Events This Week — National Black Writers and Youth Conferences
This list is in formation. If you have an event you’d like featured in our calendar, or if there’s anything we’ve left off, please let us know! Post your events in our community calendar or email us at editor@ditmasparkcorner.com.
Community Board 14 Youth Conference
When: Thursday, March 31st, from 4 to 7pm
Where: Flatbush YMCA, 1401 Flatbush Avenue (between Foster Ave and Farragut Rd)
What: For Young People Between the Ages of 12 and 19.
Over 60 organizations, businesses and city agencies are expected to participate in CB 14’s Youth Conference including the Prospect Park Zoo; New York On Tech; Luna Park; Kings Theatre; NYPD Explorers; Brooklyn Public Library; Brooklyn South CERT; CAMBA; and the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development/Summer Youth Employment Program; to name just a few.
Summer Youth Employment and other job applications will be provided, along with information about youth programs and services, and volunteer and internship opportunities. In addition to information tables, the event will include workshops on a range of topics geared toward job readiness and other life skills.
Last year, over 600 teens attended the conference to take advantage of the chance to learn about summer youth employment, internship and volunteer opportunities, career development programs, college admissions, as well as additional activities and services offered to young people by organizations and agencies.
How much: Free
National Black Writers Conference
When: Thursday, March 31st to Sunday, April 3rd
Where: Medgar Evers College, 1650 Bedford Avenue
What: The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, announces the 13th National Black Writers Conference (NBWC).
Since the first Conference in 1986, this public gathering of literary personalities and scholars continues to recognize renowned authors and poets for their extraordinary achievements. This year’s Honorary Chair is former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove.
The honorees of the 13th National Black Writers Conference represent the spectrum of the energy and imagination that comprise the richness of Black literature. This year’s honorees are best-selling author Edwidge Danticat; award-winning novelist and essayist Charles Johnson, whose momentous novel “Middle Passage” won the National Book Award in 1990; writer and history scholar Michael Eric Dyson; and Woodie King Jr., founder of the New Federal Theatre.
The theme of the conference, “Writing Race: Embracing Difference,” places the issues of race and difference at the forefront of the literature produced by Black writers.
Through dynamic and spirited panel discussions, roundtables, readings, films, workshops, and performances, writers, scholars, literary professionals, students and the general public will gather over four days to examine Black literary texts, to discuss the state of Black literature, and to raise questions related to how and whether Black writers “write race,” and the ways in which Black writers embrace difference in aesthetics, thoughts, beliefs, politics, religions, etc.
How much: See website.