UPDATE: Due to a family emergency, the presentation with Joy Jordan-Lake has been canceled. It may be re-scheduled for a later date.
The language and literature department at Eastern Mennonite University is sponsoring a presentation on race relations by award-winning author Joy Jordan-Lake.
Dr. Jordan-Lake will speak 7 p.m. Thursday, Mar. 17, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU, drawing from her award-winning book, “Blue Hole Back Home: A Novel.”
Jordan-Lake is a professor at Belmont University, Nashville, Tenn. Her book won the 2009 national Christy Award for first novel and was selected as the 2009 Common Book for Baylor University, Waco, Tex. Inspired by actual events from her own teenage years, Jordan-Lake explores the tensions and eventual violence that erupt in a small, all-white Appalachian town when a Sri Lankan family moves in.
Ultimately, “Blue Hole Back Home” is a story not only of the devastating effects of racial hatred and cowardice, but more centrally, a celebration of courage, confrontation and healing. The book is increasingly being chosen as classroom and summer reading at various public and private high school, middle schools, colleges and universities.
After earning a bachelors degree from Furman University and a masters from a theological seminary, Jordan-Lake earned a masters and a PhD in English Literature from Tufts University, specializing in the role of race and religion in 19th century American fiction.
Her other writings include “Grit and Grace: Portraits of a Woman’s Life,” “Whitewashing Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Nineteenth-Century Women Novelists Respond to Stowe” and “Why Jesus Makes Me Nervous: Ten Alarming Words of Faith.”
Admission to the presentation is free. For more information, contact Dr. Vi Dutcher, language and literature
department, at 540-432-4316.