thewritewomenbookfest.org Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Many thanks to all of the vendors and the visitors who came to TWWBF. You made our festival launch a beautiful, uplifting, enlightening, and fun experience. Browse pics from the event on our Instagram @thewritewomenbookfest See the speakers and panelists from the Event Room https://www.facebook.com/cardyn.brooks/videos/vb.100001793581944/2347896368613460/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab http://thewritewomen.weebly.com/e-program.html See you in 2020! (Heather Brooks gave me the loveliest items as thank you swag from BDevlin Designs, Dea, and from her own H. L. Brooks Red August series.)

The Persistence of Memory, Book 1: Déjà vu Karen Janowsky New Adult(ish) speculative fiction with romantic elements Mill City Press  February 2019 The Persistence of Memory is a beguiling mash-up. It begins as a brutally immersive Holocaust testimony set in Germany in 1938. At the age of twenty-one, New Yorkers Daniel Hecht, his two best friends, and his mom discover that their U.S. citizenship can’t protect them from the racial hatred of the Nazis. Survival exacts steep costs that exchange one generation for another and smoothly transitions this story into science fiction. In the 21st century Daniel is a decorated war hero who is disillusioned, jaded, and patriotic. His inner turmoil and traumatic experiences generate emotional whiplash. Enter amnesiac Nina Archer. Who is she? What are her origins? Why does she fluently speak an ancient language? Add mystery and romance (mostly sweet, until very abruptly, it becomes explicit) to this layered and multifaceted tale, which includ

No Thanks: Black, Female, and Living in the Martyr-Free Zone Keturah Kendrick Non-fiction memoir SheWrites Press  June 2019 In a preface, eight intimate essays, and acknowledgements of the members of her international village, Keturah Kendrick uses the path of her own personal and professional journey to her integrity of self to encourage others to challenge the impositions of limiting gendered expectations. No Thanks constructs rational intellectual support for the benefits of deliberately choosing to live single and childfree, a declaration summed up on page 11: “I am single because I am enough for me.” No Thanks is a provocative rejection of the entrenched belief that fertility is the primary source of worthiness and purpose for a female person’s womanhood; that fertility is the seminal value of womanhood. Humorous and poignant anecdotal personal stories and references to academic case studies examine the consequences and rewards for audacious female people who unapologeti