Enoch Pratt Free Library Podcast

In Committed: The Battle over Involuntary Psychiatric Care, psychiatrists Dinah Miller and Annette Hanson offer a thought-provoking and engaging account of the controversy surrounding involuntary psychiatric care in the United States. They bring the issue to life with first-hand accounts from patients, clinicians, advocates, and opponents. Looking at practices such as seclusion and restraint, involuntary medication, and involuntary electroconvulsive therapy—all within the context of civil rights—Miller and Hanson illuminate the personal consequences of these controversial practices through voices of people who have been helped by the treatment they had as well as those who have been traumatized by it.The authors explore the question of whether involuntary treatment has a role in preventing violence, suicide, and mass murder. They delve into the controversial use of court-ordered outpatient treatment at its best and at its worst. Finally, they examine innovative solutions—mental health court, crisis interventi

In the Margins: A Conversation in Poetry is a unique collection of poetry reflecting the evolution of a writing group over 20 years, featuring the Baltimore poets: Christine Higgins, Ann LoLordo, Madeleine Mysko, and Kathleen O’Toole.The book features poems that individually speak to social, family, and political issues while collectively chronicling the interrelationship of the poets. The project illustrates the poets’ individual voices and common interests: geography, a heritage of idealism that is both generational and spiritual, and a healthy dose of both reverence and rebellion.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On: Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Get to know the Central Library of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Maryland State Library Resource Center, with this brief audio tour. Listeners will enjoy a helpful overview of the Central Library's most prominent departments and collections as well as additional background about the building's architecture and history. Thanks to a capital grant from the State of Maryland as well as matching funds from the City of Baltimore and the Library's Board of Trustees and Directors, the Central Library is currently undergoing a full-scale historic restoration and renovation. This audio tour provides both information on the current state of the building and a preview of what changes are to come. The tour will be updated throughout the restoration process, which is scheduled to be complete in 2019.Recorded On: Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Let the People Rule tells the story of the four-month campaign that changed American politics forever. In 1912 Theodore Roosevelt (TR) came out of retirement to challenge his close friend and handpicked successor, William Howard Taft, for the Republican Party nomination. To overcome the power of the incumbent, TR seized on the idea of presidential primaries, telling bosses everywhere to “Let the People Rule.”The cheers and jeers of rowdy supporters and detractors echo from Geoffrey Cowan’s pages as he explores TR’s fight-to-the-finish battle to win popular support. After sweeping nine out of thirteen primaries, he felt entitled to the nomination. But the party bosses proved too powerful, leading Roosevelt to walk out of the convention and create a new political party of his own.Using a trove of newly discovered documents, Geoffrey Cowan takes readers inside the colorful, dramatic, and often mean-spirited campaign, describing the political machinations and intrigue and painting indelible portraits of its large

Elizabeth Hazen is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in Best American Poetry 2013, Southwest Review, The Threepenny Review, The Normal School, and other journals. She earned her BA at Yale and her MA at Johns Hopkins where she was a student in The Writing Seminars. She teaches English at Calvert School in Baltimore, Maryland, where she lives with her son, Gregory, and their cat Ferdinand. Chaos Theories is her first book.Rose Solari is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, The Last Girl, Orpheus in the Park, and Difficult Weather, the one-act play, Looking for Guenevere, and the novel, A Secret Woman. She has lectured and taught writing workshops at many institutions, including the University of Maryland, College Park; St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland; the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University; and the Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Oxford’s Kellogg College in Oxford, England. In 2010, she co-founded Alan Squire Publishing

D Watkins (The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir) and Liza Jessie Peterson (All Day: A Year of Love and Survival Teaching Incarcerated Kids at Rikers Island) talk about their new books and the writing life.D Watkins is a columnist for Salon, and his work has been published in the New York Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and other publications. He holds a Master's in Education from Johns Hopkins University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Baltimore. He teaches at the University of Baltimore and is founder of the BMORE Writers Project.Liza Jessie Peterson is an actress, poet, playwright, educator and activist. She has performed her play, The Peculiar Patriot, in more than 35 jails and penitentiaries across the country and has opened for keynote speakers at conferences on mass incarceration. She has appeared in the films Love the Hard Way, Bamboozled, A Drop of Life, and What About Me. She is featured in Ava Duvernay's upcoming Netflix documentary about mass incarceration, 13th.Recorded On: T

Mason Jar Press, a new, local independent press, brings together their authors in a celebration of literature and art. Join the authors of the most recent MJP publications—the Black Ladies Brunch Collective and Michelle Junot—for a reading, Q and A, and book signing. Hosted and moderated by MJP authors Stephen Zerance and Matthew Falk.Michelle Junot has kept notes on her phone for years—what to pick up at the store, work-out logs, prayers, hopes, thoughts on life and death—all the while creating a snapshot of her life with an honesty that only occurs when not paying attention. In Notes From My Phone(Mason Jar Press, 2016), Junot opens up her phone and her life to you. This collection of essays, to-do lists, vignettes, reminders and dreams mixes heart-felt memoir with the everyday marginalia that makes up a twenty-something’s life and day planner.The Black Ladies Brunch Collective’s poetry anthology, Not Without Our Laughter, (Mason Jar Press, 2017) is a collection of humorous and joyful poems, riffing on Lang

