Oct. 22, 2014

 

Award-winning author Joy Jordan-Lake, whose racially charged novel of heartache and redemption in post-civil rights Appalachia is this year’s Common Reader at Amarillo College, will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 11 at the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts.

 

The event is free, and the public is both invited and encouraged to attend.

 

Jordan-Lake’s novel, Blue Hole Back Home, was distributed to AC freshman throughout the summer and this fall. The author will sign copies of her book on the second-floor lobby immediately following the lecture.

 

Blue Hole Back Home, which in 2009 captured a Christy Award for best first novel, helped AC launch and underscore its Institutional Theme for 2014-2015—“Moral Courage.” It’s a story of hate, tragedy, hope and survival, all born of one Sri Lankan girl’s acceptance of a ride one hot summer day to the local swimming hole.

 

“Anyone who can turn a work of fiction into a springboard for larger and broader conversations is truly skilled,” Courtney Milleson, chair of the Common Reader Team, said. “Joy Jordan-Lake is one of those writers whose words give life to topics that resonate.

 

“She has a way of evoking responses, of sparking the sort of creativity-inspired conversations that have become all too rare in our society,” Milleson said. “From a world where dogs are murdered by men in white bed sheets comes an epic tale that encourages us to explore our own world and wonder ‘if that had been me, what would I have done?’

 

“I think there’s an amazing evening is store for all of us.”

 

Jordan-Lake’s varied professional experiences have taken her from jobs as a waitress, journalist, social worker, sailing instructor, chaplain and college professor. She obtained both a master’s degree and a doctoral degree in English from Tufts University. Upon winning the Christy Award in 2009, Blue Hole Back Home was selected as the Common Book for Baylor University.

 

AC’s Common Reader Program is designed to utilize one book to help ease the transition of new students to the College environment; however the entire College community is encouraged to read the book, and several themed events will be planned throughout the year to complement the selection.