New Poem: An Enslaved Girl is Above All Else Human
Sharing a new poem inspired by research into 1829 Georgia and the brutalities of enslavement period. Uplifting Harriet Jacobs and David Walker.
📣 Spreading Good News!! Gaines-Jones Scholars | Anita’s Family Charity
Hi Reader, Coming to you wearing my Executive Director hat, for the 501(c)(3) public charity my husband, Rob, and I created, which many of you may not know about. We founded Gaines-Jones Scholars, in memory of my mother, father and sister. We give college scholarships to African American students in Southwest Georgia and the San Francisco Bay Area. Proud to announce that this is our 21st year of giving! Since 2004, Gaines-Jones Scholars has awarded 304 scholarships totaling $380K to 182...
The Peach Seed ~ Deleted Scenes: Olga Dukes
From her fictional house on the very real Whitney Avenue in Albany, Georgia, as Olga Dukes slowly lost her sight, her world became a concave force pressing against her on all sides. She put up a heroic front for those outside her house—family at large, friends and colleagues, and you, dear readers.
Meet Me in the Field
I’ve heard enough about how much more divided America is barely two weeks after the election. This begs the question: more divided than when else in our history? How far back must we go to find a time when we were any less divided? Certainly not 248 years ago when our democracy was forged within …
What A Difference A Day Makes, Or, Re-opening My Eyes to Hard Truths
After sleeping on the terror-fying reality of four more years of an unstable egomaniac occupying the White House, I tried to face the day. America has once again proven that misogyny is something even racists can agree on, and I have zero interest in laying blame and talking ad nauseam about who didn’t do what. …
“Waiting Room” by Anita Gail Jones
First appeared in Left Coast Writer’s Roadwork Anyone who says writing is a lonely business has yet to spend time with a headful of fictional folk, bent on having their way. Unlike us stodgy, predictable humans, by necessity, characters are self-serving demigods in complete service of effective story, conflict and change. Writers must shape them …
King & Kamala
The Moral Beauty of Protest and Organizing Jonathan Eig’s book, KING: A Life, 2024 winner of The Pulitzer Prize for biography, is a fresh, invigorating telling of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. story, and it has me hooked in a way that is usually reserved for fiction. To be reading/listening as we take …
Celebrating Reclaimed Land ~ RESORA at Cypress Pond✨
Hi Reader, July 4, 2024 On this, America's 248th anniversary of independence, I come to the page to tell the story of a different emancipation; the liberation of 1,638 acres of a former plantation outside Albany, Georgia, the setting for my debut novel, The Peach Seed. This property was once held by one of the largest slaveholder estates in Georgia. Now, as we learn in this article by Nikki M.G. Cole, formerly enslaved people were inhabitants of this land, and many cabins and roads have been...
Book Clubs Rock!
As we eagerly await The Peach Seed paperback release on July 30th, I watch my birthday year disappear in the review —June ’23 ~ June ’24—THE YEAR OF THE BOOK! I’m reflecting on the amazing journey this has been, starting with recording the audio book and ending with a birthday bash in our back garden …
The Peach Seed ~ LIVE Updates & Tour Schedule
👉🏾 Bookmark this page for UPDATES, LATEST NEWS & EVENTS APRIL 20, 2024 UPDATE Cheryl, here, with a long overdue update! With Anita in the midst of writing her next novel and deadlines, Women’s History Month events, wedding planning with her daughter, tending to the school garden, life, and the paperback version of The Peach …
Books All Georgians Should Read
Thank you Georgia Center for the Book, for including my debut novel, The Peach Seed in your 2024 list of Books All Georgians Should Read! This big news just went live yesterday, and our extended Peach Seed family is thrilled. This news is also timely as I will embark on another NYC/GA book tour from …