During the Presidential campaign, Donald Trump called for a complete ban on Muslims entering the U.S., surveillance of mosques, and a database for all Muslims living in the country. In We Too Sing America, nationally renowned activist Deepa Iyer shows that this is the latest in a series of recent racial flash points, from the 2012 massacre at the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, to the violent opposition to the Islamic Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and to the Park 51 Community Center in Lower Manhattan. Iyer asks whether hate crimes should be considered domestic terrorism and explores the role of the state in perpetuating racism through detentions, national registration programs, police profiling, and constant surveillance.A leading racial justice activist, Deepa Iyer served for a decade as the executive director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), focusing on community building in post-9/11 America. She teaches in the Asian American studies program at the University of Maryland.The

Seventy per cent of all Americans say they favor spanking, but African American culture seems to have a special attachment to it. The overwhelming majority of black parents see corporal punishment as a reasonable, effective way to protect their children from street violence, incarceration, or worse. But Dr. Stacey Patton's extensive research suggests corporal punishment is a crucial factor in explaining why black folks are subject to disproportionately high rates of child abuse, foster-care placements, school suspensions and expulsions, and criminal prosecutions -- all of which funnel traumatized children into our prison systems and away from their communities.By examining all the layers of corporal punishment -- race, religion, history, popular culture, science, policing, the psychology of individual and cultural trauma, and personal testimonies with parents and children -- Dr. Patton encourages parents, teachers, clergy, and child-welfare providers to consider a wider range of tools for raising and discipli

What I Learned in the Midst of KAOS is, in part, a coming-of-age story about how Dr. LaMarr Darnell Shields responded to the chaos in his life, first as a young man and student growing up on the South Side of Chicago, then as a college student and community leader, and finally as a man who became an Ubuntu teacher. The stories juxtapose his years as a high-risk male, growing up in gang territory, expelled from school, with his years as a Teach for America corps member and classroom teacher.The book, co-authored by Dr. Marina V. Giilmore, reveals specific strategies that Dr. Shields and his team have been using to motivate, uplift, and empower boys of color for decades. These include how to tap in to their natural competitiveness and peer-sensitivity, how to structure rituals that mimic their instinctual need for hierarchy and brotherhood, and how to empower educators to find points of connection and relevancy.Dr. LaMarr Darnell Shields is a social entrepreneur, inspirational speaker, and educator who loves to

Brian Gilmore, Washington, D.C., poet and longtime public-interest lawyer, is the author of three collections of poetry including his latest, We Didn't Know Any Gangsters (Cherry Castle Publishing, 2014), which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and a Hurston/Wright Award. He is a Cave Canem Fellow and Kimbilio Fellow and twice recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award (2001 and 2003). He currently teaches social justice law at Michigan State University. His blog on Medium is called bumpy's blues.Joseph Ross is the author of three books of poetry: Ache (2017), Gospel of Dust (2013), and Meeting Bone Man (2012). His poems appear in many places including the Los Angeles Times, Poet Lore, Tidal Basin Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Drumvoices Revue. He has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations and won the 2012 Pratt Library / Little Patuxent Review Poetry Prize. He recently served as the 23rd Poet-in-Residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society in Howard

Eric Goodman's new novel, Womb, reveals how easily life can be lost and, just as easily, how life can be celebrated. Penny is reluctant to tell her husband, Jack, that she's pregnant. With dead-end jobs and unfulfilled lives, she believes that they're not ready to support a child. When Jack finds out the truth about their child's conception, Penny must reevaluate the priorities in her life. With unpredictable twists and thought-provoking fetus commentary, the narrator shares his bumpy journey to birth from the all-knowing perspective of the womb.Eric D. Goodman is the author of Tracks: A Novel in Stories and the children's book, Flightless Goose. His short fiction, travel stories, and nonfiction have been widely published. A California native, Goodman has lived in Baltimore for nearly 20 years.Gregg Wilhelm, founder of CityLit Project, introduces the event.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund.Recorded On: Tuesday, March 28, 2017

When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the 2005 Liberian presidential election, she demolished a barrier few thought possible, obliterating centuries of patriarchal rule to become the first female elected head of state in Africa's history. Madame President is the inspiring, often heartbreaking, story of Sirleaf's evolution from an ordinary Liberian mother of four boys to international banking executive, from a victim of domestic violence to a political icon, from a post-war president to a Nobel Peace Prize winner.Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Helene Cooper deftly weaves Sirleaf's personal story into the larger narrative of the coming of age of Liberian women. The highs and lows of Sirleaf's life are filled with indelible images, and her personality shines throughout this riveting biography.Helene Cooper is the Pentagon correspondent for the New York Times, having previously served as White House correspondent, diplomatic correspondent, and the assistant editorial page editor. Before joining the Times, she spent 1

