John Edward Weidman

Author John Edward Weidman spoke to the Hofstra community, spending a majority of his time reading an excerpt from his latest, unpublished novel. The African-American, Pennsylvania native published over twenty books, with countless awards to demonstrate his credibility. A creative writing professor introduced the older author, stating how his realistic diction makes his writing approachable. One book she referenced was written in the perspective of an African-American male, who speaks as a true black teenager would. He writes in slang, making his voice realistic, something I took to be important for Weidman. After hearing the short excerpt from a published book, I was unsure what to expect when he began to speak. He spoke professionally and intelligently, like one would expect from an award winning author. His latest work, tentatively titled Fathers and Sons, uses his own style of voice to paint a vivid image of what life was like in 1955 for a controversial African American family. He began from the beginning, reading about the background of what becomes Louis Till's life. The book stresses racial inequality at the time, talking about the murder trial of Emmett Till. The young man was killed because he whistled at a white woman, and his killer was acquitted. The audience could hear the emotion in the authors voice, because as an African American man who was presumably alive during the mid 1950's, he was reading about a topic close to his heart.
Before Weidman began reading, he briefly talked about how he loved teaching. He spoke on the importance of teachers in his opinion, and said how he loves to share his opinions with others. Speaking to a group of about half faculty or staff, he called them heroes. I think Weidman writes in a more informal voice that people feel comfortable reading because he wants to teach his readers about what life once was life. The book he read from was what he called 'half fiction, half non-fiction.' He uses a realistic voice for his characters and for his story, making his story more credible. I often write in a very formal voice, using the same type of descriptions as Weidman does. I often laugh at people who write in the exact style they speak, but Weidman proved that you can be a fluent, intelligent speaker and successfully write in an informal tone.
One observation I made while the author spoke was about the number of African Americans in the room. Weidman attracted a relatively large crowd to his reading, some fans, others students. But I took notice of how few black men and women attend the reading. Hofstra is a pretty diverse school, and  knowing that Weidman is a black man himself and writes in a stereotypically 'black' voice, I was shocked to see how few African-Americans attended the event. Likely, there is no significance in this observation, but I only counted five in the entire room. I would venture to guess Weidman writes to inform primarily the minorities who were greatly effected by the racial inequalities during the civil rights movement. Overall, I enjoyed Weidman's presentation and the opportunity to hear a professional writer's work in the editing stages.