Joyce Carol Thomas | National Book Award Winning Author of 'Marked by Fire'

At 3pm EST, National Book Award-winning author, Joyce Carol Thomas, will join the show to talk about her newest children's book, 'I Have Heard of a Land,' a book inspired by her family's westward journey across America. Joyce has recently been awarded Oklahoma's Lifetime Achievement Award and has been inducted into the Oklahoma Writer's Hall of Fame. She began publishing in the early 1970s. In 1976, she also began creating dramatic works, and four of her plays were produced in San Francisco and Berkeley during the late 1970s. Her early work is notable for its joyful, celebratory tone. Although she acknowledges the hardships in African-American lives, and the discrimination and poverty that have produced them, she refuses to respond with anger or despair. Instead, Joyce summons joy and resilience in the face of obstacles, and notices beauty and kindness even in the most miserable circumstances.