On Tuesday, May 31, join The Ivy for an exciting evening with D. Watkins, in celebration of his newest book, Black Boy Smile: A Memoir in Moments! The Ivy is so looking forward to hosting Watkins, a beloved and celebrated Baltimore author, and would love to see you there. D will be in conversation with Lawrence Burney.
Click here to RSVP for this free event!
Click here to reserve your copy of Black Boy Smile!
Equally moving and liberating, Black Boy Smile is D. Watkins’ love letter to Black boys in concrete cities, a daring testimony that gives life to the contradictions, fears, and hopes of boys hurdling headfirst into adulthood. It is a story that proves that when we acknowledge the fallacies of our past, we can uncover the path toward self-discovery.
D. Watkins is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Beast Side, The Cook Up, Where Tomorrows Aren’t Promised and We Speak for Ourselves, which was a One Book, one Baltimore selection. He is Editor at Large for Salon. He is featured in the HBO documentary The Slow Hustle and is a writer on We Own the City, an HBO miniseries from David Simon.
Watkins work has been published in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and other publications. He is a college lecturer at the University of Baltimore and holds a Master’s in Education from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Baltimore. Watkins’ awards include the BMe Genius Grant for dynamic Black leaders, the City Lit Dambach Award for Service to the Literary Arts, the Maryland Library Association’s William Wilson Maryland Author Award, and the Ford’s Men of Courage award for Black male storytellers. He was also a finalist for a 2016 Hurston Wright Legacy Award and The Cook Up was a 2017 Books for a Better Life finalist. He lives in Baltimore, MD with his wife and daughter.
Lawrence Burney is a writer, journalist and the founder of True Laurels, a media platform dedicated to highlighting Baltimore and The DMV area’s most captivating music and culture. Burney’s storytelling is concerned with finding — and sharing — the intersections of history, culture, and contemporary art in Black communities in his home region, as well as various pockets within the African diaspora in an attempt to make more sense of the world he was born into. He is currently the Arts & Culture Editor at forthcoming news platform The Baltimore Banner and in the past has served as a columnist for The Washington Post, an editor at The FADER Magazine and staff writer at VICE.
