Anita Gail Jones:
“This is a parable about how strong love rises through tyranny and a glimmer of hope as small as a seed can ripple across generations.”
Listen in or view the ZOOM to our new The Women’s Eye Podcast with guest host and adventure travel author Laurie McAndish King. You met Laurie previously on TWE as she profiled more than a dozen remarkable authors. Here she talks with Anita Gail Jones, author of The Peach Seed.
It was a long writing journey for Anita. Her debut novel was over a decade in the making! Along the way she researched adoption, addiction, the Civil Rights Movement, and peach-seed carving; discovered a magical machine that produced a paperback copy of her book in just minutes; and got plenty of opportunities to use her superpowers of discipline and persistence.
All that hard work paid off: Anita’s book earned the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. It was selected for Essence® Magazine’s 15 Books We Can’t Wait to Read This Summer 2023 and the Best and Most Anticipated Books of 2023 in ELLE Magazine.
Anita has a wide range of talents: She is a visual artist, educator, social justice advocate, and professional oral-tradition storyteller. She co-founded the Gaines-Jones Education Foundation, a non-profit that has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to African-American college students in southwest Georgia and the San Francisco Bay area.
Anita and Laurie talked about:
1. How Anita’s diverse interests—which don’t seem like they fit together from a linear perspective—were actually an advantage to her work as an author.
2. How writing The Peach Seed gave Anita the answer to a key unanswered question she had for her late father.
3. How she was able to maintain the focus required to complete that first novel. Hint: It’s all about perseverance.
Anita’s favorite quote that makes the idea of perseverance clear is at the bottom of her emails and is an inspiring reminder:
“Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.”
—James Baldwin (1924-1987)
Join our chat with Anita to find out why she wrote this poignant story about choices, leadership, family and hope. Anita also outlines her journey to publication and offers helpful tips and suggestions for writers.
To follow Anita Gail Jones:
Website: https://anitagailjones.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnitaGailJones
Instagram: Anita Gail Jones (@anitagailjones) • Instagram photos and videos
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnitaGailJones2
Gaines-Jones Education Foundation: https://www.gaines-jones.org/about.html
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