NORFOLK, VA – Catherine “Kate” Lee Brinkley was a professional librarian at the City of Norfolk’s Kirn Memorial Library. She loved people and was dedicated to educating the citizens of Norfolk through the many services and programs of the Norfolk Public Library system. This new three-part lecture series, named in her honor, brings authors to Norfolk and is sponsored by Jane Batten to keep the spirit of community discourse about current events alive and to celebrate recently published books of national note. Free and open to the public. Book signings will be available at all three events.
- October 18, 2018; 5:30 – 7:30 PM - Michael Twitty, The Cooking Gene – Michael W. Twitty is a culinary historian and food writer from the Washington D.C. area. He blogs at Afroculinaria.com. He has appeared on Bizarre Foods America with Andrew Zimmern, Many Rivers to Cross with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, and has lectured to over 300 groups. He has served as a judge for the James Beard Awards and is a fellow with the Southern Foodways Alliance and TED and the first Revolutionary in Residence at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Southern Living named Twitty one of "Fifty People Changing the South” and Root.com added him to their 100 most influential African Americans under 45. Beyonce beat him out as number one. HarperCollins released Twitty’s The Cooking Gene in 2017, tracing his ancestry from Africa to America and from slavery to freedom. It was a finalist for The Kirkus Prize and The Art of Eating Prize and a third-place winner of Barnes&Noble's Discover New Writer's Awards in Nonfiction. The Cooking Gene won the 2018 James Beard Award for best writing as well as book of the year. The Cooking Gene
Also, in the lineup: