Fall 2024
Jim and Tina Mozelle Braziel • September 9-13, 2024
Tina Mozelle Braziel is the author of Known by Salt (Anhinga Press), winner of the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry and the 2022 Alabama Library Association Author Award for poetry, and Rooted by Thirst (Porkbelly Press). She directs the Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
James Braziel is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is the author of This Ditch-Walking Love, winner of the Tartt First Fiction Prize (Livingston Press). He is also the author of the novels Birmingham, 35 Miles (Bantam) and Snakeskin Road (Bantam).
Free and Open to the Public
Tuesday, September 10, 5:30 PM • Opelika Public Library
Writing Workshop: People We Don’t Want to Forget
Wednesday, September 11, 6:30 PM • Auburn Oil Co. Booksellers
In Conversation with Tina Mozelle Braziel and Jim Braziel
Thursday, September 12, 5:30 PM • Standard Deluxe
Writing Workshop: Celebrating Place
In partnership with the Alabama Writers' Forum. The Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, works to cultivate our state’s literary culture.
Terah Shelton Harris • September 23-27, 2024
Terah Shelton Harris is a librarian and freelance writer, who now writes upmarket fiction with bittersweet endings. As a freelancer, her work has appeared in consumer and trade magazines including Catapult, Women’s Health, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Backpacker, Minority Nurse, and more. Her first novel, One Summer in Savannah, was a LibraryReads and Target Book Club Pick. Her second book, Long After We Are Gone, was published in May 2024.
In partnership with the Alabama Public Library Service, Harris will be speaking at five public libraries.
Free and Open to the Public
Monday, September 23, 3:00 PM • Oxford Public Library
110 East 6th Street, Oxford, AL 36203
For more information: 256-831-1750, amy.henderson@oxfordal.gov
Wednesday, September 25, 5:00 PM EST • Phenix-City Russell County Library
1501 17th Avenue, Phenix City, AL 36867
For more information: 334-297-1139, thenry@phenixcityal.us
Thursday, September 26, 11:00 AM • Tallassee Community Library
99 Freeman Avenue, Tallassee, AL 36078
For more information: 334-283-2732, checkitout.tclibrary@gmail.com
Thursday, September 26, 6:00 PM • Opelika Public Library
1100 Glenn Street, Opelika, AL 36801
For more information: 334-705-5380, abjones@opelika-al.gov
Friday, September 27, 2:00 PM • Enterprise Public Library
101 E. Grubbs Street, Enterprise, AL 36330
For more information: Sheila Harris, director@enterpriselibrary.org
Danielle Fixico • September 30 - October 4, 2024
Danielle Fixico is a Chickasaw, Muscogee, and Choctaw artist from Morris, Oklahoma. She recently completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting at the University of Oklahoma where she also received her B.A. degree in Native American studies in 2019. She is an alumnus from the College of the Muscogee Nation, where she is now an adjunct fine art professor. Her work focuses on raising awareness for women’s issues in Native American communities through the combination of fine art, symbols, and materials from her southeastern Native American culture. Danielle was a 2022-2023 Center for Native American Youth Remembering Our Sisters fellow. Her work has been featured in the Tribal College Journal, publications from the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, and is used for the May 5th national day of awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). She has been exhibited in shows at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, Cherokee Heritage Center, In Your Eye Gallery, Chokma’si Gallery, the Five Civilized Tribes Museum, MainSite Gallery and Exhibit C Gallery.
Annette Jordan • October 14 - October 18, 2024
Annette Jordan (left) learned the art of pine needle basket weaving from her mother, Mary Hicks (right), over thirty years ago. She is passionate about carrying on this tradition and her mother’s legacy through making, teaching, and creating “a long-lasting art from the natural environment.”
In partnership with the Alabama Folklife Association.
Pine Needle Basket Weaving Workshops
Monday, October 14, 10 AM to 12 PM • Tuskegee University Legacy Museum
Tuesday, October 15, 10 AM to 12 PM • Shorter Legacy Center
Contact dcpowell@shorteral.gov or 334-727-9190 to register.
Wednesday, October 16, 3 PM to 5 PM • Pebble Hill
Contact maiben@auburn.edu or 334-844-4903 to register.
Thursday, October 17, 10 AM to 12 PM • Tallassee Community Library
Contact checkitout.tclibrary@gmail.com or 334-283-2732 to register.
Spring 2025
Courtney Nateseway • February 24-28, 2025
The southeastern United States is the ancestral homelands of the Mvskoke people. Europeans referred to them as Creek Indians, and before contact Mvskoke people were hunters, foragers, and agriculturists. Courtney Natseway will discuss traditional farming practices such as land preparation, soil fertility, traditional and non-traditional crops, and the roles of men and women in food and medicine production.
Natseway’s work as Extension Educator at the College of the Muscogee Nation includes a community garden utilizing Mvskoke traditions, modern agricultural techniques, and traditional farming practices from other tribal nations that help students learn to grow food successfully and sustainably.
