We welcome Wendy Jones & her new book, “An Extraordinary Life“ to the African Union Expo 2017 on 11/14/2017 at MIST Harlem, 46 W 116th St, New York, NY 10026, between Fifth and Lenox Avenues on 11/14/2017 from 10am – 7pm. CONTACT: please register at https://africanunionexpo.org/expo-registration-2017/ Or via Eventbrite https://auexpo2017.eventbrite.com
or email info@africanunionexpo.com or phone 646-502-9778 Ext. 8002 to the attend or to request further information follow: #AfricanUnionExpo2017
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UNSTINTING PRAISE FOR WENDY JONES’S NEW BOOK
Available for purchase at the AU Expo or on-line @ https://idabellpublishing.com/shop/
The author, Wendy Jones will also be available for book signings during the AU expo on 11/14/2017
A native of the South, a descendant of slaves, and the daughter of sharecroppers, Mrs. Jones ventured North, to New York and Harlem, to find her chance. The tale of her tenacious advance, transforming what to others might seem to be insurmountable obstacles and burdens, into opportunities to shine—the stuff of alchemy, might in less able hands, seem apocryphal. But Wendy Jones, like her role-model-mother, keeps things real.
The saga she spins out is so inspirational, because in relating the highly specific history of a highly individual figure, she has made her mother’s quest: to enhance her community, to enlighten her people, to educate and arm–with truth and an appreciation of beauty–her only child, into a universal story. If her mother was an alchemist, turning dross into life’s gold, with this memoir written with her mom, Wendy Jones, can be considered like Mary Shelley’s Doctor Frankenstein – she makes mere dead words on a page live, to recreate in the form of a woman of African descent, born poor but curious, an all-American hero.
Michael Henry Adams – author of Harlem, Lost and Found: An Architectural and Social History, 1765-1915 and currently working on the forthcoming Homo Harlem: A Chronicle of Lesbian and Gay Life in the African American Cultural Capital, 1915-1995.
An Extraordinary Life: Josephine E. Jones is an empowering book that lifts the level of every reader’s thought pattern. Most admirable, is her love for young people and her drive to help them find ways to lift themselves above the stereotypes embedded in a system that always seems bent on keeping them down. She stands up to authority and fights for principle and fairness at a time in America’s history when doing so was not without great risk. This book forces us to accept the fact that we have no excuse for inaction.
Gretna Wilkinson – Geraldine R. Dodge Poet, and founder of theravensperch.com, an international literary magazine.
An Extraordinary Life: Josephine E. Jones is a unique love story, that of a daughter for her mother. Wendy Jones celebrates Josephine E. Jones, the shaping of one woman’s life. The saga has a changing America, and specifically the Civil Rights Movement, as the background for An Extraordinary Life. While this is the story of one woman who migrated from the South to New York, it resonates because the path traveled by Ms. Jones is the story of black America in the twentieth century.
David Rothenberg – founder of the Fortune Society, a leading criminal justice advocacy and service organization, and author of Fortune in My Eyes.
I’ve just finished reading the book (I started it yesterday) and I want to congratulate you. I was interested, moved, remembered conversations with you or/and your mother, and heard both your voices. I think it’s a great idea to have added the contextualizing elements (some of which I might well use in class as well as snippets of the recollections). In short, congratulations!
Claire Parfait
I was very pleasantly surprised when I read Wendy’s book. It has depth and was extremely well written. I found it to be easy reading and I am not usually a non-fiction book reader. The subject matter held my attention throughout the book and the pictures that were included inside the book were simply an added bonus. I am confident that anyone who takes the time to read this book regardless of whether they are 8 or 80 years old will find the subject matter intriguing and the book will certainly hold their attention. It is a great book explaining the history of a woman’s life. The only bad thing was that it ended too soon as I wanted to keep on reading. Anxiously hoping for a second book by this author.
READ AN EXCERPT AT:
https://idabellpublishing.com/excerpts/
About the Author
Wendy Jones is an author and a playwright. Her first play, In Pursuit of Justice: A One-Woman Play about Ida B. Wells, which starred Janice Jenkins, won four AUDELCO Awards. Her writing has appeared in two anthologies: Streetlights: Illuminating Tales of the Urban Black Experience, and The Point: Where Teaching & Writing Intersect. She is the fiction editor of theravensperch.com, an online literary magazine.
As president of Writing Maven, LLC, she helps people write essays, resumes, and wedding vows and prepares students for the SAT and the ACT. She is a former tenured English professor.
She lives in New Jersey with her life partner, David Mitchell, and their son.
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