene, kicked off the annual ArtWalk fest in Westville. It set the mood for Saturday’s events, a celebration of the ability of people to gather again, as the weather warmed, vaccinations continue, and masks were ubiquitous.
Urban Renewal, Re-Re-Re-Considered
by | May 4, 2021 4:31 pm | Comments (10)
Lizabeth Cohen spent years studying New Haven’s fraught experiment in trying to wipe out poverty — and emerged with a lesson.
Notes On The Underground
by | Apr 23, 2021 10:19 am | Comments (3)
That late Richard Wright’s novel The Man Who Lived Underground, rejected by publishers in the 1940s, was finally released in full this week. Pivoting from realism to surrealism and back, it tells the story of a man who escapes into a sewer after police torture him into signing a confession to a double murder he didn’t commit.
