Community Conversations are a partnership between the Rock Island Public Library and the Midwest Writing Center, featuring a look at important issues to the community through the lenses of reading, writing, and discussion.

Community Conversations #1 – featuring Shellie Moore Guy, author of HOW LITTLE BILLY LEARNED TO PLAY

This event will feature storyteller, performance artist, and former Poet Laureate of the Quad Cities Shellie Moore Guy, who will read from and discuss her new children’s book HOW LITTLE BILLY LEARNED TO PLAY, which tells a fictionalized story of local music legend William “Bill” Bell (1936-2017) and how he learned to play music with the help of his family and friends in the community. Moore will be joined by friends in conversqation about the book’s connections to local cultural, musical, and community history.

Shellie Moore Guy will be joined by:

-Reggie Freeman, mayor of East Moline and nephew of Esther Clark
-Marshall Pass, illustrator
-Nate Lawrence, director of Polyrhythms and East Moline/Watertown native
-Ava Frazier, niece of Bill Bell and East Moline native

Rock Island Public Library – Downtown Branch (401 19th St.)
Community Room, 2nd Floor

Doors – 5:30 p.m.
Event – 6:00-7:00 p.m.
Q & A – 7:00-7:30 p.m.

Copies of the books will be available to purchase. Event is free & open to the public.

Bio:
Shellie Moore Guy is a storyteller, performance artist, published poet and former Poet Laureate of the Quad Cities who uses self-expression as a tool for individual and community empowerment.

A lifelong resident of Rock Island, Illinois, her work as an artist, community activist, and advocate has blended art, activism and education in many areas. She is the director and founder of Ebony Expressions Dinner and Book Discussions, which encourages adult reading and community fellowship, Healing Waters, an organization that uses artistic monologues of domestic violence survivors to encourage individual and community awareness and healing, as well as Polyrhythms, a grassroots, non-profit community and cultural arts advocacy organization.

Her book of poetry, “Remembering Melodies: A Thank You Note,” examines and celebrates family and community. Her one-woman shows include: “Roots Survive” and “I Have Come to Testify, Can I Get A Witness,” performances that are designed to teach, uplift and transform.

Shellie also created Tribal Team Poetry and Black Art Collage to encourage high school and college students to express themselves through poetry and visual art. She is currently working on additional stories for children, including one based on her own family’s early history.

Community Conversations #2 – featuring Devin Hansen, author of “Guts: The Lane Evans Story”

This event will feature author Devin Hansen, who spent more than 10 years working on a biography about long-time US Rep. Lane Evans. The book — “Guts: The Lane Evans Story” — was recently published by Strong Arm Press, and Hansen will lead a conversation about Evans, his legacy (locally and regionally), and will use the book, and Evans’ career, as prisms to consider the sea changes in political life over the last 2-3 decades, from the local to the national, looking ahead to the 2020 election coming in almost exactly a year.

Panelists will include:

-James Larrabee, Political Science Professor at Black Hawk College

-Jim Mertens, Journalist and TV personality

-Dora Villareal, Rock Island County State’s Attorney

Rock Island Public Library – Downtown Branch (401 19th St.) Community Room, 2nd Floor

Doors – 5:30 p.m.
Event – 6:00-7:00 p.m.
Q & A – 7:00-7:30 p.m.

Copies of the books will be available to purchase. Event is free & open to the public.

Bio: Devin Hansen is a former journalist and author of two books, including “Guts: The Lane Evans Story” (Strong Arm Press, 2019) and “Sponsored By…” with the help of the Midwest Writing Center. Devin studied writing at Illinois State University. His fiction has appeared in several small press magazines, and he has had two plays professionally produced. His personal blog is inhumanimal.com.

These events is made possible in part thanks to the generous support of the Illinois Arts Council Agency.