Dear VA-HIST members: I would like to invite you to the next in the Library's noon book talks. On Wednesday, January 22, 2003, Dianne Swann-Wright will speak on her book A Way out of No Way: Claiming Family and Freedom in the New South published by the University of Virginia Press. Dr. Swann-Wright is Director of African American and Special Programs and Project Historian for the Getting Word oral history program at Monticello. An African American folk saying declares, "Our God can make a way out of no way. . . . He can do anything but fail." When Dianne Swann-Wright set out to capture and relate the history of her ancestors-African Americans in central Virginia after the Civil War-she had to find that way, just as her people had done in creating a new life after emancipation. Looking at relations between plantation owners and their slaves and the succeeding generations of both, A Way out of No Way explores what it meant for the master-slave relation to change to one of employer and employee and how patronage, work relationships, and land acquisition evolved as the people of Piedmont Virginia entered the twentieth century. Dr. Swann-Wright's book will be available in the Library Shop and a book signing in the lobby will follow the lecture. Gregg D. Kimball Director of Publications and Educational Services Library of Virginia 804/692-3722 [log in to unmask] To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html