When Susan Naimark sent the first of her two sons into the Boston public school system in 1985, she found out quickly that she was getting an education herself. Not in academic subjects necessarily, but in how race and white privilege play out in the public-school classroom. The former South End resident who had moved to a fixer-upper in Jamaica Plains watched her children thrive, while many of their classmates of color did not, she writes. She wanted to know why. "To understand it from the perspective of white privilege, I had to hold up the mirror," says Naimark, who wrote "The Education of a White Parent:Wrestling with Race and Opportunity in the Boston Public Schools," from which she will read at the South End Library Thursday, September 25 at 6:30 p.m. Naimark was appointed to the Boston School Committee by Mayor Tom Menino in 1997 and re-appointed for a second term in 2000. She currently works in non-profit community development, and serves on boards of several organizations that work for racial justice and the improvement of the Boston public schools.
THE SOUTH END WRITES 2012-2013
Thursday, September 20, 6:30 p.m.Susan Naimark The Education of a White Parent: Wrestling with Race and Opportunity in the Boston Public Schools, a memoir of white privilege and unequal access as observed by a former Boston School Committee member
Tuesday, September 25, 6:30 p.m.L. Annette Binder Rise, an award-winning debut short-story collection by a writer born in Germany, raised in Colorado and now settled in the South End.
Rescheduled from Tuesday, October 2 to a to-be-confirmed date later this fall Stephen Davis More Room in a Broken Heart: the True Adventures of Carly Simon, the unauthorized biography of one of the most gifted folk singers by a former Rolling Stone magazine's editor and (now former) Simon family friend.
Tuesday, October 9, 6:30 p.m. Sara Lawrence Lightfoot The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 Years After Fifty, a review by the long-time Harvard University sociologist, educator, former MacArthur Prize fellow and South End resident, of the career and life choices people make before and after retirement. Introduction by health coach and wellness counselor Colette Bourassa.
Tuesday, October 16, 6:30 p.m.Margaret Sullivan"Boston's Fairest," an exhibit and lecture about the first 50 years of women in the Boston Police Department by the BPD's archivist, documenting the careers of wives and mothers who took on gangsters and bootleggers.
Thursday, October 25, 6:30 p.m. Maryanne O'Hara a former associate editor at Ploughshares and oft-published short-story writer, O'Hara will read from her debut novel Cascade, a recent People magazine pick, and described as "richly-satisfying" by the Boston Globe.
Tuesday, October 30, 6:30 p.m. Margot Livesey The Flight of Gemma Hardy, the seventh novel of Scottish-born Livesey which just came out in paperback, is modeled on the English classic, Jane Eyre, a "risky move" at which she for the most part succeeds, according to the New York Times. Introduction by novelist Sue Miller
Tuesday, December 4, 6:30 p.m.Victor Howes A South End poet, decades-long college professor of literature and World War II veteran who published poems and book reviews in the Christian Science Monitor for many years, will read from his selected work.
January 15, 2013, 6:30 p.m. Leah Hager Cohen The Grief of Others The author, who publishes both fiction and non-fiction, will read from her latest novel which the New York Times described as "her best work yet." With an introduction by Sue Miller
Tuesday, February 5, 6:30 p.m. April Bernard The poet (Romanticism)and novelist, most recently of history (Miss Fuller), is currently the director of creative writing at Skidmore College. With an introduction by South End author Doug Bauer
Tuesday, February 26, 6:30 p.m. Andre Dubus III Townie, a memoir The examination of the author's violent past has been described "best book" of non-fiction of 2011 and 2012 by many literary-gate guardians, and was preceded by his previous novels House of Sand and Fog (made into a movie by the same name) and The Garden of Last Days. Sue Miller will introduce the author.
Tuesday, March 19, 6:30 p.m. Mari Passananti will read from her second novel, The K Street Affair.
Tuesday, April 18, 6:30 p.m.Doug Bauer. Editor, writer of numerous books of fiction and non-fiction, and revered professor of English at Bennington College (to where he commutes from the South End), Bauer will read from his most recent collection of essays, What Happens Next?, to be published in the fall of 2013 by the University of Iowa Press.
Tuesday, May 21, 6:30 p.m. Alice Hoffman The Dovekeepers, a historical novel describing the AD70 massacre at Masada from the point of view of four women at the fortress before it fell during the Jewish-Roman war, is the most recent of the nearly two dozen novels by Hoffman and just came out in paperback. To be introduced by Sue Miller.
Tuesday, June 18, 6:30 p.m. Philip Gambonewill return to read from his current work-in-progress, retracing the steps of his father who, as a soldier, was sent to Europe during the Second World War.