Presented in association with Rice University Multicultural Community Relations in the Office of Public Affairs and Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance

LIVE STREAM: Inprint and Houston Public Media will present a live stream of the reading online. Click here for details.

TRACY K. SMITH’s memoir Ordinary Light, “one of the most anticipated books of 2015” (Time Out New York), is according to Booklist “a gracefully nuanced yet strikingly candid memoir about family, faith, race, and literature.” The Minneapolis Star Tribune writes, “Ordinary Light shines bright because of the warm glow the memoir casts on the simple everyday life of a young girl yearning to do great things…. Her spare yet beautiful prose transforms her story into a shining example of how one person’s shared memories can brighten everyone’s world.” Smith’s most recent poetry collection Life on Mars—in which, according to The New York Times Book Review, Smith “shows herself to be a poet of extraordinary range and ambition”—received the Pulitzer Prize and was named a New York Times Notable Book. Her collection Duende won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets and the Essence Literary Award, and her debut The Body’s Question was awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Smith has also received the Rona Jaffe Writers Award and the Whiting Award. She teaches at Princeton.

Reading followed by an on-stage interview, book sale and signing.

To order books by Tracy K. Smith at a discount click here.

To submit questions for Tracy K. Smith click here.

To learn more about the 2015/2016 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Series click here.

LINKS:

“Does Poetry Still Matter?” from NPR interview

“Wipe that Smirk off Your Poem” by Tracy K. Smith in The New York Times

Review of Life on Mars in The New York Times Sunday Review of Books

Review of Ordinary Light in The New York Times Sunday Review of Books