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Duke Arts Presents

Griot & Grey Owl Conference: Terrance Hayes Q&A with Mahogany L Browne

Friday, November 10, 2023 | 3:30 pm

Rubenstein Arts Center | Ruby Lounge


3:30–5 PM

Q&A + Book Signings with Terrance Hayes and Mahogany L. Browne.

Books will be available for purchase on-site at the Rubenstein Arts Center.

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About Terrance Hayes:

Terrance Hayes is author of seven poetry collections: So to Speak; American Sonnets for My Past And Future Assassin, a finalist for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and TS Eliot Prize; How to Be Drawn; Lighthead, winner of a National Book Award; Muscular Music, recipient of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; Hip Logic, winner of the 2001 National Poetry Series, and Wind in a Box. His prose collection, To Float In The Space Between: Drawings and Essays in Conversation with Etheridge Knight, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism. Hayes has received fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and Whiting Foundation, and is a professor at New York University.

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About Mahogany L. Browne:

Mahogany L. Browne, selected as Kennedy Center’s Next 50 and Weseleyan’s 2022-23 Distinguished Writer-in-Residence,  the Executive Director of JustMedia, Artistic Director of Urban Word, a writer, playwright, organizer, & educator. Browne has received fellowships from Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research & Rauschenberg. She is the author of recent works: Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky, Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice, Woke Baby, & Black Girl Magic. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne’s latest poetry collection Chrome Valley is a promissory note to survival and available from Norton Spring 2023. As she readies for her stage debut of Chlorine Sky at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, Illinois, she drinks coffee while living in Brooklyn, NY. She is the first ever poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center.

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About Griot and Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference:

Rooted in Durham, NC, the Griot and Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference was formed from a need. Far too often Black stories are pushed to the margins leaving diasporic writers without access or opportunity. Griot and Grey Owl seeks to answer that call. G&G is a 3-day writing conference for Black Southern writers packed with world-class workshops, panels, and historical tours that cover culture, career, and community.

November 10th–12th 2023, writers will gather to connect with renowned Southern workshop facilitators stationed at historical locations, panels with renowned Southern authors, field trips tethered to the thriving Black Wall Street scene, and more! Our goal is that after a weekend of writing in Durham, attendees will leave our conference energized, empowered, and inspired to take the seeds learned at Griot & Grey Owl back to their own communities.

The Griot and Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference receives presenting support from Duke Arts and additional support from the Durham County Library, the Nasher Museum, the English and African & African American Studies departments at Duke University. Additional support from The Department of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History & Culture at Duke University.