From the moment he was arrested for trespassing at a McDonald's in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 13, 2014, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery found himself in a unique position from which to cover police brutality in America and the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement. In They Can't Kill Us All, Lowery goes behind the barricades of #blacklivesmatter -- telling the story of the young men and women who are calling for a new America.After hundreds of interviews with victims' families, local activists, and officials conducted over a year of on-the-ground reporting, Wesley Lowery has brought a new understanding of life inside America's most heavily policed cities. Drawing on his own experience growing up biracial in suburban Cleveland, Lowery probes killings that have shaken America to the core: Trayvon Martin in Florida, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Walter Scott in North Charleston, and Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Grappling with decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighb

A compilation of essays, stories, poems, parables, and art, The Long Loneliness in Baltimore depicts nearly fifty years worth of experiences in Southwest Baltimore (“Sowebo”). Through the establishment of Viva House, Brendan Walsh and Willa Bickham are able to restore hope to the hopeless. Viva House, the temporary home and soup kitchen for those living in Sowebo, provides love and community to many. This eye-opening book gives insight into what is it really like to be one of the “powerless” constantly oppressed by the “powerful.” Coming out in a turbulent time for Baltimore City, this book exposes social injustices while promoting the message that hope will prevail.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard Hubbard Adult Programming Fund. Recorded On: Tuesday, January 24, 2017

In At Mama's Knee, April Ryan looks at race and race relations through the lessons that mothers transmit to their children. As a single African American mother in Baltimore, Ryan has struggled with each gut-wrenching, race-related news story to find the words to convey the right lessons to her daughters.To better understand how mothers transfer to their children wisdom on race and race relations, April Ryan reached out to prominent political leaders, celebrities, and others, like Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mother. At a time when Americans still struggle to address racial division and prejudice, their stories remind us that attitudes change from one generation to the next and one child at a time.April Ryan has been the White House correspondent for 20 years for American Urban Radio Networks (AURN), covering three U.S. presidents who have called on her by name. As the Washington Bureau Chief for AURN, she hosts the daily feature "The White House Report," which is broadcast to AURN's nearly 300 affiliated

The Pratt Library's annual King Commemorative Lecture presented by Dr. Julianne Malveaux, founder and president of Economic Education.Dr. Malveaux is a labor economist, author and commentator on issues such as race, culture, gender and their economic impacts. Her writing has appeared in USA Today, Black Issues in Higher Education, Ms. Magazine, Essence and many other publications. Her weekly columns, syndicated through King Features, appeared in newspapers across the country from 1990 to 2003. She has hosted television and radio programs and appeared as a commentator on all the major networks.Since receiving her Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1980, Dr. Malveaux has been a contributor to academic life. She has been on the faculty or visiting faculty of the New School for Social Research, San Francisco State University, the University of California (Berkeley), Michigan State University, and Howard University, and she served as president of Bennett College for Women.Recorded On: Saturday, January 14, 2017

Milt Diggins tells the story of Thomas McCreary, a slave catcher from Cecil County, Maryland. Reviled by some, proclaimed a hero by others, McCreary first drew public attention in the late 1840s for a career that peaked a few years after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Living and working as he did at the midpoint between Philadelphia, an important center for assisting fugitive slaves, and Baltimore, a major port in the slave trade, his story illustrates in raw detail the tensions that arose along the border between slavery and freedom just prior to the Civil War. McCreary and his community provide a framework to examine slave catching and kidnapping in the Baltimore-Wilmington-Philadelphia region and how those activities contributed to the nation's political and visceral divide.Milt Diggins is an independent scholar, public historian, and lecturer. He is a former editor of the Cecil Historical Journal and a frequent contributor to local publications.Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by Th

By objective measures, evidence indicates that President Barack Obama has been tremendously successful and effective. On economic indicators alone, he is credited with the longest streak of job growth in U.S. history, a two-thirds reduction in the federal budget deficit, and the rebounding of the stock market to record highs following the record lows of the recession under his predecessor. His victories have come against a backdrop of criticism and sometimes open defiance from conservatives, lack of cooperation in Congress, and racially tinged commentary in traditional and social media. Through it all, the President, who campaigned on a slogan of "Yes, We Can!" has persevered in his determination to make a difference and left an indelible mark on American politics and the world.Michael I. Days is editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, which has won numerous national, state, and local awards under his leadership including a 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He sits on the national board of the A

Walter Arthur Harris Gill, Ph.D., the first African American to graduate from the then all-male Baltimore City College High School, writes about his boyhood and youth experiences while growing up in Greenville, Mississippi; Jefferson City, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland; and on the campus of Morgan State College. He graduated from Morgan State College (University) and later received a masters and doctorate from Syracuse University. Gill has worked as a teacher, professor, artist, actor and author.W. A. H. Gill is sometimes known as The Urban Professor. Gill has touched over 17,000 students in public, detention and residential center schools and undergraduate and graduates in higher education. He has produced a variety of art works; performed in community theatre, written three books on urban education and designed, copyrighted and promoted the "I Love Balitmore - The Harbor City" tee shirts. His philosophy is "he who teaches, learns."Writers LIVE programs are supported in part by a bequest from The Miss Howard