Lackawanna Native Connie Porter, Novelist and Author of the "Addy Walker" Books, Will Read at UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Connie Porter, a Lackawanna native, popular adult novelist, and author of 13 juvenile books in the wildly popular American Girls Collection series, will be a featured speaker in the University at Buffalo's "Gender Week" celebration presented by the UB Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender (IREWG) from Sept. 19-26.

Porter's free reading will take place from 7-8:30 p.m. Sept. 23 in Slee Concert Hall on UB's North (Amherst), Campus. She will discuss her work aimed at adult audiences, and be honored as one of Western New York's "Uncrowned Queens."

A reception and book signing will follow in the Slee Hall lobby at which Porter's two novels, "All-Bright Court" and "Imani, All Mine," both published by Houghton Mifflin, will be offered for sale by Talking Leaves Books, as will the Addy Walker book series Porter wrote for the American Girls Collection.

The reading will be co-sponsored by the UB Graduate School of Education, UB's Cora P. Maloney College and the Uncrowned Queens: African American Women Community Builders of WNY.

From 9-10 a.m. Sept. 24 in Room 120 of Clemens Hall on the UB North Campus, Porter will discuss her Addy Walker stories with an audience of 100 Buffalo Public School fifth- and sixth-grade girls. Following the talk, the children will be given a tour of the UB Campus and treated to a lunch by the UB Office of Admissions. This event will be co-sponsored by UB's Graduate School of Education and Cora P. Maloney College.

Porter grew up grew up in a poor Lackawanna neighborhood near the Bethlehem Steel plant, the second of nine children. She drew on that experience in writing her poignant first novel, "All-Bright Court," a story of black steelworkers and their families who migrated from the rural south to crumbling "All-Bright Court," a tenement near a steel mill. The story of their search for jobs, gas, heat, running water, education for their children and apparent equality with their European-American co-workers is one of mythic promise and serial betrayal.

All of Porter's stories feature strong-voiced protagonists who are black, female, poor, and

marginalized. For all of the disadvantages they face, however, they demonstrate a brilliant ability to cope and to find beauty in themselves and in the world around them.

Tasha, a 15-year-old girl living on Buffalo's east side, narrates Porter's second novel, "Imani, All Mine." Her status as an honor student does not protect her from the perils of inner city life -- crack dealers, gun battles, an emotionally distant mother and rape. Although the child she bears was conceived in violence, Tasha names the baby "Imani," Swahili for "faith," and with incredible grit and hope, manages to navigate the rough waters of young adulthood, motherhood and urban life.

Porter's 13 juvenile books for the Pleasant Company's American Girls series feature Addy Walker, an African-American girl growing up in 1864, during the Civil War. Addy's stories tell of her daring escape with her mother from slavery, and the challenges they face afterward as they try to reunite their family.

Further information on Porter's Addy books can be found online at http://www.pleasantcopublications.com/online_catalogue/brand_intro/addy.htm.

Additional information on UB's Gender Week events can be found at http://www.womenandgender.buffalo.edu/genderweek2003/GW3Evenats.htmpage.