[OPLINLIST] A. Van Jordan at CPL

[Donald Boozer]

Cleveland Public Library and The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards present a=
n evening with poet A. Van Jordan, author of M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, on Tues=
day, September 13, at 6:30 p.m. in the Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium, =
Cleveland Public Library, East Sixth and Superior Avenue in downtown =
Cleveland. The event is free and open to the public.

M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A tells the story, in a series of poems, of MacNolia Co=
x of Akron, Ohio, the first African American at the National Spelling=
 Bee. In 1936, the thirteen-year-old MacNolia was on track to win the=
 Bee when the judges gave her the word nemesis, a word not on the off=
icial list from which they were supposed to choose. After failing to =
spell the surprise word, MacNolia lost the competition and, not long =
after, dropped out of school. She later took a job as a domestic serv=
ant in the home of a doctor and his family, married John Montiere, an=
d died September 12, 1976.

A. Van Jordan was born in  Akron, Ohio. M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A received rave=
 reviews and has won the 2005 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction, =
as well as the 2004 Writers=92 Award from the Whiting Foundation. Jor=
dan=92s first book, Rise, won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award a=
nd was a selection of the Academy of American Poets book club. Jordan=
 is assistant professor of English at the University of North Carolin=
a at Greensboro.

For more information on this program, please call Clevelan Public Lib=
rary's Literature Department at 216-623-2881.

**************************
Donald Boozer, Literature Department
Cleveland Public Library
325 Superior Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44114
donald.boozer@cpl.org
216-623-2881 / 216-623-7050 (fax)
http://www.cpl.org