FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
(RSVP required)
A Reading at the Arts Club of Washington:
A LITERARY GUIDE TO WASHINGTON, DC
Walking in the Footsteps of American Writers from Francis Scott Key to Zora Neale Hurston
Kim Roberts
Join us for an evening of literature at the Arts Club of Washington, as we celebrate Kim Roberts's "A Literary Guide to Washington, D.C." And before the presentation, take a history tour of the Club building, led by Club President Judith Viggers Nordin.
The site of a thriving literary tradition, Washington, DC, has been the home to many of our nation’s most acclaimed writers. The Arts Club Monroe House has been a party to it as home at one time for journalist, novelist and historian Henry Adams in the mid-1800s.
This nugget of history is one of a wealth of finds we will hear of this evening from Kim Roberts, author of A LITERARY GUIDE TO WASHINGTON, DC. In this, her latest book, Kim offers a guide to the city’s rich literary history.
Part walking tour, part anthology, her tales touch on the lives of DC writers such as Hasty-Pudding poet Joel Barlow and “Star-Spangled Banner” lyricist Francis Scott Key, and Civil War and Reconstruction-era writers Charlotte Forten Grimké and James Weldon Johnson.
Kim wraps up her tour with World War I and the Jazz Age, which brought to the city writers at the forefront of modernism, including the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sinclair Lewis.
The book’s stimulating tours cover downtown, the LeDroit Park and Shaw neighborhoods, Lafayette Square, and the historic U Street district, bringing the history of the city to life in surprising ways.
Books will be available for sale and signing. This event is free and open to the public, with a cash bar reception (open bar for members). For questions or information, contact ACW Literary chairperson Michael Whelan
(
whelangrouprcn@gmail.com).
RSVP REQUIRED
6:30 pm - Reception
6:40 pm - Optional Historical Tour of the Club building
7:10 pm - Lecture and Discussion
8:15 pm - Reception with Author
