Hettie Jones's twenty-three books for children and adults include her memoir of the Beat scene, How I Became Hettie Jones; Drive, which won the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber Award; Big Star Fallin' Mama, Five Women in Black Music, honored by the New York Public Library; and No Woman No Cry, a memoir she authored for Bob Marley's widow, Rita. Jones has published fiction and poetry in journals such as The Village Voice, Global City Review, and Ploughshares, as well as two additional poetry collections, All Told and Doing 70. She is on the faculties of The New School's Graduate Writing Program and the 92Y Poetry Center.

Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr., Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania, is a music historian and pianist. He is the author of the book Race Music: Black Cultures from BeBop to Hip-Hop (2003) and the cd Y the Q? (2007) with his band Dr. Guy's MusiQology.

A reception will immediately follow. Co-presented by the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University and the Friends of the Columbia Libraries. For more information regarding this event or to attend, please respond to cul-events@columbia.edu. To view a listing of events, visit: http://alumni-friends.library.columbia.edu