Join NPR Music critic Ann Powers for a discussion of the new book How Women Made Music. Drawn from NPR Music’s acclaimed series Turning the Tables, the definitive book on the vital role of women in music—from Beyonce to Odetta, Taylor Swift to Joan Baez, Joan Jett to Dolly Parton—featuring archival interviews, essays, and photographs. The book includes material from more than fifty years of NPR’s coverage plus newly commissioned work. The panel will be moderated by Corcoran Director Lauren Onkey, and Powers will be joined by a panel of contributors to the book.

The panel will be followed by a book signing and light reception in the Flagg Atrium.

Ann Powers has been a music critic for more than thirty years, working for NPR, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and other publications. In the decade she has worked with NPR, she has written extensively on music and culture and appeared regularly on the All Songs Considered podcast and on news shows including All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Her books include a memoir, Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America; Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music; and Piece by Piece with Tori Amos. Powers lives in Nashville.

Gayle Wald is a professor of American Studies at GW, where she teaches (among other things) courses on popular music. Her books include Shout, Sister, Shout: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, revised in 2023. This Is Rhythm: Ella Jenkins, Children's Music, and the Long Civil Rights Movement is forthcoming this March from U. of Chicago Press. She is newly co-editor of the NYU book series PostMillennial Pop.

Elizabeth Nelson is singer-songwriter for the Washington, D.C.-based band the Paranoid Style, and a contributor to the Washington Post, the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker. She recently wrote the liner notes for the Bob Dylan box set The 1974 Live Recordings.

Jenny Gathright is a reporter for the Washington Post. Previously, she worked for the DCist, WAMU, and NPR, including work for NPR Music.