Home Charlottesville Reading Series announces authors Baban, Slocumb for May event
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Charlottesville Reading Series announces authors Baban, Slocumb for May event

Crystal Graham

new dominion bookshop charlottesville The Charlottesville Reading Series will host an in-person reading on Friday, May 19, from at 7 p.m. at New Dominion Bookshop.

The event will feature readings by poet Hajjar Baban and novelist Brendan Slocumb.

Baban is a Pakistan-born Afghan Kurdish poet. A 2021 PD Soros Fellow, she has poems appearing in Guernica, Pleiades, and Muzzle Magazine. Her chapbook What I Know of the Mountains (Anhinga Press, 2019) was the recipient of the 2018 Rick Campbell Chapbook Prize. She is currently pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Virginia.

Slocumb graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in music education with concentrations in violin and viola. He is the author of the novel The Violin Conspiracy, as well as Symphony of Secrets, forthcoming from Anchor this spring. For more than 25 years, Brendan has been a public and private school music educator for grades K–12. He has performed on violin with the Washington Metropolitan Symphony, the McLean Symphony, the Prince George’s Philharmonic and the Alexandria Symphony, and has served as the concertmaster for the NOVA Symphony.

The Charlottesville Reading Series was founded by Julia Hoppe and Amie Whittemore in 2014. The event is free to attend and open to the public.

New Dominion Bookshop is located at 404 East Main St. on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville. For more information, visit ndbookshop.com.

For more information on the series, visit readingseries.org.

Crystal Graham

Crystal Graham

Crystal Abbe Graham is the regional editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1999 graduate of Virginia Tech, she has worked for nearly 25 years as a reporter and editor for several Virginia publications, written a book, and garnered more than a dozen Virginia Press Association awards for writing and graphic design. She was the co-host of "Viewpoints," a weekly TV news show, and co-host of Virginia Tonight, a nightly TV news show. Her work on "Virginia Tonight" earned her a national Telly award for excellence in television.