- The ninth annual African-American Family Book Expo takes place on Saturday, February 22nd in Highland Park.

This Black History Month event is presented by Detroit Book City Bookstore.

And the goal is to promote literacy in Metro Detroit and to highlight books by African-American authors.

Here to give us all the details is Janice Haynes.

She's the owner of Detroit Book City, along with one of the event's featured authors, Kelly Duran-Jones.

Welcome both of you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- To "American Black Journal."

It's been a long time, right?

- It's been a couple years, yes, absolutely.

- So you first did this in 2017.

- 2017.

- This is the ninth year.

- This is the ninth year.

- That's a pivotal year, right?

You're getting into that decade space.

Let's talk about this event and why it's important.

- Why is it important?

It's important because we need to have access to our books.

- Yeah, yeah.

- During this, in our ninth year, it is crucial that we have access to our books.

Like you said, we've been doing it since 2017, and our goal is to preserve, sustain, and ensure that our people and other people know about our experiences and our histories through the book.

It's important that we have families come out.

We take our kids to the zoo.

We take our kids to Cedar Point, the movies, but we don't frequently take them to book fairs because at first there weren't any black book fairs.

Well, guess what?

Now the book fairs are in town.

And we highly recommend that they bring their children out to make books become a lifestyle.

It needs to become a lifestyle because we learn so much through them.

We can learn how to solve problems.

We can learn how to handle conflict.

We may learn about romance.

It's unlimited.

- Right, right.

The thing I remember about books as a kid was that it allowed me to experience things that I couldn't experience in real life, right?

To imagine all kinds of places and things that weren't right there.

- Yeah, and then when you say back then, there weren't any books out there back then with characters that look like us.

- Well, that's right.

Not a lot of them, right?

- Not very few at all.

Jack and Jill when I was a kid, you know, Sounder.

But there weren't any books with positive images of children as protagonists and as leaders.

You know, we didn't have those books that taught our kids self-esteem.

- Right, right.

- You know, we didn't have a lot.

We had history books, but they all depicted negative images of African-Americans and black people back then.

So today, there are so many fantastic books out here that will teach self-esteem, that will encourage kids to learn how to solve problems.

And there are adult books out here too.

All genres, all across the board, you know?

So as a bookstore, you know, we do a lot of other things too, but we make sure that we have this book fair three or four times a year.

Because we want our people and other cultures to have access to our books, to our stories, through our lenses.

So that's why we do this book fair.

And it's free, open to the public.

Authors, they sign up.

We host between 30 to 60 authors.

At this particular event, we have 34 authors, and 15 of them are children books authors.

- There you go.

- So bring the kids out, get them excited.

You know, get the joy going about reading.

- Get them into reading.

- Yeah, life is, you know, books are life on paper.

You know, and that's our history.

- Yeah, yeah.

Speaking of authors, we have one of them here with us.

Kelly Duran-Jones.

Talk about the work that you do.

You write children's books among other books as well.

But talk about how you got into it, and I guess what you're aiming to accomplish with the storytelling that you're doing.

- Yeah, so I've been riding along with the Detroit Book City for at least five years.

And what I've experienced, at the beginning, I was the author of one book.

Since then, I have an array of books that tell my story.

I started off with adult books, workbooks, journals, things that help you create healthy habits and healing goals and healing journeys.

And since then, I've written my story.

So I am a person, along with being a speaker, author, and coach, I am a person that stutters.

And many people don't know it, even people that have known me for a long time.

So being around other authors who look like me, telling their stories, encouraged me to, and gave me the strength to write my own story.

And stuttering is something that you don't hear talked about often.

Once I got into the community of stutterers, which I didn't even know existed, I realized that my story can make an impact in my own community.

And so that's what I'm doing through leading a women's group, The Great Sister Circle, with just being an example of a leader in our own community.

- Yeah, yeah.

And one of your books, in fact, is about the importance of that voice, especially for children.

It's called "My Voice Matters," is that right?

- Absolutely.

- Yeah, tell me about that.

- So "My Voice Matters," the emotional, it talks about uncovering the emotional toll of stuttering.

And it gives the story from when I was, since I can remember, all the way up until now.

Because one thing I've learned, and the reason why I also added the children's aspect, if we can start those healthy habits as children, learning self-confidence, learning healing processes, creating healthy habits, then we could avoid a lot of the pitfalls that we may endure.

But this stuttering story that you don't hear children talk about, 'cause it's such a point of embarrassment and pain.

So I talk about those dark areas that nobody's talking about.

- Yeah, yeah.

How does writing and telling these stories, I guess, help you with the stuttering?

In other words, finding your voice in another way, in the written way, it seems like maybe it opens up the possibilities for your vocal voice.

- Absolutely.

Yes, absolutely, because we say that our voice matters, but we don't really know how much it matters until you get to the root cause of the things that may have hindered you or held you back in your life.

So when I started talking about stuttering and reminding people like, "Oh yeah, you did stutter."

And I'm like, "I still do."

But I've learned to control it.

I've learned to use processes where I'm breathing techniques and my eyes kind of go different ways sometimes, giving me a moment for the blocks and things like that.

So it's helped me with looking at the true picture of what I am.

So when I first started writing, I was writing about the surface.

Now I'm writing about the core and the soul of it all and the healing process of it.

- Wow.

Talk about how you choose authors like Kelly for this event.

And again, that connection between her story and the things that other people in our community are facing.

- Well, our book fairs are open to anyone who's published a book.

We don't turn anybody away.

I feel like if they've put something in a book, then they have something to share with the world.

So there's no discrimination.

We do focus, this is a specialized market.

So we specialize in African-American authors, but there's no discrimination.

We feel like at this time and era, let's be real, our books are being banned.

Our black history is trying, there are certain people in this world- - Taking it out of all kinds of places.

- Yeah, dismantle our stories.

My thing is, if they ban the books, this is gonna disproportionately impact our communities.

Our real true stories are gonna disappear.

And this is gonna impact our youth.

Say 2070 and 2060 come around, if we don't host these book fairs, what history are we gonna look at?

That's another reason, families, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, bring your kids to these book fairs, build up your home libraries, because our books cannot be banned.

If they are banned, another thing that's gonna impact us is we're going to, oh gosh, my thoughts, I get so passionate about this, Stephen.

But it will perpetuate ignorance.

- Yeah, right, that's right.

- And create fear among the black community.

We have to read our stories.

It will shape us and make us a better person overall, wholeheartedly.

- And I love that point that if we have the books ourselves in our homes, doesn't matter what they're banning, right?

- Exactly, generation to generation, they'll be on that bookshelf.

And in 2060s, our great-grandkids will see those books that are written today with the beautifully illustrated, vibrant graphics with the kids, children, doing positive things, positive lifestyles, because we do live positive lifestyles.

- Yeah, well, congratulations on nine years.

- Nine years.

- Of the book event.

Congratulations on your books.

And thanks for being here on "American Black Journal."

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you so much.