New York Times bestselling author Alice Randall will give the first Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Dean’s Diversity Lecture for 2020-2021 on Thursday, Sept. 10, noon-1 p.m. CST via videoconference.
Randall, professor and writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University, will present “A Novel Approach to Building Your Anti-Racism Toolkit and Self-Care in a Time of Reckoning.” The live online event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
“As a writer, Alice Randall makes connections that others might not—for example, the connection between health and fiction,” said Dean Linda D. Norman, DSN, RN, FAAN, Valere Potter Menefee Professor of Nursing. “As nurses and educators of nurses, we are called to advocate for social justice and equity. We are called to be compassionate and empathic. Alice will explore how reading fiction can expand those traits and empower nurses to speak out for their patients and communities.”
“The Black Lives Matter movement and protests over George Floyd’s death and those of other people of color have galvanized people to confront systemic racism and social injustice,” she said. “Alice’s anti-racism toolkit will help equip our students, faculty, staff and others to address these deep issues and fight for social changes that will improve the health of our patients and communities.”
In addition to being a novelist, Randall is an award-winning songwriter, nonfiction author, cookbook and children’s book author, and food activist. Her work using fiction in the service of health has been recognized by the National Institute of Health. Known for talks weaving history, literature and wisdom, she has spoken on national television, in libraries, museums and auditoriums, and in such unlikely places as graveyards and while marching with students across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Randall is widely recognized as one of the most significant voices in 21st century African-American fiction. Her current novel, Black Bottom Saints, has been chosen as a must-read book by Oprah Magazine, Amazon, and The Washington Post.