MEDIA ALERT
HU Annual Read-In Event welcomes author Delores Phillips

WHAT:  HU Annual Read-In Event
WHEN:  March 30, 2005 at 6:30 p.m.
WHERE:  HU Student Center Ballroom

Hampton, VA - Hampton University’s Department of English welcomes author Delores Phillips to the campus to discuss her fictional debut novel The Darkest Child as part of the university’s Annual Read-In Event on March 30 at 6:30 p.m. in the Student Center Ballroom. The event includes a reception, lecture, question and answer session and book signing. The event is free and open to the public.

Each year, the Department of English encourages HU students to continue reading for pleasure by selecting one fictional book that discusses items relevant to issues students confront in their everyday lives for the Annual Read-In activities. The selected book is integrated into English classes and all HU students, faculty and staff are invited to participate in the reading.

The Annual Read-In Event offers members of both the HU and Hampton Roads communities the opportunity to meet the author and gain additional insight into the selected novel. One underlying theme of The Darkest Child to be discussed at the event is the issue of skin color in the African-American community.

Set in the 1950s, The Darkest Child draws the reader into the distraught life of thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn, one of 10 children from 10 different men, who must endure the racial oppression forced upon her from both the members of rural Pakersfield, Ga., and her own abusive, mentally unstable mother.

The novel received the First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) Literary Awards and Phillips was nominated for an African-American Literary Award as Female Author of the Year in 2004.

The author was born in rural Georgia and currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio, employed as a nurse at a state psychiatric hospital. Phillips earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Cleveland State University. Her work has appeared in Jean’s Journal and Black Times.

For more information regarding the Annual Read-In Event, please contact the Department of English at (757) 727-5421.