English Department to host reading and conversation with author Robert Lashley on Oct. 24
On Tuesday, Oct. 24 at 6 p.m. in Bond Hall 105, the English Department at Western Washington University will host a reading and conversation with Bellingham-based author and poet Robert Lashley, discussing his debut novel, "I Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer."
This event is free and open to the public.
Set in Lashley’s hometown of Tacoma, "I Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer" examines racism, activism, and gentrification while presenting a rich parable on questions of grace, and a dynamic portrait of Pacific Northwest Black communities. Exploring the form of the protest novel while challenging the genre’s conventions, I Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer is a compassionate work contrasting campus satire with an ode to the working-class culture of a Black beauty shop.
The book was praised by Alvin L.A. Horn, NAACP Image Award Nominee and Essence Magazine best-selling author, who stated “Robert Lashley pens a bottomless soul. Once you open this book, Robert grabs your attention and chains greatness between each line, each chapter in an unfettered rawness that allows us to see beyond our imagination.”
Robert Lashley has previously earned praise for his poetry collections, Green River Valley (Blue Cactus Press, 2021), Up South (Small Doggies Press, 2017), and The Homeboy Songs (Small Doggies Press, 2014). In 2019, The Homeboy Songs was named by Entropy Magazine as one of the 25 most essential books to come out of the Seattle area.
Robert Lashley’s writing has earned him a nomination for a Stranger Genius Award. He was also a Jack Straw Fellow and an Artist Trust Fellow in 2016. His writing has been published in The Seattle Review of Books, NAILED, Poetry Northwest, McSweeney’s, and The Cascadia Review.
Robert Lashley will be joined at this event by Professor of English Alassane Abdoulaye Dia, the chair of the English Department at Université Numérique Cheikh Hamidou Kane University in Dakar, Senegal. He specializes in African-American literature and is the author of The Power of Peace and Love: An African Tale of Wisdom (Goldline & Jacobs 2020) and The Voice of the Tradition in the African Novel (Goldline & Jacobs 2015). Professor Dia is a visiting faculty member in WWU’s English Department.
To request a review copy of I Never Dreamed You’d Leave In Summer, or to get more information about the book and/or author, please contact marena@demersalpublishing.com.