Celebrating Black History Month: Franklin College hosting two writer-speakers

Local residents can celebrate Black History Month or meet an award winning essayist at two upcoming events at Franklin College.

The Franklin College English department will host writer David Stuart MacLean as part of the 2017-18 Creative-Writing Reading Series at 7 p.m. Feb. 15 in the Richardson Chapel.

MacLean will present readings, conduct a question-and-answer session and sign books during the event.

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He is the author of the memoir “The Answer to the Riddle Is Me,” named by Kirkus as one of the best books of 2014 and winner of the 2014 Society of Midland Author’s Best Biography/Memoir. His essays and stories have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Ploughshares, Guernica, The Bennington Review, Quarterly West, The Times (London) and on the radio program “This American Life.” He was a Fulbright scholar in India and a co-founder of a reading series in Houston.

The college also is hosting Marc Lamont Hill at 7 p.m. Feb. 22 in the Branigin Room in the Napolitan Student Center. Hill will present “Fighting for Justice in a Moment of Chaos.”

Hill is a professor of African American Studies at Morehouse College, is the current host of “BET News” and “VH1 Live” and is a political contributor for CNN. “Ebony” magazine has named him one of America’s most influential black leaders.

Both events are free and open to the public.