Our Response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

As a precaution to help limit the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) and care for our community, Just Buffalo Literary Center has postponed a number of events, and we will follow the guidance of Buffalo Public Schools in terms of Just Buffalo Writing Center programming.

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James McBride - BABEL - Just Buffalo

BABEL: James McBride

Join Just Buffalo Literary Center for an evening with bestselling author, musician, and screenwriter James McBride.

***TICKETS ON SALE SEPTEMBER 10, 2024 @ 10:00 A.M.***

In-Person Tickets Virtual Tickets

View the Digital Program

Tickets

Individual BABEL event tickets include a ticket for in-person attendance at Kleinhans Music Hall, as well as a virtual link to view from home via Livestream. All tickets will be issued via the Kleinhans/BPO website for the 2025–2025 season.

  • General Admission: $40 each
  • General Admission with Library Card: $35 each
  • VIP Patron: $100 each (includes catered pre-event reception attended by the featured author and preferred seating)
  • Student: $10 each (must present a valid Student ID at events)

NOTE: Currently, proof of COVID-19 vaccination is not required for entry to BABEL events. We will continue to monitor health & safety recommendations and communicate any changes or updates to ticketholders as necessary. Please note that we are unable to provide refunds for tickets.

Planning on Watching from Home?

  • If you choose to watch from home instead of attending in-person, the virtual link will be sent to you from babel@justbuffalo.org.
  • You must be signed up for the Just Buffalo Newsletter in order to receive the virtual link. (To sign up, use the form in the footer of the website.)
  • Click here to purchase VIRTUAL ONLY TICKETS
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Date

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Time

Doors & VIP Patron Receptions at 7:00 p.m. | Events at 8:00 p.m.
8:00 pm

More Info

GET TICKETS

Location

Kleinhans Music Hall & Online
3 Symphony Circle, Buffalo, NY 14201 (Free Parking) / Online via Livestream

Organizer

Just Buffalo Literary Center
Just Buffalo Literary Center
Phone
(716) 832-5400
Email
info@justbuffalo.org
GET TICKETS

Featured Artist

  • James McBride
    James McBride
    Writer, Composer, & Musician

    JAMES McBRIDE is a New York Times bestselling author, musician, and screenwriter. His landmark memoir, The Color of Water, rested on the NYT bestseller list for two years and explored McBride’s search for identity as the son of a white Jewish woman and a black man. It is considered an American classic and is read in schools and universities across the United States. His debut novel, Miracle at St. Anna, was translated into a major motion picture, directed by American film icon Spike Lee. It was released by Disney/Touchstone in September 2008. James wrote the script for Miracle at St. Anna and co-wrote Spike Lee’s 2012 Red Hook Summer. His novel, Song Yet Sung, was released in paperback in January 2009. His novel The Good Lord Bird about American revolutionary John Brown is the winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, and has been adapted by Ethan Hawke and Jason Blum into a Showtime series bearing the same name. His 2020 novel Deacon King Kong tells the story of a 1969 shooting in Brooklyn and the strange intersections of the lives of the characters involved in the shooting. Deacon King Kong was a NYT bestseller, winner of the National Book Award, and named a favorite book of the year by both Oprah Winfrey and President Barack Obama.

    McBride’s latest novel, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, tells the story of small-town secrets and the people who keep them. McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store was a runaway NYT bestseller and was named Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, TIME Magazine, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

    James is also a former staff writer for The Boston Globe, People Magazine, and The Washington Post. His work has appeared in Essence, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. His April 2007 National Geographic story entitled “Hip Hop Planet” is considered a respected treatise on African American music and culture.

    James toured as a saxophonist sideman with jazz legend Jimmy Scott, among others. He has also written songs (music and lyrics) for Anita Baker, Grover Washington Jr., Purafe, Gary Burton, and even for the PBS television character “Barney.” (He did not write the “I Love You” song for “Barney,” but wishes he did.) He received the Stephen Sondheim Award and the Richard Rodgers Foundation Horizon Award for his musical Bo-Bos, co-written with playwright Ed Shockley. His 2003 “Riffin’ and Pontificatin’” Musical Tour was captured in a nationally televised Comcast documentary. He has been featured on national radio and television in America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. He often does his readings accompanied by a band.

    James is a native New Yorker and a graduate of New York City public schools. He studied composition at The Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, and received his Masters in Journalism from Columbia University in New York at age 22. He holds several honorary doctorates and is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.

    In the fall of 2016, President Barack Obama awarded McBride the 2015 National Humanities Medal “… for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America. Through writings about his own uniquely American story, and his works of fiction informed by our shared history, his moving stories of love display the character of the American family.”

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