Rebe Huntman Launches Memoir, My Mother in Havana, in conversation with Novelist/Memoirist Lee Martin

Enjoy live Cuban music, food and drink to celebrate the book launch of memoirist, essayist, dancer, teacher and poet Rebe Huntman. Rebe will discuss her stunning memoir, My Mother in Havana, A Memoir of Magic & Miracle, with acclaimed novelist and memoirist Lee Martin starting at 7 pm.

Tickets for the event are available for $10 and patrons can also pre-purchase the book My Mother in Havana during the check-out process for $27, which must be picked up at Natalie’s at the event. A book signing will follow the program and Gramercy Books staff will also be on hand at Natalie’s to sell copies of the book throughout the evening.

In addition to presenting live Cuban music, Natalie’s will offer select Cuban cuisine and drinks as well as items from the regular menu.

The Ohio State University Department of English, OSU Creative Writing Program, and Natalie’s are Gramercy’s Community Partners for this program.

“My Mother in Havana lifts the veil between the living and the dead and makes believers of us all. This story of a mother’s absence and a daughter’s need is written with a lyricism that filled my heart with beauty while also making it ache for loved ones lost. This is a stunning debut.” –Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist, The Bright Forever

 “I closed this book believing more than ever that the people we love, including the people we’ve been, never really leave us.” –Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful 

Writing with a physicality of language that moves like the body in dance, Rebe Huntman, a poet, choreographer, and dancer, embarks on a pilgrimage into the mysteries of the gods and saints of Cuba and their larger spiritual view of the Mother. Huntman offers a window into the extraordinary world of Afro-Cuban gods and ghosts and the dances and rituals that call them forth. As she explores the memory of her own mother, interlacing it with her search for the sacred feminine, Huntman leads us into a world of séance and sacrifice, pilgrimage and sacred dance, which resurrect her mother and bring Huntman face to face with a larger version of herself. 

For over a decade, Rebe Huntman was head of the award-winning Danza Viva Center for World Dance, Art & Music and its dance company, One World Dance Theater. Rebe collaborates with native artists in Cuba and South America, has been featured in Latina Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune and on Fox and ABC News. The recipient of an Ohio Individual Excellence award, Rebe has received support for this book from the Ohio State University, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Ragdale Foundation, Playa, Hambidge Center, and Brush Creek Foundation. She lives in Delaware, Ohio and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. 

Lee Martin is the Pulitzer Prize finalist author of The Bright Forever, and six other novels, most recently The Glassmaker’s Wife. His upcoming novel, The Evening Shades will be released in March 2025. He has also published three memoirs and two short story collections, most recently The Mutual UFO Network, in addition to the craft book, Telling Stories. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in such places as Harper’s, Ms., The Best American Essays, The Best American Mystery Stories, Creative Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, among others. He is the winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council. A native Midwesterner, he teaches in the MFA Program at The Ohio State University.