We’re very pleased to welcome to Skylark author Dolores Johnson, author of Say I'm Dead, A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets and Love. Say I’m Dead is the true story of family secrets, separation, courage, and transformation through five generations of interracial relationships. Fearful of prison time—or lynching—for violating Indiana’s antimiscegenation laws in the 1940s, E. Dolores Johnson’s black father and white mother fled Indianapolis to secretly marry in Buffalo, New York. When she was born, social norms and her government-issued birth certificate said she was Negro, nullifying her mother’s white blood in her identity. Later, as a Harvard-educated business executive feeling too far from her black roots, she searched her father’s black genealogy. In the process, Johnson suddenly realized that her mother’s whole white family was—and always had been—missing. When she began to pry, her mother’s 36-year-old secret spilled out. Her mother had simply vanished from Indiana, evading an FBI and police search that had ended with the conclusion that she had been the victim of foul play.

Dolores will be in conversation this evening with writer and memoirist Calvin Hennick. To register for this event (it’s free!), please click here.

Dolores Johnson is the daughter of a black father and white mother who married 25 years before the Supreme Court Loving decision that overturned anti-race mixing laws. Their family story is told in Say I'm Dead, A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets and Love. Her memoir has received a starred review from the American Library Association and won the 2020 Outstanding Literary Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. She has published essays on mixed race, racism and identity in Narratively, the Buffalo News, Hippocampus, Lunch Ticket and others. Johnson has consulted on diversity with colleges, corporations and non-profit boards. Ms. Johnson holds a BA from Howard University, an MBA from Harvard Business School and completed an MFA equivalent creative writing program. A former business executive, she also oversaw the digitization of John F. Kennedy’s papers at his Presidential Library. She has loved reading as long as she can remember.

Calvin Hennick’s debut memoir,  Once More to the Rodeo,  received the Pushcart Press Editors’ Book Award and was named one of the 100 Best Books of the Year by [redacted - some online retailer we’ve never heard of.] A journalist by training, he has written for dozens of publications, including The Boston Globe, Esquire, and Runner’s World, and has published fiction and essays in outlets including Bellevue Literary Review, Baltimore Review, and The Drum. Recently, he has funded his creative writing habit largely through corporate work, authoring white papers and blog posts for Fortune 500 companies, while also occasionally finagling fun travel assignments that have taken him to places like Italy, Costa Rica, Barbados, Antigua, and The  Wizarding  World of Harry Potter. He lives outside of Boston with his wife and two young children.