CUNY Radio Podcasts » Kingsborough Community College

Fighting Modern-Day Sex Slavery

beebong — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:00:35 +0000

“There are an estimated 27 million people in the world today living as sex slaves,” says Kenneth B. Morris Jr., great-great-great-grandson of Frederick Douglass and the great-great-grandson of Booker T. Washington, two of the major figures in American history. Morris, who is co-founder of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation with his mother, Nettie Washington Douglass, spoke at a Black History Month event at Kingsborough Community College. The work of the foundation to end modern-day slavery with its “abolition through education” is urgent, says Morris. “We need modern-day abolitionists like Frederick Douglass,” says Morris, “to lead the way for a better tomorrow.”
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Colin Harrison on the Novelist's Craft

tatyana — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:00:36 +0000

There is no secret formula to writing a best-selling book, but Colin Harrison, author of six novels — four of them named notable books by The New York Times Book Review — grasps what readers want. Best known for crime stories set in New York City, Harrison, also a Scribner’s senior editor, has won fans worldwide with fresh plot twists and colorful characters. In his talk “Confessions of a Magpie,” at the Best-Selling Author Series at Kingsborough Community College, Harrison likened the novelist to the bird known for building its nest from a wide assortment of things. “Novelists collect fragments, images and moments they observe,” he explained, “because there might be something about that person that is useful for a story.”
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Walter Mosley's Heroes

tatyana — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:15:33 +0000

For nearly two decades, Walter Mosley’s versatile and elegant writing has won him many fans. In his first book, “Devil in a Blue Dress,” published in 1990, he introduced a young, black private eye named Easy Rawlins, and set the story in gritty, post-war Los Angeles. Five years later, it was transformed into a major film starring Denzel Washington as Easy. For his latest novel, “The Long Fall,” Mosley has created a post-modern hero in detective Leonid McGill, and moved the action to Manhattan. “It’s very important to write about what’s going on today,” said Mosley at the Best-Selling Author Series event at Kingsborough Community College. “We live in a very complex world and even things we knew five years ago are no longer valid.” Mosley, a City College graduate who founded the Publishing Certificate Program there, reads selections from “The Long Fall.”
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Best-selling Author A.M. Homes

tatyana — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:48:42 +0000

Author A.M. Homes’s trademark mix of dark stories and and wry humor has earned her critical praise and numerous prestigious awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She published her novel, “Jack,” a coming-of-age story about a gay teenager, when she was just 19 and her latest book, “The Mistress’s Daughter,” is Homes’s memoir about growing up in an adoptive home. But writing was not always her true vocation. “I didn’t mean to become a writer,” she told the audience at the Best-Selling Author Series at Kingsborough Community College. “I wanted to be in the Rolling Stones.” Homes discusses and reads selections from her work.
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War-time Espionage with Alan Furst

tatyana — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:39:42 +0000

Cuban cigars, fine wine and beautiful women are all part of the literal landscape in Alan Furst’s novels. For years, his tales of war-time espionage have thrilled and delighted audiences, while his witty prose and engrossing stories have put him in the company of Graham Greene and Eric Ambler by book critics. Greatly influenced by his life spent in the south of France, Furst has turned the city of Paris into a central character more than once in his fiction. “(Paris) was the heartbeat of culture-it symbolized the height and the potential of human civilization,” said Furst, speaking and reading from his most recent New York Times Best-Seller, “The Spies of Warsaw,” at the Best-Selling Author Series at Kingsborough Community College.
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Kingsborough's Tennis Coach of the Year

beebong — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:00:49 +0000

For Coach of the Year Barry Goldsmith, it’s about giving credit where credit is due. “Any coach who doesn’t give credit to their players is remiss,” said Goldsmith, Kingsborough Community College’s tennis coach for more than 27 years. “I’ve had some of the best players in the country.” Goldsmith was named this season’s Women’s Tennis Coach of the Year by the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region XV, Division III, and alongside his talented female players, captured the 2009 NJCAA Division III championship. Coach Goldsmith, who led the KCC’s men’s tennis team to a national title in 1998, discusses his most recent accomplishment, his feelings for the students, as well as his 13-year experience as a United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA) Master Professional.
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Jill Biden Rallies Kingsborough Grads

mboutros — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:23:19 +0000

Citing President Obama’s intent to strengthen community colleges, “second lady” Jill Biden told the 2009 graduates of Kingsborough Community College the two-year schools are “one of America’s best-kept secrets,” and “the education gained on campuses like this one will provide the knowledge that will power the 21st century.” Dr. Biden, an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College who taught English full-time at a Delaware community college for 16 years, referred to Obama’s higher education proposal, which includes a community college initiative to better prepare students for the job market and encourages their transfer to four-year schools. “The president wants the U.S. to have the highest proportion of college graduates (in the world) by the year 2020…and he knows community colleges will play a major part in achieving this goal.”
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The Other Beecher

cjedruczek — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:30:40 +0000

Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman were among the thousands who traveled to Plymouth Church in Brooklyn Heights to hear the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher preach his "gospel of love." Beecher -- son of a prominent clergyman and brother to author Harriet Beecher Stowe of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" fame -- bucked the traditional beliefs of most American Protestants of his time. His work for abolition and women's suffrage, and his views on politics, literature, science, entertainment and religion "helped usher modern thinking," says Debby Applegate, whose book "The Most Famous Main in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher," won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. As part of the Best-Selling Author Series at Kingsborough Community College, Applegate lifts the veil on Beecher's personal life, including his adulterous affair with the wife of a longtime friend.
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Howard Gardner on Book Writing

cjedruczek — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:00:29 +0000

One of the worldâ€™s authorities on human intelligence and a prolific author of many books on educational psychology, Dr. Howard Gardner says his desire to write emerged spontaneously. In the second grade he created his own newspaper; by the time he finished graduate school he had published three books. â€œI write a chapter at one sitting because I need to spit it out….I donâ€™t agonize about sentences and paragraphs, â€ says Gardner, professor of cognition and education at Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of the classic “Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.â€ As part of the Best Selling Author Series at Kingsborough Community College, Prof. Gardner explains how he conceptualizes his books including his current project which asks: “How do educators teach the true, the beautiful, and the good today?”

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Baldacci at Kingsborough

mboutros — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 16:54:34 +0000

Former trial lawyer-turned-best-selling author David Baldacci says he’s proud of the hundreds of rejections he received from magazine editors early in his career. “As a writer I always considered rejection as a badge of honor,” he says. Originally a short-story writer, Baldacci later turned to novels, mostly thrillers, and his popularity soared. To date, 16 of his books have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold in over 80 countries. As part of the Best-Selling Author Series at Kingsborough Community College, Baldacci speaks about the transition from practicing law to writing full-time and the research that goes into his work. His latest book is “The Whole Truth.”
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