Courtney Natseway is originally from Tulsa, OK and a proud citizen of the Mvskoke nation. She is also Yakama and Laguna Pueblo, and wotkvlke (raccoon clan). Natseway earned an associate’s degree in Tribal Services from the College of the Muscogee Nation. She studied horticulture at New Mexico State University and Oklahoma State University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Public Horticulture. In her position at CMN, she manages the gardens and greenhouse on campus and mentors student workers. Courtney’s mission with CMN Extension is to teach students to be good stewards of the land, and to aid in the movement towards Mvskoke food sovereignty through education and community building.
Free and Open to the Public
Wednesday, February 26 • 11:30 AM – 1 PM • Pebble Hill • OLLI at Auburn Brown Bag Series
"Growing Community: The Muscogee Nation Community Garden Project"
Thursday, February 27 • 3 PM • Yarbrough Elementary School Afterschool Program
Mvskoke Seed-Sowing Presentation and Demonstration
Chester Higgins • March 3-7, 2025
Chester Higgins is a native of New Brockton and a graduate of Tuskegee University. He worked as a staff photographer for The New York Times from 1975 until 2014 and is the author of several publications. His work has been the subject of many international exhibitions, and is held in notable collections, such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, and The Brooklyn Museum of Art. In 2024, he received the Alabama Distinguished Artist Award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
Free and Open to the Public
Tuesday, March 4, 2025 • 1:30 PM • Enterprise State Community College
ESCC Multipurpose Room, LBW Student Center, 600 Plaza Drive Enterprise, AL 36330
Tuesday, March 4, 2025 • 4 PM • Greater Springfield Baptist Church
307 S McGowan St, New Brockton, AL 36351
Wednesday, March 5, 2025 • 5 PM • The Legacy Museum at Tuskegee University
John A. Kenney Hall (Bioethics Building), 1200 W. Montgomery Road, Tuskegee, AL 36088
Francesca Charley • March 10-14, 2025
In partnership with the Alabama Folklife Association
For Francesca Charley, 4th generation Gee’s Bend quilter, heritage and craft are intertwined. Her family has been quilting for over a century, beginning with her great grandmother, Malissa Pettway. Francesca learned the art of quilting from her grandmother, Tinnie Pettway, and mother, Claudia Pettway Charley. She enjoys building on her family's legacy in her own creative way and is very excited to share her knowledge with others.
Join us for a free quilting workshop at one of the sites below! Space is limited and registration is required.
Monday, March 10, 2025 • 11 AM - 1 PM • H. Grady Bradshaw Library
Registration required: 334-768-2261 • 3419 20th Ave., Valley, AL
Tuesday, March 11, 2025 • 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM • Dadeville Public Library
Registration required: 256-825-7820 • 205 N. West Street, Dadeville, AL
Thursday, March 13, 2025 • 3 PM - 5 PM • Pebble Hill
Registration required: EventBrite • 101 S. Debardeleben Street, Auburn, AL
Friday, March 14, 2025 • 10 AM - 12 PM • Tallassee Community Library
Registration required: checkitout.tclibrary@gmail.com or 334-283-2732 • 99 Freeman Ave., Tallassee, AL
Dr. Matthew Sparacio • July 2025
Matthew Sparacio is a lecturer of Colonial and Native American History at Georgia State University. He previously taught at Southeastern Oklahoma State University after receiving his Ph.D. in History from Auburn University. His research focuses on Native health cultures in the Southeast United States, pre- and post-Removal Choctaw history, Native depictions in settler print culture, and the military occupation of Indian Territory (present-day Eastern Oklahoma). He is the former director of the “Fort Washita Rediscovery Project,” a collaborative initiative with the Chickasaw Nation that was awarded the 2023 Bruce T. Fisher Award by the Oklahoma Historical Society for the best public-facing history project in the state.
He is also the creator of the Native Atlanta Project at GSU examining settler depictions of indigenous peoples in the New South. His research has been published in Ethnohistory and his first book, The Choctaw Civil War: Justice and Sovereignty on the Franco-Choctaw Frontier, is currently under contract with the University of Alabama Press. His newest project, inspired by a 2022 NEH Summer Institute, recasts almanacs as manuals of settler colonialism and indigenous erasure.
Public Programs
Monday, July 14 • 2:00 PM • Campbell House • University of West Alabama
Wednesday, July 23 • 12:00 PM • Pebble Hill • Lunch provided, RSVP to mwilson@auburn.edu by Thursday, July 17
Language, Law, and Understanding Choctaw Sovereignty in the Eighteenth Century
This presentation looks to explain a moment of violent factionalism as an outgrowth of contested visions of Choctaw sovereignty in the mid-eighteenth century. Even though Choctaw clans and districts shared ideas of law and obligation, they nevertheless looked to push opposing foreign policies. These movements therefore challenged foundational aspects of Choctaw culture and society. By using Chahta anumpa (choctaw language), we can better understand the priorities of these emerging political factions in the eighteenth century as, perhaps, our own divided times today.