POTSDAM -- National Public Radio’s Michele Norris, host of “All Things Considered,” will speak at SUNY Potsdam Wednesday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. in Hosmer Concert Hall.

Norris is also author of "The Grace of Silence: A Family Memoir," a deeply personal memoir that focuses on the painful secrets she uncovered within her own family that had been willfully withheld.

The revelations -- from her father's shooting by a Birmingham police officer to her maternal grandmother's job as an itinerant Aunt Jemima in the Midwest -- inspired a bracing journey into her family's past, from her childhood home in Minneapolis to her ancestral roots in the Deep South.

The discussion is free, and the public is invited. Following the presentation, there will be a book signing in the Hosmer Hall lobby.

This year, Norris has recused herself from NPR hosting duties while her husband takes a position as a senior advisor on the Obama campaign.

Before joining NPR in 2002, Norris spent almost 10 years as a reporter for ABC News in the Washington bureau. She has also worked as a staff writer for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

A four-time Pulitzer Prize entrant, Norris was named in 2009 as one of Essence magazine's 25 Most Influential Black Americans and elected to Ebony magazine's Power 150 List.