Bauder Lecture Series
The 2025 Bauder Lecture, featuring Safia Elhillo
Thursday, September 18, 2025
Safia Elhillo, distinguished, bestselling author of Bright Red Fruit, will deliver the keynote at the 5th annual Bauder Lecture. Following her address, Elhillo will be joined by celeste doaks—editor, journalist, and author of Cornrows and Cornfields—for an in-depth conversation. A book signing will follow the lecture in the lobby of the Horowitz Center.
Join us for either session of this free, public lecture series—offered twice for your convenience.
12:30 p.m. (Hybrid Lecture)
Howard Community College, Monteabaro Recital Hall in the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center (HVPA) and streamed via Vimeo
The hybrid event will include sign-language interpretation for patrons joining us in person, and live captioning for patrons streaming via Vimeo.
View the Lecture on Vimeo
6:00 p.m. (In-Person Lecture)
Howard Community College, Monteabaro Recital Hall in the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center (HVPA)
The in-person event will offer sign-language interpretation.
HCC employees can register for PD credit using course number #13432 in PowerSchool.
In this gripping novel in verse, teenager Samira is determined to spend her summer exploring DC and growing as a poet—but a scandalous rumor leaves her grounded and vulnerable. Seeking solace online, she’s drawn into a secret relationship with an older poet that threatens her reputation, her community ties, and her dreams. Bright Red Fruit is a powerful coming-of-age story about navigating desire, family expectations, and the search for self.
Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, Safia Elhillo is the author of the books The January Children, Girls That Never Die, Home Is Not A Country, and Bright Red Fruit. Elhillo’s work appears in Poetry Magazine, Callaloo, and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day series, among others, and in anthologies including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop and The Penguin Book of Migration Literature. With Fatimah Asghar, she is co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket Books, 2019), which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in 2020. Her fellowships include a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, Cave Canem, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University. Elhillo received the 2015 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and was listed in Forbes Africa’s 2018 “30 Under 30.” Her work has been translated into several languages, and commissioned by Under Armour, Cuyana, and the Bavarian State Ballet. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
celeste doaks is the author of "Cornrows and Cornfields", and editor of the poetry anthology "Not Without Our Laughter". Her chapbook, "American Herstory", was Backbone Press’s first-place winner in 2018. "Herstory" contains poems—which have been featured at the Whitney Museum of American art, Brooklyn Museum, and most recently the Smithsonian American Art Museum— about the artwork former First Lady Michelle Obama chose for the White House. Doaks is a Carolina African American Writers’ Collective (CAAWC) member and has received fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Atlantic Center of the Arts, Community of Writers Squaw Valley, and the Fine Arts Work Center. Doaks is a three-time Pushcart award nominee and a creative writing professor for over a decade. Her poems, reviews, and cultural essays have appeared in multiple US and UK on-line and print publications including "Ms. Magazine", "The Rumpus", "The Millions", "Huffington Post", "Chicago Quarterly Review", "Obsidian: Literature and Arts in the African Diaspora", "The Hopkins Review, Bmore Art Magazine", "Asheville Poetry Review" and many others.
The Bauder Lecture by Howard Community College is made possible by a generous grant from Dr. Lillian Bauder, a community leader and Columbia resident. Howard Community College will present an annual endowed author lecture known as The Bauder Lecture, and the chosen book will be celebrated with two student awards. Known as the Don Bauder Awards, any Howard Community College student who has read the featured book is eligible to respond and reflect on the book in an essay or other creative format. The awards honor the memory of Don Bauder, late husband of Dr. Lillian Bauder and a champion of civil rights and social justice causes. Visit the Don Bauder Student Awards portal page for more information and to apply.
“Bright Red Fruit” was selected by the Howard County Book Connection committee as its choice for the 2025–2026 academic year. The Howard County Book Connection is a partnership of Howard Community College and the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo). Visit the Howard County Book Connection web page for additional information.
In partnership with the Howard County Library System.
