Skip to main content

People Showed Up & Tuned In

Gorgeous weather, lovely humans (and a few precious fur babies), talented musicians, artisans, authors, delicious food, assorted adult libations... 

Too much goodness and joy to list. 

Abundant gratitude to every attendee and the phenomenal P.G. Parks & Recreation/Marietta House Museum teams! 

Special thanks to everyone who stopped to chat with the authors and to buy (or find out how to borrow from pgcmls.info) books and pick up some author swag. 

This year's Jazz & Wine Fest at Marietta was outstanding in every way.

[4 musicians moving among a drum set, an amp, music and  instrument stands arranged under a tent] 





[half of a six-foot table assorted author swag of t-shirts, ball caps, a jute & cotton basket containing items for a raffle, framed pages with various QR codes, book purchasing/borrowing instructions, and content warnings, business cards, and hand sanitizer]

[multiple copies of Prison Love, a non-fiction memoir about one woman's experience of incarceration and observations about the ways in which female inmates find and create healthy community, friendship, sisterhood and more] 


[a person seated among mature trees while holding a fruity Italian ice drink with a paper umbrella in a cored pineapple] 

Currently reading 

[front cover of a hardcover copy of Love & Whiskey: The Remarkable True Story of Jack Daniel, His Master Distiller Nearest Green and the Improbable Rise of Uncle Nearest by Fawn Weaver] 

Made the rookie error of starting to read this book last night after a long, fantastic, exhausting day of author tabling at the Jazz & Wine Fest at Marietta House Museum. Fifteen chapters into this fascinating amalgamation of memoir, journalistic investigation, U.S. history lesson, ancestry search, family & regional saga combined with entrepreneurial hustle and the more details revealed, the more questions generated. Even knowing beforehand that the Uncle Nearest brand is award-winning and a seismic industry-shifter doesn't dilute the dramatic anticipation of how this story ends. Will probably finish it tonight. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hot Love in the Kitchen & Travelling Through Time

Redemption of the Heart by Moni Boyce contemporary romance Love Snacks Publishing  8 January 2019 Despite addressing heavy themes of domestic violence, incarceration, and grief, Redemption of the Heart is a charming and sweet spicy read in the tradition of a 21st-century interracial homage to Janet Dailey’s monthly romance era. Gemma’s open-hearted ingénue contrasts starkly with Alex’s jaded workaholic. They struggle with a variety of challenges, but ethnicity isn’t one of them—a spin that feels particularly modern. Once readers commit to their suspension of disbelief regarding the cascading impact of lacks in due diligence by several characters, it’s easy to settle in to enjoy this love story. The recent public debate about the pros and cons of Gillette’s “We believe the best man can be” campaign ties in with the contradictory messages in the story threads about toxic masculinity. There’s a scene in which Alex apologizes to someone who was openly bragging among cowork...

The Best Man: Unfinished Business by Malcolm D. Lee with Jayne Allen Delivers All the Feels

Black love. Black joy. Black drama. Humanity in its vast melanin array.   [front cover of a paperback ARC for The Best Man: Unfinished Business; silhouette of three adults] The Best Man: Unfinished Business by Malcolm D. Lee with Jayne Allen  adult contemporary fiction with romantic elements  Storehouse Voices, July 2025   First, dedicated fans of The Best Man franchise and its beloved characters need not fear how they’re treated in this first of three novels. In fact. One thread of Harper’s storyline seems to reflect the real-life author/screenwriter/director’s battle to protect and maintain the integrity of The Best Man universe. Mission accomplished.  Second, once readers - fans or not - start this novel they won’t want to stop. The compulsion to re/watch The Best Man movies and limited series and maybe even to reread this book while anticipating the release of book two in 2026 will prove difficult to resist.  Who are you?  Who are your people?...

A Million Lives Book Festival - An Unfortunate Exception, Not the Event Rule

[2 decorative stickers on lined writing paper from left to right: a round smiley face arranged upside down to look like a frown and a round smiley face arranged right sight up] By now most bookish folk and others have heard about the inaugural A Million Lives Book Festival held at the Baltimore Convention Center last Friday and Saturday. To recap: according to participating authors and attendees many promises were made and almost all of them were broken.  As outreach director and co-organizer for The Write Women Book Fest scheduled to host its 6th event Saturday, July 19 & Sunday, July 20 of this year at the Bowie Comfort Inn & Conference Center in Bowie, Maryland, U.S.A., my reaction to the feedback being shared about A Million Lives is nightmarish. Even though we aren't connected to it in any way or familiar with the event organizer or her company, our completely unrelated event has felt some minor residual effects because people are worried. And that's an understanda...