Wallace State Welcomes Pulitzer-Prize Nominated Journalists for Virtual Common Read Event on April 20

HANCEVILLE, Ala.--Wallace State Community College will a hold a Virtual Common Read event on Tuesday, April 20, featuring Pulitzer Prize-nominated authors Waveney Ann Moore and Ben Montgomery. They were nominated for their work "For Their Own Good," a series about the abuse which occurred at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla. This year's Common Read book, "The Nickel Boys" by Colston Whitehead, is based on the story of the Dozier School. Ben Montgomery will return at 2:30 p.m. for a discussion about his book "A Shot in the Moonlight."

Guests are invited to attend the sessions, which can be accessed here:

Link for 11 a.m. meeting: http://bit.ly/CR-VirtualMeeting

Link for 2:30 p.m. meeting: http://bit.ly/CR-Montgomery

“The Common Read Committee is excited to host esteemed journalists, Ms. Waveney Ann Moore and Mr. Ben Montgomery. Seth Terrell, English Instructor and WSCC Common Read Committee Member, will serve as our facilitator for this event,,“ said Dr. Aletta Williamson, chair of the Common Read Committee.  “We will have a question and answer session after hearing from our guests. This will be a phenomenal learning experience for students and a fantastic professional development opportunity for professionals. The event is open to the public. We are looking forward to having all of our Wallace State family, friends, and community join us on April 20th.”

In conjunction with this event, The Evelyn Burrow Museum is hosting an exhibition of the photography of Pulitzer Prize-nominated photojournalist Edmund Fountain, which he captured for the “For Their Own Good” series.  This exhibition will be on view in the Burrow Museum’s exhibit hall through mid-summer.

Waveney Ann Moore recently retired from the Tampa Bay Times after almost 24 years. She has been writing professionally since 1981, starting her journalism career at the Kansas City Star. Before joining the Tampa Bay Times – then the St. Petersburg Times – she spent eight years writing and editing trade magazines for the specialty food market. Her work took her to Europe and across the nation. 

She was also a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer as part of a team that covered the downfall of the Rev. Henry Lyons, former head of the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. Waveney Ann currently writes a weekly column on equity issues for the St. Petersburg Catalyst, an online publication. She was born in Guyana and is a naturalized American citizen. 

Ben Montgomery is author of the New York Times-bestselling 'Grandma Gatewood's Walk,' winner of a 2014 Outdoor Book Award, 'The Leper Spy,' 'The Man Who Walked Backward,' and 'A Shot in the Moonlight," released earlier this year. He spent most of his 20-year newspaper career as an enterprise reporter for the Tampa Bay Times and now writes for Axios. He founded the narrative journalism website Gangrey.com and helped launch the Auburn Chautauqua, a Southern writers collective.

Montgomery grew up in Oklahoma and studied journalism at Arkansas Tech University, where he played defensive back for the football team, the Wonder Boys. He worked for the Courier in Russellville, Ark., the Standard-Times in San Angelo, Texas, the Times Herald-Record in New York's Hudson River Valley and the Tampa Tribune before joining the Times in 2006. He lives in Tampa.

In addition to earning a Pulitzer Prize nomination the “For Their Own Good” series in 2010, the trio also won the Dart Award for covering trauma, the Casey Medal for exemplary reporting on children and families, and first place for non-deadline reporting in the 2009 Green Eyeshade competition run by the Society of Professional Journalists for this series. 

For more information about Wallace State’s Common Read, or Community College Month events and activities happening this month, visit www.wallacestate.edu.