Authors for Autism / Black History Month - Monthly Mishmash

My Little Absence: I was slow last week in returning blog comments. My mom had a fall on Monday and needed my help. She's okay. Banged up, aching, with a splint on one wrist, but it could've been worse. 

NEW Anthology: I am a part of an anthology to help raise awareness for autism. Pieces of the Heart came out on Valentine’s Day. My mom is also in the anthology! :D

The story I contributed to Pieces of the Heart is Cancer Can’t. I wrote it for two women I know. The first inspired the initial idea when I got to know her (through Facebook) and learned about the cancer diagnosis she defeated years before. She told me about how she would crack jokes while receiving chemo, how she would yell at her doctors if their opinion wasn’t positive, how she refused to back down. I wanted to write about a character just like her. The other woman this story is dedicated to also conquered breast cancer and I wanted to honor her as well with this story, so I wrote about Harley, a tough woman with a heart of gold who takes on the big C with brass and class.

Blurb

Fifteen incredible authors have come together with stories of love, passion, pain, and triumph in support of Autism research. Pieces of the Heart by Authors for Autism is a collection of romance short stories of various genre and styles. Contemporary, fantasy, comedy, historical, and drama, all combined in an assembly of sweet short reads to fill your heart with emotion. All of the proceeds of every sold copy of Pieces of the Heart will be donated toward Autism Research. This is a cause near and dear to every author involved in this project, and they are all excited to share these beautiful stories with all of you.

Contributing Authors:

Maggie Adams, Shannon Bell, Robbie Cox, Chrys Fey, Joan Hazel, Violet Howe, Brenda Hunt, Sam JD Hunt, Elaine Kaye, Tamsyn L. Key, Michelle Louise, Tara Ann Moore, J. Nichole Parkins, Cherron Riser, and Miranda Shanklin

Don't forget to order your copy ASAP!

Kindle Link / Paperback Link

Black History Month:

I’ve been reading a lot of book for Black History Month. One book I read really hit me in a good way. Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery chronicles the real story of the youngest person to take part in the Selma to Montgomery March. While I read it, it was as though she sat across from me, telling me about her passion, her fight for freedom, and her fear following Bloody Sunday. It is a great story.

So, Lynda Blackmon Lowery is also my empowering woman for this month along with Michelle Obama. :)

 At the end of the book, we are told about the three individuals killed before and after Bloody Sunday, two of which were white advocates:

- Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered during a march at night. He tried to shield his eighty-two-year-old grandfather, who was badly beaten, and his mother. A trooper shot him in the stomach.

- Reverend James Reeb answered Martin Luther King’s call for religious leaders. He participated in a peaceful march in which the marchers prayed and then left. Reverend Reeb and three ministers went to a café for dinner. When they left, a group of white men attacked them with baseball bats and clubs. Reverend Reeb died.

- Viola Gregg Liuzzo was a homemaker who came to Selma from to Detroit. After the big march, she helped out by driving marchers home. On her last run, with one individual, the KKK forced her off the road and shot her in the head.

The young man with her (the author’s neighbor) used the woman’s body to cover himself, so the KKK thought they had killed him, too. He was nineteen when he ran for his life. He never returned to Selma.

Blogging: I will continue to post every IWSG and on Mondays, but I've decided to suspend the Friday feature for The Wild Rose Press authors. I've been struggling with low blogging motivation for a while now and decided this is best. I apologize.

Question: What are you reading?