Writers for Readers, an annual fundraiser dinner that's among the season's most anticipated literary events, returns with an exciting lineup featuring celebrated author Candice Millard and the announcement of this year's Maya Angelou Book Award winner for poetry.

Millard is the author of four New York Times’ bestsellers, including Hero of the Empire and River of the Gods. She’s working on her fifth book set in occupied Belgium and northern France in the early days of WWI.

She is the recipient of the 2017 BIO Award, and her work has appeared in the Washington Post Book World, The Guardian, National Geographic, and Time Magazine.

Millard takes the stage with Whitney Terrell, associate professor of English at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, for a conversation about her life and work.

Terrell is the author of three novels including The Good Lieutenant, which was selected as a best book of 2016 by The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and the digital media and entertainment website Refinery 29.

The Maya Angelou Book Award, which this event supports, is a national literary honor established by the Kansas City Public Library, UMKC, and five other state universities in 2020. It recognizes authors and notable new releases of American fiction and poetry (in alternating years) contributing to literature, social justice, and inclusion. It comes with a $10,000 stipend.

Proceeds from the Writers for Readers event fund graduate internships for students who support the Maya Angelou Book Award or teach free, public writing classes at Library locations. Writers for Readers is an ongoing partnership between the Kansas City Public Library and UMKC’s MFA Program in Creative Writing and Media Arts.

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