*Doors open at 6:00 pm*

Sam Stephenson will discuss and sign copies of his new book, The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965.  Culled from over forty thousand pictures, here are Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Roland Kirk, Zoot Sims, and Chick Corea, as well as the pimps, prostitutes, cops, dealers, and drug addicts who dropped by (along with the likes of Doris Duke, Norman Mailer, Diane Arbus, and Salvador Dali).  After the reading—music by Jazz Loft legend Ronnie Free and his trio, featuring guitarist Royce Campbell.  Stephenson is a writer and lecturer at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies.

Durham author Jeanette Stokes will discuss and sign copies of her book, Hurricane Season: Living Through a Broken Heart.  Jaki Shelton Green writes, “Hurricane Season bears witness to a woman courageous and spiritually alive enough to sit with her own mirrors...a naked soul sitting in the eye of a storm.”  Author of 25 Years in the Garden, Stokes is the founder and executive director of the Resource Center for Women and Ministry in the South, a nonprofit dedicated to feminism, spirituality, and social justice.