Release date: March 11, 2008
Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Alice Walker to Give Reading at Emory

Author's Appearance Celebrates Arrival of Her Archive

Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winner and internationally known Georgia-born novelist and poet, will give a public reading at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 25 at Emory University's Glenn Memorial Auditorium, 1652 N. Decatur Road.

Tickets go on sale Monday, March 17

Tickets are $10 for the public, $5 for Emory faculty, students and staff.

Tickets will be available:
• in person at the Arts at Emory box office, located in the Schwartz Center at 1700 N. Decatur Road,
• by phone at 404-727-5050, or
• online.

There is a $3.50 handling charge per order for online and phone sales.

Walker's Reading Will Include Her Major Works

Walker's appearance in Atlanta is her first since her archive came to Emory in December 2007. In light of the occasion, the reading will include a sweep of her major work, says Stephen Enniss, director of Emory's Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library.

Included in the archive are journals Walker had kept over the years, drafts of many of her early works of fiction, and correspondence between her and the editors of her books. Rudolph Byrd, professor of American studies at Emory, said at the time of the acquisition that Walker's papers "give you a sense of the process for creating fiction, creating poetry."

"A national treasure, the Walker archive contains more than 50 years of thinking and writing by Alice Walker, who is a canonical figure in American and African American letters," says Byrd, founding member of the Alice Walker Literary Society, an international organization of Walker scholars and enthusiasts.

Emory's African American literary collections include significant collections related to the Harlem Renaissance novelists and poets Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson, and the papers of the Georgia-born novelist John Oliver Killens. The Camille Billops and James V. Hatch collection of African American performing arts materials includes hundreds of playscripts including works by Zora Neale Hurston and August Wilson, among many others.

Walker's appearance is sponsored by the Emory Libraries, the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library, the James Weldon Johnson Institute and the Creative Writing Program.

Related Information

Alice Walker Places Her Archive at Emory

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