On October 23 and 24, I’ll be one of the featured authors at the Edmonton International Literary Festival in Alberta. I’ll be reading from Whatever It Takes and taking part in a session on “the craft and discipline of writing nonfiction.”
Archive for September, 2009
Edmonton Literary Festival
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009Newark and Camden zones?
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
In today’s Newark Star-Ledger, an article about the new initiative to build neighborhood zones based on the Harlem Children’s Zone in both Newark and Camden, New Jersey. According to the article, the plan is intended to take advantage of President Obama’s proposed Promise Neighborhoods program:
State leaders hope the plans will give New Jersey a leg up on the competition for the Promised Neighborhoods Initiative, an Obama administration proposal that requested $10 million to duplicate the Harlem project in 20 cities nationwide.
“This is a holistic approach to how we should deal with education,” Gov. Jon Corzine said at the conference. “We want to make sure Newark and Camden receive those (federal) resources.”
Congress has yet to approve the funds, but Canada said he expects it will be allotted and the administration will start the selection process in a few weeks.
Obama at the Congressional Black Caucus dinner
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009President Obama addressed the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual dinner on Saturday and made the case again for Promise Neighborhoods:
This economic crisis has made the problems in the communities of color much worse. But we all know that these problems have been there for a long time. Communities were struggling to catch up long before this economic storm came ashore. One study that looked at trends in this country over the past few decades found that while roughly seven out of every 10 middle class white children end up surpassing their parents’ income, roughly seven out of every 10 middle class black children do not. Think about that. For the majority of some Americans upward mobility, for the majority of others — stagnation or even downward mobility. That was taking place over the last decade, before the economic crisis. That kind of inequality is unacceptable in the United States of America.
Bringing hope and opportunity to places where they’re in short supply — that’s not easy. It will take a focused and sustained effort to eradicate the structural inequalities in our communities — structural inequalities that make it difficult for children of color to make a success of their lives, no matter how smart or how driven or how talented they are. That’s why we’re launching Promise Neighborhoods to build on Geoffrey Canada’s success in Harlem with a comprehensive approach to ending poverty by giving people the tools they need to pull themselves up.
Minneapolis reading and talk
Monday, September 28th, 2009On Sunday, October 18, at 5 p.m, I’ll be reading and speaking and answering questions at Magers and Quinn Booksellers, a Minneapolis bookstore located at 3038 Hennepin Avenue South.
Christian Science Monitor article
Monday, September 28th, 2009In Sunday’s Christian Science Monitor, an article about Geoffrey Canada and his work, based on my radio story on Baby College, on This American Life.
Dwyer Center event
Monday, September 28th, 2009On Thursday, October 8, at 6 p.m., I’ll be answering questions and meeting readers at a reception at the Dwyer Cultural Center in Harlem to celebrate the release of the paperback edition of Whatever It Takes. The Dwyer center is located at 258 St. Nicholas Avenue, at 123rd Street. Here’s the announcement.
Two articles
Monday, September 28th, 2009Two magazine articles I wrote were recently published. The first, in GQ, is about Girl Talk, a DJ, and it doesn’t have much to do with “Whatever It Takes.” The second, in the New York Times Magazine, is about Tools of the Mind, and it’s somewhat more related. You can read the article here, and you can read blog posts about it here, here, here, here, here and here.
Albert Schweitzer Fellows
Thursday, September 17th, 2009The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship has chosen Whatever It Takes as the first book in its Recommended Reading online book club. Here’s an excerpt from the announcement:
Are you thinking that the Harlem Children’s Zone sounds like a Schweitzer project on a grand scale? So are we — and that’s why we’ve made Whatever It Takes ASF’s very first Recommended Reading choice.
Each month on this blog, we’ll highlight books in line with ASF’s mission — eliminating health disparities by developing “leaders in service” who are skilled in and committed to meeting the health needs of the underserved, and whose example influences and inspires others. We’ll facilitate a discussion of those books and how they relate to the work you’re doing as Schweitzer Fellows, Fellows for Life, or other service-oriented individuals on the blog and on our Facebook page.
According to the website, the fellowship is
a national nonprofit that translates idealism into action, supporting 230+ Fellows from the nation’s top health and human service schools as they develop and implement service projects with a direct — and lasting — impact on the health of underserved communities.
The online discussion begins on October 22.
Learning Matters blog
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009On his Learning Matters blog, PBS education reporter John Merrow writes about the recent re-airing of my Baby College piece on This American Life:
The Harlem Children’s Zone is the brain-baby of Geoffrey Canada, and the subject of journalist Paul Tough’s in-depth reportage in a recent book, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. The basic idea behind Canada’s program is to combat urban poverty through intensive work with children, particularly during early childhood. …
Last week, This American Life re-aired a piece on HCZ, produced by Tough before the release of his book. If you’re looking to get inspired by Canada and his vision, the radio piece is a great introduction to the theory behind the Zone. Tough hones in on the phase of HCZ’s program called Baby College, where new and expecting parents are trained to think differently about child-rearing.
Reading in St. Louis
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009On October 12, at 7 p.m., I’ll be reading from the new paperback edition of Whatever It Takes at Left Bank Books in St. Louis.