Save the dates for next school year’s Shoemaker Lectures! We are thrilled to welcome to campus the following visiting lecturers:
Michael Twitty
November 14, 2024 at 7:30 p.m.
Barton-Test Theater
From November 13 – 15, 2024, world-renowned author, speaker, and culinary historian Michael Twitty will visit Westtown. During that time, he will visit classrooms and meet with students. He will present a Shoemaker Lecture on Thursday, November 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the Barton-Test Theater.
Michael W. Twitty is a culinary historian and food writer living in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
He blogs at Afroculinaria.com and has appeared on Bizarre Foods America with Andrew Zimmern,
Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, and most recently Taste the Nation with Top Chef’s
Padma Lakshmi.
HarperCollins released Twitty’s The Cooking Gene in 2017, tracing his ancestry through food from
Africa to America and from slavery to freedom, a finalist for The Kirkus Prize and The Art of Eating
Prize, and a 3rd place winner of Barnes & Noble’s Discover New Writers Awards in Nonfiction.
The Cooking Gene won the 2018 James Beard Award for best writing as well as book of the year,
making him the first Black author so awarded. His piece on visiting Ghana in Bon Appetit was
included in Best Food Writing in 2019 and was nominated for a 2019 James Beard Award.
His next book, Rice, a New York Times noted cookbook, became available through UNC Press in
2021.
Kosher Soul, his follow-up to The Cooking Gene, was published in August 2022 through
HarperCollins and received the 2022 National Jewish Book Award.
Tyriek White
February 24, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
Barton-Test Theater
In February, award-winning novelist, musician, and educator Tyriek White will come to Westtown. He will be visiting classes and and spending time with students. He will present a Shoemaker Lecture on Monday, February 24, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. in the Barton-Test Theater.
Tyriek Rashawn White is a writer, musician, and educator from Brooklyn, NY. He is the author of the novel, We Are a Haunting (Astra House, 2023) which won the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, was a finalist for the Gotham Book Prize, and was longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize. He was named a 2024 National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” Honoree and has received fellowships from Callaloo Writing Workshop, New York State Writer’s Institute, and Key West Literary Seminar, among other honors. He is currently the media director of Lampblack Literary Foundation, which seeks to provide mutual aid and various resources to Black writers across the diaspora. He holds a degree in Creative Writing and Africana Studies from Pitzer College and most recently earned an MFA from the University of Mississippi.
