Here is the link to the Winter With the Writers website that will give you all the details about why you won’t want to miss the debut of Philip F. Deaver’s new book, Forty Martyrs this Thursday, February 11th, at 7:30 p.m. in Bush Auditorium at Rollins College. Not since Sherwood Anderson gave us Winesburg, Ohio, has a master storyteller made us care so much about a small town, its people, and their secrets.

Now I’m going to tell you why I’m not going to miss this book launch.

I learned to read, and began to devour books, when I was three years old. A few years later, when I read Old Yeller, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I started with poetry, took a few journalism classes at the junior college, and got a few items published in the local paper.

Then life got in the way. My father died. I got a “real” job. I got married, had a kid. Before I turned around, I was in my early forties, and no closer to my dream.

That’s when I went back to school, at Rollins College’s Hamilton Holt school, signed up for a writing class, and met Dr. Deaver.

He taught us the craft, gave us assignments, and enforced deadlines. He led classroom workshops with a firm but gentle hand, and gave up time with his own family one night a month to lead First Fridays, inviting the whole community to read work aloud to one another and share what worked and what needed improvement. He treated everyone with the utmost respect, making each writer feel like the most important person in the room. One evening, in class, he plopped a graded paper I’d turned in the week before onto the table in front of me and laughed, quoting a funny line I’d written in the story. “Submit this to Brushing,” he said, and soon after that I held in my hands our college’s literary magazine with my very own short story published inside, byline and all. The stuff that dreams are made of.

There have been teachers after that, of course. At Rollins. At Spalding. At writers retreats and workshops. I owe them all more than I can ever repay or express, even in the acknowledgement pages at the front of the books I’ve written.

But he was the first.  The one who believed I could do it.  The one who made me believe I could be a writer.

So yeah, I’ll be there. And I’ll watch from afar as he reads, is interviewed, and speaks in his gracious, gentle way to the people lined up to have him sign their copies of his latest, and probably greatest, book. And when he hands me mine, I’ll tell him thanks.

For everything.

Orlando Mixtape vol. 4: British Invasion

Thursday, March 10th | 6:00pm 

Presented by the Downtown Orlando Foundation

Benefiting the Urban Think Foundation

6:00 – 7:30pm – VIP “Never Mind the Bollocks Cocktail Tour,” $100

Tickets include concert admission, and specialty craft cocktails

at The Woods, The Courtesy Bar, Olde 64, and Aero

7:30pm – Benefit Concert, $25 (advance) / $30 (at the door)

Featuring covers of your favorites songs by your favorite Brits

The Social | 54 N. Orange Ave., Orlando, 32801

Wil Haygood, journalist, historian and writer of the screenplay for the film “The Butler,” will appear at Valencia College on Feb. 17 and 18 to talk about his new book about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Best known for “The Butler,” Haygood will discuss his work portraying African-American leaders and his new book, “Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America.”

Although Marshall had more experience and a more distinguished resumé than most Supreme Court justices past or present, he faced a hostile and contentious confirmation process in the U.S. Senate in 1967. Haygood’s book details the behind-the-scenes intrigue and the open hostility that Marshall faced.

The author of previous biographies of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Sammy Davis Jr. and Sugar Ray Robinson, Haygood is a former journalist and is now serving as a distinguished scholar at Miami University in Ohio.

The first in his family to attend college, Haygood has written six nonfiction books, including prize-winning biographies of 20th-century figures: “King of the Cats: the Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.,” “In Black and White: the Life of Sammy Davis Jr.” and “Sweet Thunder: the Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson.” His other books are “Two on the River,” the story of a 2,500-mile journey down the Mississippi River, and “The Haygoods of Columbus,” a family memoir.

Haygood’s books on Sammy Davis Jr. and Sugar Ray Robinson are currently being developed in Hollywood as motion pictures.

Valencia students, along with the public, are invited to hear Haygood’s speech. Haygood’s appearance is being sponsored by the Valencia College Humanities Speakers Series. Both events are free and open to the public.

Haygood will speak at Valencia’s East Campus on Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. in the college’s Performing Arts Center. Tickets are free, but must be reserved.  To reserve tickets, go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wil-haygood-keynote-presentation-tickets-18415553416

Valencia’s East Campus is located at 701 N. Econlockhatchee Trail, Orlando.

On Feb. 18, Haygood will speak at Valencia’s West Campus from 1 to 2 p.m. His speech, which will primarily focus on his research for and work on “The Butler,” will be followed by a panel discussion. Haygood will be speaking in Building 8, the Special Events Center. Valencia’s West Campus is located at 1800 S. Kirkman Road, Orlando.

For more information about Valencia’s Humanities Speakers Series, please visit http://valenciacollege.edu/east/humanities/SpeakerSeries.cfm