The Ohio University Alumni Association is excited to introduce you to the next installment in our virtual series, Empower Hour! Beginning in 2021, this event takes place once a month on the third Wednesday from 1-2 p.m. EDT.

Empower Hour is a program that explores important and relevant topics centered around the theme of continued personal growth and education. We want to equip OHIO alumni with the knowledge they need to become their best selves!

This Empower Hour segment is called "Writing to Publish". This hour will highlight becoming a better writer, learning from other authors and steps to publishing.

Empower yourself to develop good writing habits, find time to write, and get beyond writer's block. Hear how Karen Gray Houston and Shelley Stokes learned a lot about writing from telling stories about their life experiences and their families' involvement in the Civil Rights movement.

Karen Gray Houston
After retiring from a 41-year career as a broadcast journalist, Karen penned Daughter of the Boycott . This book is about the leadership roles her father, the late Judge Thomas W. Gray, Sr., and her uncle, civil rights attorney Fred Gray, played in the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Shelley Stokes
Shelley is a historic preservationist, whose writing has been published in the White House Historical Society and by Cleveland State University. The daughter of the late Ohio Congressman, Louis Stokes, and niece of the late Cleveland Mayor, Carl Stokes, she is currently working on a memoir about her family's journey from slavery to civil rights.