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On Wed., March 14 @ 7:30 P.M., you might want to check out “The Gray Hair Reading Series” at Hallwalls. Authors Ansie Baird & Olga Karman will present. I was in a book club with Dr. Karman several years ago and had the good fortune of reading the manuscript of her book “Scatter My Ashes Over Havana” in one of its early drafts. It was a good read then, and I’m sure her presentation in March is going to be excellent.

Olga Karman—teacher, poet and memoirist—was born in Havana in 1940 of Cuban and American parents. She was a student at the University of Santo Tomás de Villanueva, a private Catholic institution in Havana, when Fidel Castro’s regime came to power in 1959. At first Olga sympathized with the aims of the revolution; she worked as a hospital volunteer tending Rebel Army soldiers who had been wounded in the fighting. But when Castro cancelled elections and established his autocracy, Olga decided to leave Cuba. In 1960 she moved to the United States to marry her American fiancé.

Living in rural Connecticut, and finding herself in a bad marriage, Olga gained her personal independence by enrolling at Connecticut College, from which she graduated in 1966 summa cum laude and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She entered Harvard University as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, earning her Ph.D. in Spanish language & literature. She moved to Buffalo and taught high school Spanish before landing a position at D’Youville College, where she has been a professor of Spanish language & literature for more than two decades. She also serves as the College’s Director of Community Affairs.

In 1997—after an exile of 37 years and a prolonged anguish over her Cuban identity—Olga made a momentous return visit to her native city of Havana. These experiences form the material for her memoir Scatter My Ashes Over Havana, which she composed over a period of seven years.

The book has been warmly received in Buffalo and elsewhere. In advance of Miami’s 2006 book fair—America’s premier literary festival—The Miami Herald accorded major coverage to Scatter My Ashes Over Havana and its author. In Buffalo, WBFO broadcaster Sarah Campbell said of Olga’s narrative: “Like the best writers of exile, she sees with the eye of the foreigner and the local simultaneously, a little like seeing an aerial view of the city from the ground.” On the book’s official publication date, Mayor Byron Brown proclaimed “Olga Karman Day” in the City of Buffalo, and U.S. Congressman Brian Higgins (D-NY) entered a tribute to Olga into the Congressional Record. Apart from Scatter My Ashes Over Havana, Olga has published two volumes of poetry. Her poems have also appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, and numerous anthologies. Her verse has been set in tile in Buffalo’s subway system, and she has a distinctive standing in the literary and civic life of her city. Olga has a grown daughter and son, and five grandsons.

The Gray Hair Poetry Series is programmed, organized, and introduced for Earth’s Daughters by ryki zuckerman.

The paper inside T3’s fortune cookie says “You always have the right answers, they just sometimes ask the wrong questions.”