International Women's History Month Literary Festival
Presented in partnership with the Antigua & Barbuda International Literary Festival and Joy Bramble of the Baltimore Times. A panel of four women writers from across the globe discusses the intersection of place, time and culture in literature and in the lives of women. The conversation will be moderated by Linda A. Duggins, Director, Multicultural Publicity, Hachette Book Group. Live video coverage provided by Ella Curry, founder of Black Pearls Magazine and The Black Authors Network Radio Show.
Featured Authors
Leila Cobo, a Fulbright scholar from Cali, Colombia, is a novelist, pianist, TV host, and executive editor for Latin content and programming for Billboard. She is considered one of the country's leading experts on Latin music. She is the author of Tell Me Something True. Her second novel, The Second Time We Met (Grand Central Publishing), will be released February 29, 2012. (www.leilacobo.com)
Jacqueline Luckett is the author of Searching for Tina Turner and the newly published Passing Love (Grand Central Publishing). She participated in the Voices of Our Nations (VONA) writing workshops and, in 2004, formed the Finish Party along with seven other women writers-of-color. (www.jacquelineluckett.com)
Bernice L. McFadden is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels, including Sugar and Glorious. She is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist. In her new novel, Gathering of Waters (Akashic Books), McFadden brings her own vision to the story of Emmett Till and the town of Money, Mississippi. (www.bernicemcfadden.com)
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto's memoir, Hiroshima in the Morning (Feminist Press) is a National Book Critics Circle finalist, an Asian American Literary Award finalist, a Grub Street National Book Award winner, and a Dayton Literary Peace Prize nominee. Her first novel, Why She Left Us, won the American Book Award. She is associate editor of The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings About New York City and is on the faculty of the Goddard MFA in Creative Writing program. (www.r3reiko.com)
Presented in partnership with the Antigua & Barbuda International Literary Festival. Media sponsors: The Baltimore Times and Black Pearls Magazine.
Support the Authors...Purchase the Books!
 The Second Time We Met
by Leila Cobo
Purchase Here Today.
ISBN-13: 9780446519380
Adored and nurtured by his adoptive parents in California, Asher Stone has moved effortlessly through a nearly perfect life. He is on the verge of a professional soccer career-when a car accident throws his future into doubt. Suddenly, Asher begins to wonder about his past, and about the girl who gave him up for adoption in Colombia two decades ago.
And so begins his search for a woman named Rita Ortiz. From the teeming streets of Bogata to a tiny orphanage tucked into a hillside, Asher untangles the mystery of Rita's identity, her abrupt disappearance from her home, and the winding journey that followed. But as Asher comes closer to finding Rita, his own parents are faced with fears and doubts. And Rita must soon make her own momentous choice: stay hidden in her hard-earned new life, or meet the secret son who will bring painful memories-or the promise of a new beginning . . .
Meet the Author
Renowned journalist and former concert pianist, Leila Cobo is a native of Cali, Colombia. The Executive Director of Latin Content & Programming for Billboard, she is a frequent contributor to NPR and has written liner notes for acts such as Ricky Martin, Shakira and Chayanne. She is also the host of the television show Estudio Billboard, which features in-depth interviews with top Latin acts. Leila is a Fulbright scholar with a graduate degree from the Annenberg School of Communications at USC and holds dual degrees in journalism, from Bogota’s Universidad Javeriana, and in piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music.
INGRAM MAGAZINE’S “NEW VOICES” PICK OF 2010. She currently lives in Key Biscayne, Fl. with her husband and children.
 Gathering of Waters
by Bernice L. McFadden
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ISBN-13: 9781617750311
Book Review for Gathering of Waters
NAACP Image Award and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist Bernice L. McFadden (Glorious) here re-imagines the summer Emmett Till spent in Mississippi in 1955 and the events leading up to his murder. The story chronicles the young love between Emmett and Tass Hilton, which finally transcends death. Having left Mississippi for Detroit after Emmett dies, Tass returns 40 years later as a widow to reawaken his spirit, trapped in the dank waters of the Tallahatchie River.
This story is deeply affecting, but the novel's greatest triumph is the salacious tale of Tass's grandmother Doll Hilton, as the spirit of this scorned woman refuses to rest, often returning angry and more vindictive than in her previous life: "They beat the goodness and the sweetness out of her. They beat her into the streets, into back alleys, down into the dirt, into the gutter, onto her knees." The rich text is shaped by the African American storytelling tradition and layered with significant American histories. VERDICT Recalling the woven spirituality of Toni Morrison's Beloved, this work will appeal to readers of African American and mystic literature. — Ashanti White, Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro
The New York Times Book Review written by Jesmyn Ward
Novelists writing about traumatic historical moments face a particular challenge: how to bring the event to immediate, visceral life without overpowering the characters or their experiences. In Gathering of Waters…Bernice L. McFadden recreates not just the Mississippi flood of 1927…but also the brutal murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955. It would be easy for her characters to recede in the glare of these events, but McFadden works a kind of miracle—not only do they retain their appealing humanity; their story eclipses the bonds of history to offer continuous surprises. —The New York Times Book Review
Meet the Author
Bernice L. McFadden is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels including the classic Sugar and Glorious, which was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, selected as the debut title for the One Book, One Harlem program, and was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. She is a two-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the BCALA. Her sophomore novel, The Warmest December, was praised by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison as "searing and expertly imagined." McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York.
