Hope & Healing: The Power of Protest Poetry

Community members are invited to join author Zetta Elliott, PhD, for a conversation about the power of poetry to respond to the trauma of racism and police brutality. Dr. Elliott will also offer guidance on how to build a more diverse book collection for your family.

ASL interpretation will be provided at this event.

About our Presenter

Zetta Elliott is a Black feminist writer of poetry, plays, essays, novels, and stories for children. Born in Canada, Dr. Elliott moved to the US in 1994 to pursue her PhD in American Studies at NYU. Her poetry has been published in several anthologies, and her plays have been staged in New York and Chicago. Her essays have appeared in The Huffington Post, School Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. She is the author of thirty books for young readers, including the award-winning picture book Bird.

Her urban fantasy novel, Ship of Souls, was named a Booklist Top Ten Sci-fi/Fantasy Title for Youth; her YA time-travel novel, The Door at the Crossroads, was a finalist in the Speculative Fiction category of the 2017 Cybils Awards. Her picture book Melena's Jubilee, won a 2017 Skipping Stone Award, and Benny Doesn't Like to Be Hugged is a first-grade fiction selection for the 2019 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Dragons in a Bag, a middle grade fantasy novel, was published by Random House; Kirkus, NPR, and Amazon named it a Best Children's Book of 2018 and ALSC named it a 2019 Notable Children's Book. Say Her Name, a young adult poetry collection, was published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in January 2020; two picture books, A Place Inside of Me from FSG and Awesome Chevonne! from Flyaway Books, will follow. She currently lives in Lancaster, PA.