Wandering in Strange Lands: Morgan Jerkins with Rion Amilcar Scott | LIVE from NYPL

Morgan Jerkins and Rion Amilcar Scott on history, memory, fiction, and Jerkin's new book, Wandering in Strange Lands. Introduction begins at 11:16.

Transcript available at https://media.nypl.org/2020-08-25_LIVE_MorganJerkins-RionAmilcarScott_WanderingInStrangeLands_transcript.txt

Morgan Jerkins, senior editor at ZORA, has been called a "prophet who deals with the past." In her new book, Wandering in Strange Lands, Jerkins travels some of the routes that brought 6 million African Americans out of their homes in the South during the period between 1910 and 1970 that is known as the Great Migration. Her family are among those who ventured out in search of better lives, and among those who suffered enduring "ruptures in cultural memory" during the exodus. Jerkins sets out to recover some of what was lost in her own personal family memory and identity, while exploring similar experiences of loss and reclamation for African Americans across the country.

Instead of excavating history, Rion Amilcar Scott invents it. His two short-story collections, Insurrections, and most recently, The World Doesn't Require You, populate his fictional town of Cross River, Maryland, a largely black settlement founded in 1807 after the only successful slave revolt in the United States. The World Doesn't Require You is newly out in paperback on August 25th.

Morgan Jerkins and Rion Amilcar Scott will discuss Jerkin's new book as well as their respective writing practices and approaches to history.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Morgan Jerkins is the author of the New York Times bestseller, This Will Be My Undoing, and the Senior Editor of ZORA. A visiting professor at Columbia University, Jerkins's shortform work has been featured in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, ELLE, Esquire, and The Guardian, among many others. She is based in Harlem. Her first novel, Caul Baby, is forthcoming from Harper in 2021.

Rion Amilcar Scott is the author of the short story collection The World Doesn't Require You (Norton/Liveright, August 2019), a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. His debut story collection, Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2019 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His work has been published in The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, and The Rumpus, among others. He has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writing Conference, Kimbilio and the Colgate Writing Conference as well as a 2019 Maryland Individual Artist Award. Presently he teaches Creative Writing at the University of Maryland.

GET THE BOOK

Readers everywhere who wish to purchase copies of Wandering in Strange Lands and The World Doesn't Require You can do so at The New York Public Library Shop. All proceeds benefit The New York Public Library. Plus, receive a free 125th Anniversary tote bag with your purchase! Visit the shop at https://shop.nypl.org/collections/events-books
If you have a NYPL library card—or live in New York state and want to apply for one now—you can borrow Wandering in Strange Lands and The World Doesn't Require You for free with our e-reader app SimplyE, available for iOS and Android devices at https://nypl.org/books-music-movies/ebookcentral/simplye

RECOMMENDED READING

Here are a few recommendations for further reading:

• Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream by Blair Imani
• All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones
• The Black Calhouns by Gail Lumet Buckley
• The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
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