Baltimore! Get Lit! REALLY, Get LIT!

A couple of days ago I wrote about the sad state of the iffy, dicey, and generally lame media releases that arrive on my desk after January and continue to arrive until the sun warms us up a bit and Baltimore's collective community spirit brightens. I was a tad-bit blue as I wrote that last post because we haven't had a decent snow storm this winter -- and, nothing makes me happier (and nothing warms ME up) more than a Baltimore snow-day.

Just then, I received a wonderful email notice from Carole Evitts. I read it, and I smiled, and I felt much warmer and a whole lot more positive. I felt the sunshine. (But, still no decent snow for 2008 was in the forecast. Rats...)

Here's the sidebar: I consider the Evitts' family one of the smartest and most productive and giving literary families in current-day Baltimore. Here's a very condensed Evitts' snapshot: Carole's husband, author, professor, and truly nice guy, William J Evitts PhD, has been a fixture at Johns Hopkins University for a long, long time. Evitts' son, Michael, is the amazingly knowledgeable voice of Baltimore's Downtown Partnership. Their daughter, the award winning writer Elizabeth Evitts, was editor of Baltimore's slick, glossy -- and intelligently written magazine -- Urbanite. The magazine for Baltimore's Curious. I hear that Elizabeth is now setting up her own shop as most high-level, creative Baltimorians tend to do.

Oh yes, and then there's Carole A Evitts. When I was introduced to her a couple of years ago by way of a project for the Historic Charles Street Association, I knew that we'd met a decade or so before. We worked it out and sure enough... Carole and I were working on Zoomerang together way back in the late 1980s. We decided that, yes, Baltimore will always be a small town where friends live, leave, return, and reunite.

Stay tuned for the announcement from Carole that turns smart Baltimore smarter and more positive each year... and GET LIT!

Oh and by the way, if you want to learn about the Civil Rights Movement (and the Baltimore riots) in our city from folks who lived here and lived those events, click here for a PDF: Baltimore Riots. It is a must read.