The Big Read Blog (Archive)

Zora Neale Hurston

Storytelling & Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Conversation with Dr. Michelle Martin

March 8, 2013
Dr. Michelle Martin, Augusta Baker Chair in Childhood Literacy at the University of South Carolina. Photo by Kimberly Truett, University of South Carolina For more than 50 years, storyteller and librarian Augusta Baker was one of the leading experts of children's literature in the United States,...

A Family Finds Meaning in "Their Eyes Were Watching God"

February 22, 2013
Cover of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Image courtesy of Harper Perennial Modern Classics Oftentimes, books we read in childhood and adolescence become touchstones throughout our lives. Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God is undoubtedly one such book for many people. In this 1937...

The Brooklyn Open: Engaging Communities through the Big Read

December 14, 2012
Zaira James performs at the Brooklyn Open. James is a member of the Urban Word's Word Wide Youth Leadership Board. Photo by Brenda Williams-Butts "I love the two-way aspect of [The Big Read...

75 Years of "Their Eyes Were Watching God"

September 21, 2012
Photo of Zora Neale Hurston by Carl Van Vechten, Library of Congress When Their Eyes Were Watching God was published 75 years ago, it was far from successful---critically or otherwise. In fact, it was out of print for almost 30 years. But since its reissue in 1978, Zora Neale Hurston's masterwork...

Their Eyes Were Watching Lucy

March 5, 2012
[flv: http://bigreadblog.arts.gov//video/Lucy-Hurston.mp4 320 240] On Saturday, February 18, an eager crowd gathered at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, California, to hear Lucy Hurston, niece of acclaimed author Zora Neale Hurston , speak about her beloved aunt. The Oceanside Public Library, a Big...

Ruby Dee on Race in A Lesson Before Dying

February 29, 2012
Ruby Dee and her copy of A Lesson Before Dying . Photo by Adam Kampe. Rural Louisiana is where author Ernest Gaines was born and raised. It's also the setting for his powerful novel about race and injustice, A Lesson Before Dying . I was given the gift of interviewing veteran actress and activist...

Hurston ad the Harlem Renaissance

February 17, 2012
Paul Laurence Dunbar. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons In honor of Black History Month, we're turning to some archival audio of poet Rita Dove reading Paul Laurence Dunbar, who is widely acknowledged as one of the first important African-American poets in American literature. "We Wear the Mask...

Hurston's Voice Is A Folk Voice

February 1, 2012
Public domain image of Zora Neale Hurston from the Library of Congress. Zora Neale Hurston: Anthropologist. Storyteller. Playwright. Writer Alice Walker notes on this Big Read audio guide that Hurston, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, "takes a black community, because that’s what she grew up in,...

Dialect as Poetry

April 18, 2011
Washington, DC " Zora Plaque in Eatonville " by mcclaurin solutions via flickr While writing dialogue can be tricky business, scripting dialect is an art form all its own. At its worst, it can seem stilted and condescending. At its best, it can read like poetry, carrying a story along on the unique...

Art Works podcast: Valerie Boyd, biographer of Zora Neale Hurston

March 10, 2011
Washington, DC Portrait of Zora Neale Hurston, 1938, by Carl van Vechten. From Library of Congress collection Portrait of Zora Neale Hurston, 1938, by Carl van Vechten. From Library of Congress collection This week?s Art Works podcast is a conversation with Valerie Boyd, author of Wrapped in...

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