Community Partner Event: Write On Door County presents Naomi Shihab Nye Reading

Date: Thursday, March 23, 2017

Write On, Door County is proud to present critically-acclaimed and internationally renowned poet Naomi Shihab Nye in a special appearance. Known for poetry that lends a fresh perspective to ordinary events, people, and objects, Nye has said that, for her, “the primary source of poetry has always been local life, random characters met on the streets, our own ancestry sifting down to us through small essential daily tasks.”

Naomi Shihab Nye grew up in Ferguson, Mo., Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she continues to live. She has been a visiting writer in hundreds of schools and communities all over the world for 42 years, and has written or edited around 35 books including collections of poetry, novels for teens, picture books, essays, very short fictional stories, anthologies of poetry, etc. Some of her books, such as Sitti’s Secrets, Habibi, This Same Sky, and The Tree is Older than You Are: Poems & Paintings from Mexico (bilingual) have been in print more than 20 years.

As a children’s writer, Nye is acclaimed for her sensitivity and cultural awareness. Nye sees her writing for children as part of her larger goals as a writer. As Nye explained to a Children’s Literature Review contributor, “to counteract negative images conveyed by blazing headlines, writers must steadily transmit simple stories closer to heart and more common to everyday life. Then we will be doing our job.”