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Authors Night with Dr. Michael Datcher & Noel Alumit
June 26, 2021 @ 7:30 pm
Grand Vision is honored to host authors, Noel Alumit and Dr. Michael Datcher, recipients of the City of Los Angeles 2021 Individual Artist Fellowship grant. Both authors will read from their new works. Q & A and conversation will follow the readings.
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Noel Alumit is the author of Letters to Montgomery Clift and Talking to the Moon, an LA Times Bestseller. His short stories have appeared in McSweeney’s, USA Today and Best Gay American Short Stories. Noel will read from his new novel, The Valet.
The Valet
In 1929, the filmmaker F.W. Murnau died in a car crash along the California coast with his Filipino valet at the wheel. While the valet survived the accident, history has forgotten him. In The Valet, the author brings him keenly to life through the fictionalized Eli Visaya, a young, dashing Filipino man. Eli steps in as Murnau’s assistant, and enters the glittering and unpredictable behind-the-scenes world of early Hollywood.
Dr. Michael Datcher
Dr. Michael Datcher is the author of the novel AMERICUS, the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller RAISING FENCES, and the Pulitzer Prize nominated ANIMATING BLACK AND BROWN LIBERATION: A Theory of American Literatures. Among many projects, he is co-host of the program BEAUTIFUL STRUGGLE on 90.7 FM KPFK. Dr. Datcher will read from his new novel, CULT
CULT
Jameela Easter wants to start a cult. As a charismatic and brilliant Black theology graduate student who’s researching People’s Temple cult leader Jim Jones, Jameela wonders why so few Black women have been cult leaders—and wonders what it would feel like to have that kind of power. She tells herself that cult of personality-power can be used for good. Jameela decides to leave school to start a “positive womanist cult” disguised as a womanist church, where the Black Divine Feminine will be worshipped.
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Tickets
The LA Department of Cultural Affairs’ COLA Individual Artist Fellowship grant allows accomplished artists to create new work with increased freedom to innovate and experiment.