Registration now closed

Author Talk: Jill Biden Biography with Darlene Superville

In partnership with the Washington Association of Black Journalists, the DC Public Library will host an Author Talk with Darlene Superville on her book Jill: A Biography of the First Lady.

This President's Day will be extra special as we invite White House reporter Darlene Superville to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial library to discuss her book, Jill: A Biography of the First Lady. Darlene will read an excerpt from the book and answer questions from the audience. The DC Public Library Foundation has donated 50 books for the first registered attendees. Registrant must attend to receive the book. 

About the Author

Darlene Superville is a veteran White House reporter for The Associated Press. 

Superville has been part of a team of reporters providing coverage of the White House for AP members across the U.S. and worldwide since 2009 when Barack Obama became the nation’s first Black president. Before the White House assignment, Superville was a supervisor on the AP’s national political desk during the 2008 presidential election. She also performed that role during the 2012, 2004, and 2000 election cycles. Her portfolio on the White House beat includes coverage of first ladies Michelle Obama and Melania Trump. She also covered Congress and spent several years on an enterprise writing team, in addition to other assignments.

In Conversation with Sonya Ross

Journalist Sonya Ross was born in 1962 in Atlanta, Georgia. She attended C.L. Harper High School, and received her B.A. degree in journalism and mass communications from the University of Georgia in 1984. Ross went on to attend Georgia State University from 1985 to 1987. In 1985, Ross was hired as a library clerk at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She worked there until 1986, when she accepted a position as an intern for Associated Press in the Greater Atlanta area. Ross was then hired as a general assignment reporter at Associated Press in 1987, and was promoted to a legislative reporter in 1989. She was promoted again in 1992, and transferred from Georgia to Washington, D.C., where she worked as an urban affairs reporter until 1995. Ross then joined the Associated Press’ White House press corps and traveled with Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush, as well as Secretary of State Colin Powell to thirty-nine countries. During the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, she was the print pool reporter who accompanied President Bush on Air Force One.

In 2002, Ross was named Washington, D.C.’s world services editor for the Associated Press, where she helped direct coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the worldwide campaign against terrorism. In 2004, Ross was appointed news editor for the Associated Press’ regional reporters in Washington, D.C., and, in 2010, she was named the organization’s first-ever race and ethnicity editor in order to capture the changing face of race and ethnicity in the United States.

About the Book

The personal and political life of First Lady Dr. Jill Biden Dr. Jill Biden has been described as President Joe Biden's greatest political asset. Like many women of her generation, she holds her commitments as wife, mother and grandmother at the center of her life. She is a professor, earned a doctorate in educational leadership, and taught at Northern Virginia Community College. She broke barriers as First Lady as the first to hold a paying job outside the White House. "Jill" is the story of this accomplished American woman. From her earliest days dating Senator Biden, to her embrace of Biden's young sons Beau and Hunter Biden and the birth of their daughter Ashley; her role by Joe Biden's side through Senate reelection race after Senate reelection race; her years as Second Lady; to Joe's successful third run for the Democratic presidential nomination, Jill has lived in the public eye. In this deeply reported biography, Julie Pace and Darlene Superville of The Associated Press, along with writer Evelyn M. Duffy, reveal some of the private sides of Jill Biden. We come to better understand her personality, which has held the Biden family together through tragedy and good fortune alike.

Upcoming events