2024 James Weldon Johnson Memorial Lecture, “Love the Blood: Carl Van Vechten, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Pleasures of Civil Disagreement” by Emily Bernard

Emily Bernard is the author of Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine, which was named one of the best books of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews and National Public Radio. Bernard is the winner of the 2020 Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose. Her books include: Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; and Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendship, which was chosen by the New York Public Library as a Book for the Teen Age. Her essays have been reprinted in Best American Essays, Best African American Essays, and Best of Creative Nonfiction. A 2020 Andrew Carnegie Fellow and a 2024-2025 Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow, Bernard is the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont and the 2024-2025 Distinguished Scholar in Residence in the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University. The James Weldon Johnson Memorial Lecture is organized by Beinecke Library in conjunction with the Department of African American Studies at Yale.

Memoir-A-Go-Go! at the Woodstock Bookfest with Elissa Altman, Emily Bernard, and Lucy Sante, hosted by Martha Frankel

Woodstock Bookfest always closes with our signature panel, Memoir-A-Go-Go. Memoir speaks to our most basic impulse to tell our stories around the fire. It allows us insight into perspectives outside of our own, and a peek into the human experience of others. Panelists include Elissa Altman, Emily Bernard, and Lucy Sante. Moderated by Martha Frankel, the powerhouse behind Bookfest, this year’s Memoir-A-Go-Go is sure to be entertaining and engaging.

The Worthen Summer Speaker Series with Emily Bernard

The Worthen Library invites you to this event with writer Emily Bernard as part of their Summer Speaker Series. She’ll be discussing research for her upcoming book, Unfinished Women, an extended meditation on the dynamic between the expectations of traditional biographical writing and the lives of black women.

University Scholar Lecture Series - Emily Bernard, Ph.D.

The Graduate College is pleased to present “Lucille: A Life Story,” a lecture by Emily Bernard, Ph.D., to be held Monday, April 17, 2023, at 4:30 PM in Waterman's Memorial Lounge (338).

Lecture description: Professor Emily Bernard discusses research for her upcoming book, Unfinished Women, an extended meditation on the dynamic between the expectations of traditional biographical writing and the lives of black women.

The Yale Review Spring Festival: Reading in an Age of Crisis with Garth Greenwell, Kathryn Lofton, and Emily Bernard

Garth Greenwell, Kathryn Lofton, and Emily Bernard will discuss art, morality, and the ethics of readership. Moderated by TYR's Editor-in-Chief Meghan O'Rourke. Presented as part of The Yale Review's Spring Festival. Co-sponsored by the Yale English Department, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism.

Nonfiction Dialogues: Emily Bernard

The Nonfiction Dialogues is a student-initiated evening series at Columbia University in which Professor and Writing Program Chair Lis Harris interviews distinguished nonfiction writers about their work and careers.

Register to attend here.

Rutland NAACP Book Club Q & A

Rutland NAACP is relaunching their book club with my book Black is the Body.

This series of interconnected essays follow Dr. Bernard’s life, from growing up in the South to adopting her daughters in Ethiopia to teaching at majority-white schools like UVM. With insights on American culture, parenthood, marriage, and—of course—race, the book is an engrossing memoir and meditation on the world we live in.

We are delighted to be bringing Dr. Bernard to a virtual Q&A to wrap up our book club discussion! Please join us for one or both events. All are welcome, but preregistration is required.

Feminist Book Society: ‘How Do You See Me?’

In the past year, we've all been kept apart from loved ones – or kept indoors with them. Our relationships have never been more challenged, so how do we re-emerge, and ensure we can still communicate our needs, desires, and experiences to each other?

I’ll be joining authors Caleb Azumah Nelson (Open Water) and Liz Nugent (Our Little Cruelties). We all grapple with the impact of relationships, how they are tested, and how we can be accepted as ourselves.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER. Sign up for free, or please donate to our chosen charities Women’s Aid + Imkaan at the checkout, if you can. Every £1 makes a huge difference.

The Lenox Library Distinguished Lecture Series

We are pleased to continue our Distinguished Lecture Series with virtual talks this season.  Emily Bernard, author of Black Is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine, will be the featured speaker on Sunday, April 25.

The lecture will take place via Zoom. Click here to join the meeting.

Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine won the Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose in the Los Angeles Times 2020 Book Prizes competition.

2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Winner Announcement

Co-presented by the Aspen Institute and NPR Books, the program will include a conversation with finalist authors Susan Abulhawa, Rumaan Alam, Louise Erdrich and Danielle Evans, moderated by Mary Louise Kelly, co-host of NPR's “All Things Considered.”

We will also celebrate the memory and work of finalist Randall Kenan, who passed away in 2020.

REGISTER HERE

While this event is free and open to all, if you make a donation of any amount, you will receive a promotional code for a complimentary audiobook from Audible. Available to the first 1,000 registrants.

Following the ceremony, we'll host an interactive celebratory toast and live Q&A with the prize winner. Tickets to join are $200 and will grant you special access via a Zoom meeting link.

