The American Writers Museum

Get ready to turn the page on your next great read at The Great Big Book Swap at the American Writers Museum!
Join your fellow book lovers and refresh your bookshelf at the Great Big Book Swap! Bring in your gently used books and leave with some new-to-you books! Books can be of any genre and at any reading level. The
Books for donation can be dropped off at the museum's front desk during open hours beginning Thursday, September 17. Any books remaining after the swap will be donated to our nonprofit partners across the city.
Come swap, explore, and discover your next chapter at the Great Big Book Swap!

The Great Big Book Swap is part of the American Writers Museum's monthly free day progamming. Enjoy free admission to the American Writers Museum on the third Sunday of each month from 10:00 am 5:00 pm! Free admission grants you access to all our exhibits, including our special exhibit American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture. Advanced registration recommended but not required.
Interested in sponsoring a free day? Click here to explore how you or your company can help everyone enjoy the American Writers Museum. Free Day sponsors enjoy many benefits, including name recognition throughout the museum and on marketing materials, a private meeting area for your use, discounts on future museum rentals, and more!

Author Talk: "Migrant Heart" by Reyna Grande (In-person)
Join us for an illuminating conversation at the AWM with writers Reyna Grande and Erika L. Sánchez. The two bestselling authors sit down to discuss Grande’s new book Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I Can’t Forget, an ambitious memoir in essays that illuminates the hidden cost of the American Dream and the complex journey of healing that follows survival. Books will be available for purchase and Grande will sign them following the program.
This is an in person program at the American Writers Museum. This program will also be livestreamed, and you can register for the link to the online broadcast here.

Join us for an illuminating conversation at the AWM with writers Reyna Grande and Erika L. Sánchez. The two bestselling authors sit down to discuss Grande’s new book Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I Can’t Forget, an ambitious memoir in essays that illuminates the hidden cost of the American Dream and the complex journey of healing that follows survival.
This is the livestream of an in person program at the American Writers Museum. When you register for this event, you will receive access to the livestream link. If you would like to attend the program in person at the AWM, get your tickets here.

More about Migrant Heart:
What is the true power of stories? Can they heal the jagged edges of a traumatic childhood? Is the cost of telling the story worth the price of the cure?
Reyna Grande has spent her career capturing the raw reality of life across borders. In this intricate and deeply intimate memoir-in-essays, the author of the landmark memoirs The Distance Between Us and A Dream Called Home again turns her gaze inward to explore the scars left by migration and the ongoing work of stitching herself back together.
With her signature blend of sophistication and raw honesty, Grande interrogates how living between two nations, two languages, and two identities has shaped the woman, mother, and writer she has become. Moving from the legacy of violence in her hometown of Iguala, Mexico, to a bittersweet family vacation in Europe spent reconciling her own impoverished past with her children’s world of abundance, she uncovers startling truths about the nature of survival.
Whether being racially profiled in the Arizona borderlands or finding unexpected wisdom from the slugs in her garden, Grande unflinchingly asks: How do we bridge the gap between who we were and who we have become? How do we turn pain into power? When memory threatens to define us, how can we use story to heal while still honoring our boundaries?
Migrant Heart is a powerful testament to Grande’s role as a storyteller and cultural witness. It expands our understanding of life in the United States and the complex people who cross and live within its borders. It is an essential read for the seekers, the dreamers, and anyone who believes in the enduring, transformative power of finding one’s voice.
Praise for Migrant Heart:
“Migrant Heart is the exact book I needed during this tumultuous time. These essays should be taught across the country. Reyna’s stories of surviving and thriving as a Brown woman in the United States are seamlessly told through her sharp, vibrant prose. This is a book I will return to again and again.” —Erika L. Sánchez, New York Times bestselling author of I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and Crying in the Bathroom
“With heart and verve, and her own particular candor, so warm like a sun, Reyna Grande writes about writing, memory, the Ayotzinapa 43, the cruelties of the border, menopause, slug sex, and queen bees. I love Reyna’s way of seeing the world. These essays are heart-big.” —Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Man Who Could Move Clouds
“Migrant Heart is deep, gorgeous, and full of unexpected chambers that will by turns unsettle you, infuriate you, comfort you, and, if you let them, heal you. And while much darkness lies in many of these essays—of human nature, of life, of our nation—ultimately, they are illuminated with love.” —Xóchitl González, Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming

This is an in person program at the American Writers Museum. This program will also be livestreamed, and you can register for the link to the online broadcast here.
This program is presented in conjunction with the AWM’s special exhibit American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture, a powerful new exhibit that takes you on the ultimate exploration through spirituality and storytelling. American Prophets is supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. through its Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative.

More about The Platinum Age of Gospel:
Gospel music is the soundtrack of Black Christian history, a soulful expression of faith, endurance, and hope. From the mid-twentieth-century Golden Age of gospel—when artists like Mahalia Jackson and Clara Ward helped make church music a national force—to today, gospel has evolved from images of energetic choirs belting and clapping in rhythm into a sound as innovative and pervasive as chart-topping pop.
Ethnomusicologist, minister, and gospel singer Charrise Barron calls 1993 to 2013 the Platinum Age of Gospel, when new artists and industry executives pushed gospel beyond the church and into a commercial, show-driven, crossover era. While traditional and early contemporary gospel arose from church life, Platinum Age gospel often emerged from outside it, stretching the boundaries of worship and religiosity and helping to reshape Black churches—especially megachurches—and what it means to be a Black Christian.
Crossover music and Christian entertainment transformed gospel and amplified shifts in Black Pentecostalism. Gospel came to encompass far more sounds than most people imagine—from the diverse and collaborative worship of Israel Houghton to the “sexy for Jesus” flare of Mary Mary; from Fred Hammond and CeCe Winans’s soaring praise to Kirk Franklin’s hip hop and R&B fusions and Kim Burrell’s velvety rasp and runs. Bridging Christian and secular audiences, these pioneers and their producers redrew the boundaries of the genre. The Platinum Age of Gospel calls readers to reckon with what changed—and to examine and preserve gospel’s soul.
Praise for The Platinum Age of Gospel:
“So much of today’s Black gospel is decidedly not our grandmothers’ gospel. In The Platinum Age of Gospel, Charrise Barron tells us why. With this important book, Barron illuminates the convergence of social, confessional, and commercial forces that have transformed gospel’s center of gravity, surrendering worship and resistance to the exigencies of the market. If you want to understand much of contemporary gospel music, you must read this book!”
—Braxton D. Shelley, author of An Eternal Pitch
“Charrise Barron has given us a courageous and vital book that traces gospel’s journey from a prophetic voice for justice to a powerful mainstream force. With clarity and conviction, she elucidates what is at stake if the music loses its original spirit of inspiration and empowerment. This is an urgent call to protect the soul of gospel, and it deserves to be heard.”
—Malcolm du Plessis, songwriter and founder of Common Hymnal
“The Platinum Age of Gospel is powerful, honest, and anointed. It will make you think about what we carry in the sound and what we must never lose as we move forward.”
—Dr. Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark
CHARRISE BARRON is a minister, a gospel artist, and Associate Professor of Music at Harvard University. A founding member of Chorale Le Chateau, in 2009 she performed at the Kennedy Center as part of President Barack Obama’s inaugural celebrations.