 About this Website |
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The Du Bois Center portrait logo of W.E.B. Du Bois was created by Michael McCurdy, the noted publisher, illustrator, and author.
While publishing Penmaen Press Books (1968-1985), Michael produced fine-press works by leading writers such as William Saroyan, Joyce Carol Oates, William Stafford, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Richard Eberhart, Maxine Kumin, Sándor Csoóri, Richard Wilbur, Anthony Hecht, X. J. Kennedy, and the Nobel Prize-winning poet Vicente Aleixandre.
Michael's own authored and illustrated books include Toward the Light, The Illustrated Harvard: Harvard University in Wood Engravings and Words, The Devils Who Learned to be Good; Hannah's Farm: The Seasons on an Early American Homestead, The Old Man and the Fiddle, and Trapped by the Ice: Shackleton's Amazing Antarctic Adventure. He edited and illustrated an abridged version of Frederick Douglass's first autobiography, renamed Escape from Slavery: The Boyhood of Frederick Douglass in His Own Words.
Michael's engravings for Howard Norman's The Owl-Scatterer and Ann Whitford Paul's The Seasons Sewn: The Year in Patchwork were recognized by the New York Times as one of the Ten Best Illustrated Children's Books of 1986 and 1996, respectively. He was chosen as a "Literary Light" by the Art Associates of the Boston Public Library in 2002.
Michael remains a dear friend of the Du Bois Center. This site was designed by Dr. John E. Myers, faculty in Arts and Aesthetics for Bard College at Simon's Rock, with input from many supporters of the Du Bois Center. |