Eleanora Tate Featured Speaker For Victor R. Small Writers Series At Barton

WILSON, N.C. – Barton College’s Victor R. Small Writers Series welcomes young adult fiction writer Eleanor Tate for a reading to be held in The Sam and Marjorie Ragan Writing Center on Monday, Oct. 27 at 7:30 p.m. The upcoming event is open to the public at no charge, and the community is invited to attend.

Children’s author, folklorist, teacher, and former newspaper reporter, Tate was named a 1999 Zora Neale Hurston Award Winner, the highest award given by the National Association of Black Storytellers, and her latest book, “Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance” (2007), was recognized with the 2007 North Carolina Book Award for Juvenile Literature and the International Reading Association 2008 “Teachers’ Choice” Award.

Tate’s previous award-winning books include “Front Porch Stories at the One-Room School” (1994; 2007), “To Be Free” (2003), “African American Musicians” (2000), “A Blessing in Disguise” (1995), “Retold African Myths” (1993) “Thank You, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.!” (1990), and “The Secret of Gumbo Grove” (1987).

“Just an Overnight Guest” (1980, 1997) was made into a award-winning film shown on PBS’ “Wonderworks Series” and “Nickleodeon.”

Her essays have been in the “Journal of Children’s Literature,” “Book Links,” “Obsidian Three,” “North Carolina Literary Review,” “The New Advocate,” and “African American Review,” among others. She wrote the introduction to “Sayin’ Somethin’,” Stories from the National Association of Black Storytellers, Inc., and the introduction to Ronald Daise’s picture book “Little Muddy Waters.” Her short stories, books, and articles are recognized for celebrating neighborhoods, communities, and the families who live there.

Tate was cited by the South Carolina House of Representatives and the South Carolina Senate for her contributions to children’s literature and community activism, and she received the Dr. Annette Lewis Phinazee Award from North Carolina Central University during its 2000 Charlemae Rollins Colloquium. She also received the Iowa Author Award from the Des Moines Library Foundation.

An instructor with the Institute of Children’s Literature based in Connecticut, she currently teaches children’s literature at North Carolina Central University in Durham. She also serves as an associate professor in the School of Graduate Studies’ Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Adults, at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn.

Tate was born in Canton, Mo., where she also attended a one-room school before moving to Des Moines, Iowa.  She completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism at Drake University. As a journalist, Tate wrote for the “Iowa Bystander and the “Des Moines Register and Tribune” newspapers. With her husband, photographer Zack E. Hamlett III, she also was co-owner and president of Positive Images, Inc., a public relations company. They currently live in North Carolina and are members of St. Paul AME Church in Raleigh. And, they have a dog named Shaka Zulu, who now writes a column of his own.

This event is sponsored by the Department of English and Modern Languages at Barton College. For additional information, please contact Dr. Rebecca Godwin at 252-399-6364 or email: rlgodwin@barton.edu.

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Questions? Contact Kathy Daughety, director of public relations, at 252-399-6529 or email: kdaughety@barton.edu