By Erin Wood
The Six Bridges Book Festival has recently announced another thrilling author lineup for October 20-30, 2022. This annual festival of the Central Arkansas Library System features dozens of renowned national and international authors for adults and children, as well as interactive sessions, cooking workshops, exhibitions, and other special events.
One of the featured authors, Janis F. Kearney, has a long literary history in Arkansas, including being appointed by President Clinton as his personal diarist, having published the historic Arkansas State Press Newspaper previously run by civil right legend Daisy L. Gatson Bates, founding and being the president of the Celebrate! Maya Project of Arkansas, and launching her own publishing company—Writing Our World, among a lifetime of countless other literary endeavors.
Kearney’s eighth book, Only on Sundays: Mahalia Jackson’s Long Journey, will release just prior to the Festival. In this book, Kearney chronicles the life and journey of the incomparable gospel queen who changed the world with her voice. Kearney’s story offers answers to the transformation of a motherless child who grew up hard and fast in one of New Orleans’ poorest districts. The transformation was a miraculous one—little Halie’s evolution into the gospel queen courted by Hollywood and the White House alike and invited by royalty from around the world to come and sing for them.
Signed copies of Only on Sundays will be available at the Festival and in early October through local and national retailers.
For the full festival lineup, visit www.sixbridgesbookfestival.org.
Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs Et Alia Press (www.etaliapress.com). Wood is author of “Women Make Arkansas: Conversations With 50 Creatives” (April 2019) and editor of and a contributor to “Scars: An Anthology” (2015).
