Sorority hits the books on Haloween

The women of Alpha Kappa Alpha are celebrating Halloween with a twist.\n"SKEEnomenal WEEk Rated PG: Another Pretty Girl Production" has arrived with numerous activities to celebrate the ghoulish holiday in a very nonscary manner.\nAKA presented their annual Book Talk Tuesday evening at the Indiana Memorial Union Frangipani Room. Junior Demetria Davis, chair of the Book Talk, said her event is only one of the several activities scheduled for SKEEnomenal WEEk, which is being celebrated all this week.\n"Every semester we have one week full of events," Davis said. "We sponsor all the events and that's why it's a SKEEnomenal WEEk."\nIn its fourth year, Book Talk is a program in which members of AKA select a variety of books by African American authors and develop discussion groups for each book. In each group, one book is analyzed and can be compared to personal or college life.\nSenior Meisha Walker, president of AKA, said the talk is a good way to share ideas and talk about certain issues.\n"It's all about people coming together to talk about books," Walker said. "Issues range from black family, black elitism to black relationships."\nFive books were presented at Book Talk, all written by female authors, including Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell, The Heart of a Woman and Still I Rise by Maya Angelou, The Color Purple by Alice Walker and Beloved by Toni Morrison. This year the books selected have a common theme.\n"This year all authors were members of AKA," Walker said. "Our national motto this year is the spirit of AKA and our national program theme was authors who were famous sorors."\nWalker added there is no specific significance in choosing all women authors. In the past years, AKA has selected African American male authors, but the emphasis on the spirit of AKA was the base selection of this year's authors.\nDuring the program, groups are divided by each book. The participant is put into a group by which book they have read. A member of AKA then leads the discussion.\nDavis, the coordinator of the event, and Alana Johnson, the co-chair, both selected the books and narrowed it down. Davis was responsible for sending advertisements, typing up discussion questions as guidance and making sure students had access to the books and the location.\n"(The IMU Frangipani Room) is a good central and convenient location for IU students," Davis said.\nBook Talk has been successful in the past and has continued to grow. Walker said there have been ten people in each group and it keeps growing. The event is open to anyone, not just IU students.\nSenior Carrie Thomas, vice president of AKA, said that not all activities are Halloween related, therefore events are open to everyone.\n"Friday we're having a lot of food donated to us from Blimpies, Papa Johns, Texas Roadhouse, Subway and KFC for our AKA Midnight Buffet," Thomas said. "Then on Saturday is our DJ Showcase party, which is something different from the Greek music."\nAKA hopes to get a lot of support and participants in SKEEnomenal WEEk 2002. Thomas said that even though it has been a lot of work, it is always worth it.\n"We're trying to have different events for the African American community," Davis said. "We want to entertain people and give the community a time to get out and have a good time with different interests for everybody"