Zora Neale Hurston

The new book "Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy From Slavery to Hip-Hop," by Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen, explores the history of minstrelsy, dissecting how it became the most popular form of American entertainment before vaudeville and identifying how...

The Library of Congress' list of 88 books that shaped America includes poetry, novels, nonfiction, a play, a polemic, books of science and grammar, cookbooks and children's books. What's it missing?...

Eatonville is the childhood home of author Zora Neale Hurston and was the first incorporated African-American community in the nation. This year’s Zora Neale Hurston festival in Eatonville will include a tour of the gardens and yards of the small...

Watching "Gleam" at Center Stage is like visiting a distant era that actually wasn't all that long ago. This play takes place between 1903 and 1928 in a rural Florida town. Its residents' customs and speech patterns seem closer to 19th-century...

1 Melanin, the pigment that gives color to skin (and eyes) is produced in cells called melanocytes. Every person has about the same number of these cells, regardless of race, but those with darker skin have larger cells that produce more pigment....

This week's book coverage includes Emily Bernard's book on Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance, Thomas Mallon's novel on Watergate and a remembrance of poet Wislawa Szymborska...

From the perennial Shrimp Festival to the newer Fernandina Film Festival, Amelia Island has a full slate of family-friendly events on the schedule for 2012. Here's a look: Amelia Island Book Festival: February 17-19 With two full days of programs, socials...

I make books. That's what I do. I made my first book about 17 years ago, a feat I consider a miracle. On a whim I took a class on making cased-in books with hard spines, and when I looked at the finished product I was astounded, as if I'd made a car with...

Author and folklorist Stetson Kennedy, who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan six decades ago and exposed its secrets but decades later was criticized for appearing to exaggerate his exploits, died Saturday at a medical center near St. Augustine, Fla. He was...

When George C. Wolfe's "Spunk" was first staged at New York's Public Theater in 1990, it was greeted as a kind of rediscovery of the fiction of Zora Neale Hurston, the author of the 1937 novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God," who fell out of popular...

To evoke a person's soul, sometimes even the best words must give way to music, as shown in the world premiere of "Zora! We're Calling You!" Saturday night. The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra debuted "Zora! We're Calling You," a commissioned work that...

Tod Caviness here, counting the minutes until a short vacation to Boston for the National Poetry Slam. I'll bring you all back a little something from Boston Market. Received a letter a couple weeks back from Rollins College professor Maurice O'Sullivan...