Lost Literature May Find

An Audience At NVCC

WATERBURY, Conn. (April 7, 2008) – The Arts and Humanities Division at Naugatuck Valley Community College (NVCC) will host editors Alice Bernstein & Lionel Bascom at “Found Literature:  Writer’s Conference 2008” on Wednesday, April 23, from 11 am to 4 pm.

There will be presentations during the morning session, a lunch break, and then a workshop and open mic for the afternoon session. Admission to the presentations, workshop and open mic is free. A $10 luncheon and book signing session will run from 1 to 2:30, and will be available through reservation only.

The conference will be held in the NVCC Playbox Theater, which is located on the college’s campus at 750 Chase Parkway.

Alice Bernstein, a journalist and aesthetic realism associate, will open the morning session with a discussion of her discovery and work on the previously unpublished Ossie Davis play, The People of Clarendon County, with an emphasis on education as an end to racism.

Ms Bernstein’s articles and regular column appear nationwide and in Aesthetic Realism and The Answer to Racism (2004). She is a contributing writer to African American National Biography, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (2008), and is working on an oral history project and documentary of interviews with unsung heroes, The Force of Ethics in Civil Rights.

Western Connecticut State University professor Lionel Bascom will then speak about his latest book release, The Last Leaf of Harlem, a collection of short stories by Dorothy West, who was the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance.

A long-time investigative journalist, Dr Bascom has specialized in the discovery of forgotten or neglected literary manuscripts by early 20th Century African-Americans, black folklore, and stories about black culture in the United States. He is the editor of A Renaissance in Harlem and lives in Danbury.

The writer’s workshop and open mic will be held from 2:30 to 4 pm.

For more information or to make a reservation, contact conference coordinator Beth-Ann Scott at 203-596-2199 or Bscott@NVCC.commnet.edu.