 Hiroshima in the Morning
by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto
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ISBN-13: 9781558616677
In June 2001 Rahna Reiko Rizzuto travels to Hiroshima to interview survivors of the atomic bomb, while her husband and two young sons remain in New York. But initial interviews feel rehearsed, and the survivors reveal little beyond already published accounts. Then September 11 changes everything. The vulnerability exposed by the attacks shatters the survivors' carefully constructed narratives. They open up to Rizzuto in astonishing ways, describing in detail their agonizing experiences.
Separated from her family as the world seems to be falling apart, Rizzuto sees her marriage begin to crumble as she questions her role as a wife and mother. The parallel narratives of Hiroshima in the survivors' own words, and of Rizzuto's personal awakening show memory not as history, but as a story we tell ourselves to explain who we are.
Meet the Author
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto: Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s highly acclaimed first novel, Why She Left Us, won an American Book Award in 2000, and was praised by the New York Times as “ambitious, lyrical, and intriguing.” She is a recipient of the US/Japan Creative Artist Fellowship, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which inspired her memoir, Hiroshima in the Morning; she is also the associate editor of The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings About New York City; and she is a faculty member in the MFA in creative writing program at Goddard College where she teaches fiction and nonfiction.
Her essays and short stories have appeared in journals and newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, Salon, and the Crab Creek Review, and in anthologies including Mothers Who Think, Because I Said So, and Topography of War. Rizzuto is half-Japanese/half-Caucasian. She grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii and now lives in Brooklyn.
 Passing Love
by Jacqueline E. Luckett
Purchase Here Today.
ISBN-13: 9780446542999
Publishers Weekly Editorial Review
It’s midnight in Paris, now and in the mid–20th century, in Luckett’s second novel (after Searching for Tina Turner). In this dreamy and lyrical paean to all things French, a restless African-American woman with a French name (Nicole-Marie Roxane, 56), shucks routine and expectations to live out her dream of traveling to Paris. But her exotic getaway turns into a relentless search for a beautiful woman known to Nicole only from an old photo, Ruby Garrett, whose race and connection to her father are both mysterious. In alternating narratives, Nicole uncovers secrets long held by her difficult parents, as the ferociously independent Ruby describes the freewheeling Paris of the early 1950s, where ambitious black musicians found an appreciative audience and colorblind acceptance.
Luckett skips surprisingly smoothly across six decades as the narrative unfolds the mystery of Nicole’s identity. But the mystery is hardly the point: Luckett weaves a fascinating portrait of women of color who defy family and tradition to follow love and chase success. Ruby’s unflinching, unapologetic choices—even her lies about her race—unsettle Nicole. But Ruby is equally puzzled that Nicole would choose the ordinary over adventure. In the end, it’s the soulful, headstrong, romantic Ruby whose passion resonates in this story of discovery and acceptance. (Jan. 25)
Meet the Author
As a teenager, Jacqueline Luckett enjoyed telling stories to her younger cousins. To this day, they describe her as a master storyteller. So, it wasn't a surprise to her family when she began writing a novel. Through her teenage years, she kept diaries, wrote poetry and had stories published in a local newspaper. As an adult, Jacqueline put writing aside and worked in corporate America.
In 1999, she took a creative writing class on a dare, from herself, and happily found her love of writing re–ignited. By a lucky coincidence, that same year she discovered the Voices of Our Nations (VONA) writing workshops and participated over the next four years in workshops with Christina Garcia, Danzy Senna, Junot Diaz, Ruth Forman and Terry McMillan. VONA provided a safe haven for a new writer still unsure of her abilities, yet eager to learn. She attributes much of her growth as a writer to the VONA workshops.
In 2004, Jacqueline formed the Finish Party (featured in O Magazine, October 2007) along with seven other women writers–of–color. Jacqueline calls these outstanding women her mentors and advisors, her friends and the toughest (and most loving) readers around.
Jacqueline is an avid reader and lover of books, an excellent cook, aspiring photographer, and world traveler. She lives in Northern California and, though she loves all of the friends there, she takes frequent breaks to fly off to foreign destinations.
SEARCHING FOR TINA TURNER (2010, Grand Central Publishing) is her first novel. Her second novel, PASSING LOVE was released in January 2012.
Meet Literary Leader Linda A. Duggins
 Linda A. Duggins is the Director of Multicultural Publicity at Hachette Book Group, USA. Terrie Williams, Teri Woods, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Nalo Hopkinson are among the many great authors represented by Duggins at Hachette. She earned her MBA in Media Management from Metropolitan College of New York in January 2005.
As Co-founder of the Harlem Book Fair, she has helped to create a nationally recognized venue that promotes literacy and literary expressions with writers of the Diaspora. An avid booklover, she is the Co-leader of the African Diaspora Literary Group in New York City.
Linda represents the Board of Directors of the Caribbean International Literary Festival, held in Antigua, as well as the Board of Directors of the Queensbridge Scholarship Fund, serving college bound students in the Queensbridge and Ravenswood housing developments.
Linda is also on the Board of Directors of the National Book Club Conference, based in Atlanta, GA, whose mission is to advance literacy and knowledge through reading and dialogue. You can view her full list of culture contributions, here. Linda is someone readers and authors should get to know!
This audiopostcard presentation was created by Ella Curry of EDC Creations Creations Media Group. We offer the best in book publishing publicity! Visit the main EDC Creations website today to reserve your slot today at: http://www.edc-creations.com/publicity.htm we have several packages that will take authors to the top! Looking for one of the most popular Internet radio shows in the industry? Check out The Black Authors Network Radio Show today!
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