GLIMPSE: Wil Haygood

GLIMPSE affords viewers a monthly opportunity to watch and listen to thoughtful and innovative artists reflect on their lives and discuss the trajectory of their careers. Some of the artists who come to GLIMPSE are at the beginning of their careers, or at important early junctures; others are seasoned professionals with decades of experience. Their professional and personal profiles are vastly different. What connects them is their creative courage, dedication to craft, and willingness to engage in honest reflection on the fascinating paths they have traveled.

The artists and writers we feature on GLIMPSE are people first, and the discussions we host allow our guests to consider the ways in which their artistic choices connect to their experiences as human beings. We feel that exploring our common humanity is imperative for us as a society, particularly as we reshape our lives in the wake of the devastation of the pandemic and a growing social awareness of the inequities that divide us. GLIMPSE reveals that regardless of our differences, we are all in it together.

Aprils’s guest is accomplished journalist and award-winning author Wil Haygood. Haygood has authored seven nonfiction books, including prize-winning and critically acclaimed biographies of 20th-century figures: Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America, King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., In Black and White: the Life of Sammy Davis Jr., and Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson. His other books are Two on the River, about a 2,500-mile journey down the Mississippi River, and The Haygoods of Columbus, a family memoir.

REGISTER HERE

GLIMPSE is sponsored by Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Jericho, Vermont. As a faith community we are committed to social justice, and the money we raise from GLIMPSE helps support programs that contribute to that mission.

Reading to Inspire for the South Burlington Public Library

Celebrate National Library Week (April 4-10, 2021) with Vermont writers!

Some of Vermont’s most renowned writers will join together to raise funds for the new South Burlington Library on April 6 in an exclusive online event.

Join Alison Bechdel, Emily Bernard, Stephen Kiernan, Madeleine Kunin, and Tanya Lee Stone, who will read from their works and discuss their writing process.

This event will be moderated by South Burlington Representative John Killacky. South Burlington Library Director Jennifer Murray will also be on hand to answer questions about the new library and its fabulous spaces and programming. The library is scheduled to open this summer!

All proceeds from the event will benefit the South Burlington Library Foundation Aspire Campaign to enhance the new South Burlington Library. Funds raised in the Aspire campaign will go towards enhancing the spaces, technology and collections making the South Burlington Library a destination of learning, inspiration and community for all.

Register to attend here.

Glimpse: Virtual Speaker Series

Intimate Conversations. Unparalleled Access. Intriguing Authors, Artists, and Influencers Each Month.

Featuring Emily Bernard and Major Jackson. This event is being held as a fundraiser for Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.

Purchase tickets and learn more here.

Mother’s Day Reading & Dialogue with Honor Moore & Emily Bernard

To join the event, please look out for the Zoom Link, coming Friday, May 8th! The link will be shared through a special Prairie Lights email to our subscribers, and a newsletter from Honor Moore. It will be posted to @prairielightsbooks and @moorehonor Instagram stories. To get the link, follow or subscribe to Prairie Lights Books or Honor Moore on Instagram or through our mailing list.

In Da' House with Emily Bernard

Black Stone Bookstore & Cultural Center will host a Instagram live virtual book reading of Black is the Body with Emily Bernard from 1:00 pm - 1:30 pm. Reach the event on instagram @blackstonebookstore.

Cabot Public Library Presents for Black History Month VT author Emily Bernard reading from her book Black Is The Body.

“Acclaimed author Emily Bernard will give a Reading & Lecture on her new book of essays. “

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration

“Join us to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. King with Emily Bernard, author of Black is the Body. Emily Bernard was born and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and received her PhD in American studies from Yale University. She has been the recipient of grants from the Ford Foundation, the NEH, and a W. E. B. Du Bois Resident Fellowship at Harvard University. Her essays have been published in journals and anthologies, among them The American Scholar, Best American Essays, and Best African American Essays. She is the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont.

Black is the Body is an extraordinary, exquisitely written memoir (of sorts) that looks at race--in a fearless, penetrating, honest, true way--in twelve telltale, connected, deeply personal essays that explore, up-close, the complexities and paradoxes, the haunting memories and ambushing realities of growing up black in the South with a family name inherited from a white man, of getting a PhD from Yale, of marrying a white man from the North, of adopting two babies from Ethiopia, of teaching at a white college and living in America's New England today.”

“Lives Lived: A Reading” at Miami Book Fair at Miami Dade College.

Alliouagana Festival of the Word 2019

Dr. Emily Bernard - Writing about Race and the Difference it Makes

See full program here

Writing Workshop with Emily Bernard: “The University of Vermont professor takes a penetrating look at race in her memoir, Black Is the Body: Stories From My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time and Mine” (Seven Days VT).

South Hero Library
13th Annual Talk
75 South Street
South Hero, VT 05486

Bookstock Festival
Details tk

Arranged with Pam Ahlen
lahlen8920@aol.com 

Wine and Words 
in partnership with Hammonds House Museum

Hammonds House Museum 
503 Peeple Street 
Atlanta, GA 30310

Arranged with Michelle Gipson
michelle.gipson@writtenmag.com
404-755-4445

Words Bookstore
179 Maplewood Avenue
Maplewood, NJ 07040

Dallas, TX
Details TK