Public lecture by author Natalie Baszile

Free public lecture from author Natalie Baszile hosted by Orinda Community Church on March 20th at 4 p.m.

Natalie Baszile is the author of Queen Sugar, which has been turned into a television series on the Oprah Winfrey Network produced by Ava DuVernay.  Baszile is also the editor of We Are Each Other’s Harvest which is a collection of essays, interviews, photographs, and poems about Black American farmers.

Natalie Baszile graduated from UCLA with an M.A. in Afro-American Studies and has an MFA in Writing from Warren Wilson College. She started writing what became Queen Sugar in the 1990s, exploring an African-American-themed tale of endurance and hope in the American South. She worked on the text for ten years. Baszile attended a women writer’s retreat in Hedgebrook where she read part of a chapter from Queen Sugar to the group. From that came the opportunity to have her story made into a series on the Oprah NETWORK/