UPDATE: Special event featuring best-selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates canceled

** UPDATED (March 20, 2019): A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates scheduled for Thursday, March 21, at Kettering Fairmont High School has been canceled, a Dayton Literary Peace Prize spokesperson announced Wednesday afternoon. Coates was injured and broke his foot and is unable to travel. Coates will be invited back to attend the fall Literary Peace Prize Awards event.

** PREVIOUS COVERAGE (March 18, 2019)

Last October, Ta-Nehisi Coates was unable to attend the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Awards weekend, during which he was awarded the 2018 DLPP prize for nonfiction for his book, “We Were Eight Years in Power.”

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However, he will formally accept his award on Thursday, March 21, at 7 p.m., at the Kettering Fairmont High School Auditorium.

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The event is free and open to the public, but attendees must have a ticket to attend. Visit www.daytonliterarypeaceprize.org and click on the registration link to get your tickets via EventBrite.

Books & Co. will have copies of “We Were Eight Years in Power” available for purchase at the event; Coates will sign but not personalize books after the event.

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Gilbert King, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America,” and the 2013 DLPP nonfiction runner-up and member of the DLPP Honorary Advisory Committee, will serve as the evening’s master of ceremonies. Introducing Coates will be David Wood, the 2017 DLPP nonfiction winner for “What Have We Done.”

Following Coates’ acceptance speech, Coates will be joined by Devon Berry, director of human resources at West Carrollton City Schools, and Shannon Isom, president and CEO of the Dayton YWCA, for a conversation about “We Were Eight Years in Power.”

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Those interested in asking Coates questions should send them via email to DLPP’s Chair, Sharon Rab, at sharonrab@woh.rr.com.

In addition to the 2018 DLPP nonfiction prize, “We Were Eight Years in Power” received critical acclaim as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, USA Today, and other outlets, and was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Coates’ other bestselling books have also won awards, including the 2015 National Book Award for “Between The World And Me.” He is also the current author of the Marvel Comics “The Black Panther” and “Captain America.”

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