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Author and D.C. Publishing Industry Examiner to speak on interracial relationships
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Local author Wendy Coakley-Thompson will give a speech in Minnesota about interracial relationships.
Local author, speaker and D.C. Publishing Industry Examiner Wendy Coakley-Thompson will be delivering a keynote address on interracial relationships at the Nov. 7 Our Story Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minn.
Coakley-Thompson knows a thing or two about the topic: With a biracial grandmother and born to West Indian parents in Brooklyn, N.Y. and raised in the Bahamas, Coakley-Thompson has devoted her writing and public speaking engagements on race relations, interracial marriage, multiculturalism and racism. Her 2005 debut novel "Back to Life" (Kensington) centers around a relationship between an Italian-American man and a black woman; and in "What You Won't Do For Love" (Dafina), the protagonist discovers how falling for a much younger, half-black, half-Korean man has its pros and cons
"I hope to rely on my personal experiences, anecdotal evidence, and the lessons of history to illustrate the joy and heartbreak of loving across racial lines and cultural barriers," Coakley-Thompson said about the speech in Minnesota. "In the final analysis, people who fall back on rigid social constraints when seeking relationships only do themselves a disservice. It's time that we all start focusing on how much we are alike, rather than how different we are."
Coakley-Thompson will deliver her keynote address 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Alumni Hall in the O.J. Johnson Student Union. In addition to her speech, there will be various workshops and discussions on the myths of interracial dating and other activities, including a dating game show.
To learn more about the Our Story Conference and its full schedule, visit Gustavus Web site or contact Kareen Getfield via e-mail.
For more info: Wendy Coakley-Thompson is also a contributing editor of the anthology "How We Love: Letters and Lessons for the Next Generation." She has written for music and fashion/lifestyle magazines in New Jersey and the Bahamas. Coakley-Thompson also co-hosted The Book Squad, and she earned an Associated Press/Chesapeake Award for her work as a commentator for Metro Connection on WAMU. She also writes for Blogging in Black.
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