Think twice if you think the library is a quiet, uneventful place. Enoch Pratt Free Library will easily disabuse you of that notion. Their Writers LIVE! Events page is enough to give anyone FOMO, especially considering the stature of the speakers coming to spend an evening with Baltimore readers and the number of the events that are already “sold” out. (The events are free.)
Sadly, you are out of luck if you want to hear House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi discuss her new book, “The Art of Power.” The same is true for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Connie Chung, and Stacey Abrams. Below, however, is just a small sampling of the incredible line-up of speakers coming to Enoch Pratt Free Library this fall for audiences of all ages, beginning next week with the incredible Leonard Pitts Jr.
On Tuesday, August 6, 2024, from 7 pm to 8 pm, attendees have the chance to spend the evening with Leonard Pitts Jr., a journalist who practiced his craft for 40 years and who won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 2004. He also has written novels and two works of nonfiction. During this event, Pitts will be discussing his newest novel, “54 Miles,” which follows a family in March 1965 from the infamous “Bloody Sunday” march at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama to the climax of the voting rights campaign represented by the entry into Montgomery at the end of the month. The tale involves a young man whose mother is Black and father is white, raised in Harlem, New York. He has travelled to Alabama for the march in Selma. As events unfold, tragedy strikes, family secrets are uncovered, and reckonings must be faced.
This event is free, but registration is required. Doors to the Wheeler Auditorium open at 6 pm. Ivy Bookshop will be on-site with books available for purchase. Click here to register. The event will also be held virtually for those who cannot attend in person.
On Monday, September 9, 2024 from 7 pm to 8 pm, guests can hear from Carole Hopson about her novel “A Pair of Wings” about Bessie Coleman, a Black woman who learned to fly at the dawn of aviation, just a couple of years before Amelia Earhart. Hopson is a Boeing 737 captain for United Airlines, but this is hardly her first career. She spent 20 years as a journalist, and was an executive for the National Football League, Food Locker, and L’ Oréal. Only then did she follow her aviation dream and become a pilot. She founded the Jet Black Foundation, a 501c3 organization dedicated to sending one hundred Black women to flight school by the year 2035.
This event is free, but registration is required. Doors to the Poe Reading Room open at 6 pm. A local bookseller will be on-site and have books available for purchase. Click here to register. The event will also be held virtually for those who cannot attend in person.
On Monday, September 16, 2024, spend the evening with Amanda Jones in a moderated discussion about her book “That Librarian,” which is “part memoir, part manifesto.” It’s the story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity in the midst of the vicious culture wars. A librarian in the middle school she attended, Jones saw the writing on the wall once she knew meetings about “book content” were being called around LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more. In the face of renewed calls for book banning and worse, she fought back legally and, in the library, to make sure young people could still be affirmed by seeing themselves in the books on the shelves of the library.
This event is free, but registration is required. Doors to the Wheeler Auditorium open at 6 pm. A local bookseller will be on-site and have books available for purchase. Click here to register. The event will also be held virtually for those who cannot attend in person.
On Wednesday, October 2, 2024 from 7 pm to 8 pm, hear from Ta-Nehisi Coates speak on his book “The Message.” The New York Times-bestselling author and journalist travels to three sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell, and don’t tell, shape our realities. Initially planning to write about writing itself, Coates found himself exploring the nature of myth-making and deeper questions about imaginative narratives, and how those things may hold a mirror to and also warp our perception of reality. Coates travels to Dakar, Senegal; then Columbia, South Carolina; and then Palestine. His previous books include “Between the World and Me” and “The Water Dancer.” He is a writer-in-residence at Howard University.
This event is free, but registration is required. Doors to the Central Hall open at 6 pm. A local bookseller will be on-site and have books available for purchase. Click here to register. (Tickets go on sale on August 19 at 12 pm.) The event will also be held virtually for those who cannot attend in person.
Other upcoming speakers include an October visit by John Grisham and November appearance by Bobby Flay. Do yourselves a favor and grab tickets while they are available and take advantage of the many programs Enoch Pratt has to offer.
Free parking vouchers are available to program attendees who park at the Franklin Street Garage (15 W. Franklin Street) after 4pm. Ask Pratt event staff for your parking voucher prior to or after the program.
Enoch Pratt Free Library is located at 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD.
