Sonia Sanchez is a special guest on the UMass Dartmouth Campus on February 28 and March 1

February 28: 7p.m.: In closing the Black History Month events, renowned author and poet Sonia Sanchez will give a keynote address and book signing. Books will be available for signing in the auditorium foyer at the end of the event.

On March 1, 2 p.m.: Opening kick-off for Women's History Month Sonia Sanchez will give a poetry reading and hold a writing workshop.

The public is invited to these free events in the UMass Dartmouth main auditorium at the Dartmouth Campus, 285 Old Westport Road, North Dartmouth. Parking is in lots 5 and 7.

Sonia Sanchez. is a poet--mother--professor and a national and international lecturer on black culture and literature; women's liberation, and peace and racial justice. Sanchez is a sponsor of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Board Member of MADRE:

Sanchez is the author of over 16 books including Homecoming, We a BaddDDD People, Love Poems, I've Been a Woman, A Sound Investment and Other Stories, Homegirls and Handgrenades, Under a Soprano Sky, Wounded in the House of a Friend (Beacon Press, 1995), Does Your House Have Lions? (Beacon Press, 1997), Like the Singing Coming off the Drums (Beacon Press, 1998), Shake Loose My Skin (Beacon Press, 1999), and most recently, Morning Haiku (Beacon Press, 2010). In addition to being a contributing editor to Black Scholar and The Journal of African Studies, she has edited an anthology, We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans. BMA: The Sonia Sanchez Literary Review is the first African American Journal that discusses the work of Sonia Sanchez and the Black Arts Movement.

Sonia Sanchez

Sanchez is recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts, the Lucretia Mott Award for 1984, the Outstanding Arts Award from the Pennsylvania Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Community Service Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, she is a winner of the 1985 American Book Award for Homegirls and Handgrenades, the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Humanities for 1988, the Peace and Freedom Award from Women International League for Peace and Freedom (W.I.L.P.F.) for 1989, a PEW Fellowship in the Arts for 1992-1993 and the recipient of Langston Hughes Poetry Award for 1999.

Does Your House Have Lions? was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Sanchez is the Poetry Society of America's 2001 Robert Frost Medalist and a Ford Freedom Scholar from the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Her poetry also appeared in the movie Love Jones.

Sonia Sanchez has lectured at over 500 universities and colleges in the United States and has traveled extensively, reading her poetry in Africa, Cuba, England, the Caribbean, Australia, Europe, Nicaragua, the People's Republic of China, Norway, and Canada. She was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University and she held the Laura Carnell Chair in English at Temple University. She is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award, 2004, Alabama Distinguished Writer, and the National Visionary Leadership Award for 2006. She is the recipient of the 2005 Leeway Foundation Transformational Award. Currently, Sonia Sanchez is one of 20 African American women featured in "Freedom Sisters," an interactive exhibition created by the Cincinnati Museum Center and Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition and she was the recipient of the Robert Creeley award in March of 2009.

For more information contact Donna Moore, dmoore@umassd.edu or call 508-999-9222.

Author: Donna Moore [Contact] Date: February 25, 2011 Department: Cultural

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth • 285 Old Westport Road • North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300 Phone: 508 999-8000 • TDD: 508 999-9250 (for the hearing impaired)