[CW-Grad] Dolen Perkins-Valdez Reads from Wench

[mjayme at ucr.edu]

Dear All,

A Writers Week reading in May!  

Novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez will be reading and discussing her novel Wench 
this Thursday, May 20th, at 4:00.  The event will occur at 4:00 in INTS 1113.  

Set in an Ohio vacation resort frequented by southern slaveholders and their 
enslaved mistresses, Wench explores several human complexities.  Perkins-
Valdez writes: "I took this forgotten historical note and sketched in a fictional 
account of what it would have been like to be an enslaved woman traveling to 
this free state each summer.  Why wouldn't the women try to escape? What kinds 
of emotional attachments did they have with these men?  Initially, I believed that 
it was entirely possible that they actually loved the men.  Ultimately, I 
discovered that it was much more complicated than that."

The book has received great reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and 
has been featured in USA Today, People, and O (The Oprah Magazine).  More 
about Dolen can be found at: www.dolenperkinsvaldez.com.  

Also, if you're curious, an NPR interview is here: 
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122767128

Please forward this to anyone who may be interested in the event.

All best,

Michael Jayme