SAPPHIRE
SUNDAY, JUNE 24, 10:30 – 11:30 am
Sapphire is the author of two collections of poetry and the best-selling novel Push. The film adaption of her novel, Precious (2009) received the Academy Award for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress, in addition to the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Awards in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance. In 2009 she was a recipient of a United States Artist Fellowship. She lives in New York City. In THE KID (The Penguin Press; July 5, 2011), celebrated writer Sapphire brings her readers deep into the interior life of Abdul Jones, son of her unforgettable heroine, Precious. We meet Abdul at age nine, on the day of his mother’s funeral. Left alone to navigate in a world where love and hate are often indistinguishable, forced to confront unspeakable violence and his own dark history, Abdul claws his way toward adulthood and toward an identity he can stand behind. THE KID delivers a generational story that moves with the speed of thought from a Mississippi dirt farm to Harlem in its heyday; from a troubled Catholic orphanage to downtown artist’s lofts, as it tells of a twenty-first century young man’s fight to find the path to his future. A testament to the ferocity of the human spirit, the nourishing power of love and of art, THE KID becomes a young man about to take flight. Intimate, terrifying, deeply alive in Abdul’s journey we are witness to an artist’s birth by fire.
Sponsored by Penguin
ALTAFF PRESIDENT’S PROGRAM FEATURING DAN RATHER
MONDAY, JUNE 25, 8:30 – 9:30 am
Dan Rather is an award winning journalist who anchored CBS Evening News for decades. He is one of America’s most decorated news journalists of all time. A complete and thorough memoir from famed newsman Dan Rather, who looks back over his storied and sometimes controversial career and reveals his personal thoughts and reflections. This memoir by Dan Rather is told in a straightforward and conversational voice, and covers all the important moments of his journalistic career, including (but certainly not limited to) a frank accounting of his dismissal from CBS, the Abu Ghraib story, the George W. Bush Air National Guard controversy, new insights on the JFK assassination, the origin of “Hurricane Dan” as well as inside stories about all the top personalities Dan has either interviewed or worked with over his distinguished career.
Sponsored by Hachette Book Group
WWW.ALAANNUAL.ORG ALA ANNUAL CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION / PRELIMINARY PROGRAM 9