Elizabeth Gauffreau – Getting at the Emotional Truth
It began with a scribbled note from her mother. “Elliott I. committed suicide and had a sister Dorothy.” Instantly, the quizzical words became etched in the mind of Elizabeth Gauffreau, author of Telling Sonny, a novel. Elliott I. (his middle name was Irving) was Elizabeth Gauffreau’s paternal grandfather, but he died before she was born. […]
Joanne Kukanza Easley – Sweet Jane
Jane is dressed in a pink and white hi-lo skirt, a lace cami, and a brown menswear vest. Her cowboy boots are red. It’s 1967. Illustrated on the cover of Sweet Jane, a novel by Joanne Kukanza Easley, the 16-year-old fantasizes about this outfit as what she’ll wear when she marries Jeremy; but of course, […]
Rebecca Dwight Bruff – Robert Smalls, An American Hero
Robert Smalls was born enslaved on April 5, 1839, in Beaufort, South Carolina. He died in Beaufort on February 22, 1915, as “owner” of the house of his former master, bought with his own money. On the pages of Trouble the Water, a novel by Rebecca Dwight Bruff, is a reenactment of what happened in […]
Laurie Gwen Shapiro – The Stowaway
If I hadn’t made that access, this story would have vanished into thin air. Laurie Gwen Shapiro Laurie Gwen Shapiro had written novels and made award-winning film documentaries when she decided to combine the two skills to write a nonfiction story, allowing for dialog. The first step was to increase her nonfiction clips. Laurie […]
Kathleen M. Rodgers – The Flying Cutterbucks
June 2, 2020, is the release date for The Flying Cutterbucks! This latest novel by Kathleen M. Rodgers, set mostly during 2016, was influenced by bewilderment in the United States that tore it in political halves. Disguised feelings began to reveal themselves, uninhibited, feelings that went beyond the politics of who’s red and who’s blue […]