Please join us Nov. 21 as author Taiyon J. Coleman reads from her new book: “Traveling Without Moving: Essays From a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America.”
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; the program begins at 7 p.m. Please register if you plan to attend.
Register NowIn the book, Coleman shares intimate essays from her life: her childhood in Chicago, about being the only Black student in a prestigious and predominantly White creative writing program, about institutional racism and implicit bias in writing instruction, about the violent legacies of racism in the U.S. housing market, and about the maternal health disparities seen across the country and their implication in her own miscarriage.
One of the essays includes Coleman’s experiences with the University of Minnesota Libraries Mapping Prejudice project.
“So much of my writing in the book was influenced by my work as an affiliated scholar with the program,” says Coleman, who will discuss the book with Kirsten Delegard, project director for Mapping Prejudice, after the reading.
“Taiyon J. Coleman courageously adventures through time to explore and bring back the pieces of herself that this country and its racist institutions and populations have worked tirelessly to demolish.”
—Kao Kalia Yang, author of “Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir”
“Taiyon J. Coleman hammers the page to make sense of a world that refuses to make sense of her. She writes into the break and the crack and the tectonic plates of love and loss.”
—Nikky Finney, author of “Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry”
Tai Coleman (Photo/Sher Stoneman)
Taiyon J. Coleman is a poet, writer, and educator whose work has been anthologized widely. A Cave Canem and VONA fellow, she is a 2017 recipient of a McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship in Creative Prose and is one of twelve emerging children’s writers of color selected as a recipient of the 2018–2019 Mirrors and Windows Fellowship funded by the Loft Literary Center and the Jerome Foundation in Minnesota. She is associate professor of English and women’s studies at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Kirsten Delegard is one of the co-founders of the Mapping Prejudice project at the University of Minnesota Libraries. A third-generation Minneapolitan, she received her Ph.D. in history from Duke University, where she trained as a women’s historian. In her early research, she explored the history of women and politics. More recently she has devoted her energy to public history and unearthing the complex past of her hometown. This focus led to Mapping Prejudice and the Historyapolis Project, which Delegard also started.
What: ‘Traveling Without Moving’: A Conversation With Taiyon J. Coleman
When: Thursday, Nov. 21, 6:30-8:30 p.m. | Doors open at 6:30 p.m. | Program begins at 7 p.m.
Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library | Parking and directions
Books will be available to purchase and a book signing and reception will follow the program.
Photographs taken at the event may be used in University of Minnesota print and online publications, promotions, or shared with the Libraries community. If you prefer not to be photographed, please let the photographer know during the event! Thank you.
© 2024 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.
Privacy Statement | Acceptable Use of IT Resources
: For Students, Faculty, and Staff