Program and Book-signing with author, Janis F. Kearney

Doors open at 11:30 on February 23, 2024, program begins at Noon. Brown bag it--or bring in your take-out. Water is provided by the FSMH. Only on Sundays: Mahalia Jackson’s Long Journey will be available for purchase. 

About the author: Janis F. Kearney dreamed of becoming a writer as a child. Her parents, however, were poor cotton sharecroppers, and her days were filled with helping out in the cotton fields when she wasn’t in school. A writing life had to wait. It was many years later that her reality met up with her dream. Today, Janis is a nonfiction and fiction writer, whose first book was published shortly after she turned 51 years old. She has described that first book, Cotton Field of Dreams as a love letter to her parents.

Since then, Janis has written extensively about her life journey, including a second memoir, Something to Write Home About, chronicling her years as Personal Diarist to President William J. Clinton; Between a Rock and a Hard Place, a biographical nonfiction chronicling the life of Daisy Gatson Bates, Arkansas’ civil rights legend; Conversations: William J. Clinton…from Hope to Harlem, an oral biography which includes 100 interviews with Americans about the 42nd President, and a book about her father, Sundays with TJ: Memories of 100 Years on Varner Road. She has also written two novels, part of her Cajun Lawman series, and her latest book, Only on Sundays: Mahalia Jackson’s Long Journey – a creative nonfiction chronicling the life of America’s Gospel Queen Mahalia Jackson. Over the last 15 years, she has also ghostwritten various books for other authors.

Janis’ lifelong career before she became an author, included roles as a public affairs director for state government, publisher of a weekly newspaper, director of communications for a federal agency and personal diarist to a U.S. President.

These days, her life is divided between her writing life; the Celebrate! Maya Project, a youth centered nonprofit project founded shortly after the death of literary icon Maya Angelou, with the goal of addressing the literacy, art, history and writing needs of Arkansas youth – with a special focus on the delta regions; and the Read Write Share Writers Weekend, an annual literary-centered conference for published, and emerging authors. Read Write Share was founded in 2015,

Janis F. Kearney and Bob Nash have a blended family of three children, five grandchildren, one great-grandchild and Phynx, a German Shepherd. Her hobbies include reading, traveling, and spending time with close friends and family.

FSMH members are free.