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.

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Legacies of Octavia Butler & June BAC Issues

It's so exciting to read about a trailblazer who was ethical, thoughtful, generous, and funny in addition to being diligent and multifaceted. [Positive Obsession atop a bookstack of 7 books - The Last Lady B spine showing, then 6 books showing page edges; Communion propped to the left of the bookstack] Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris non-fiction biography Amistad, 2025 Opening with a quote from Parable of the Sower, this biographer uses every word in the O.E.B. chronology, author's note, introduction, six chapters, epilogue, and acknowledgements to engage readers in an intimate personal study of this extraordinary, talented, driven woman who was vulnerable and complicated in her brilliant humanity. The author's access to the O.E.B. archives adds layers of emotional depth that enrich the context of the details of the author's personal life and creative and professional development. from the Author's Note:...

When What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Funny

Need to laugh out loud? To feel inspired? To feel seen? To feel encouraged to pursue your heart's most ambitious desires despite overwhelming odds against succeeding? Read Zarna Garg's memoir, which offers an intimate, compelling coming of age, immigrant's journey, family saga, and keen observations about humans and life as experienced by a hilarious, intrepid individual. [front cover of "Zarna Garg, This American Woman: A One-In-A-Billion Memoir" showing the Statue of Liberty holding the author in her arms with the New York City skyline in the lower half of the background] This American Woman: A One-In-A-Billion Memoir by Zarna Garg non-fiction memoir Ballantine Books, April 2025 Universal themes of family love and family conflict, support and abandonment, grieving as a years' long process with lulls, parenting and being parented (or not), finding your people in friendship, romance, community presented and dissected with the author's sharp wit ...

New Arrivals Giving BRBF Vibes + BAC Issues

Even as my friends and I enjoyed a fantastic community event yesterday in and around the Bowie Branch of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System, there was envy in my heart for all of the attendees and participants at the Black Romance Book Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. Reports of issues of crowding just made me happy for the event organizers' success while they posted apologies and corrective strategies for crowd control during the last day. In the meantime, the new arrivals shelves at the closest library in the neighboring county offered a variety of books by BRBF authors. "Where the Melanated Are Celebrated" indeed. [9 books, from left to right: Positive Obsession, Communion, Big Girl Blitz (atop a bookstack), The Started Ex, Fire Sword & Sea, Leave Your Mess at Home, Archangel's Eternity, It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, First Sign of Danger] Currently reading Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Mo...

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