Coral in the Diaspora Virtual Book Launch

Description: Celebrate the virtual book launch of Coral in the Diaspora on Sunday, August 4th and listen to Jerrice J Baptise read from her collection. Baptiste will be joined by Joanne Godley & Mary K. O'Melveny who will also read from their works. There will be time for a Q+A. See you virtually there!  

About Jerrice J Baptiste: Jerrice J. Baptiste born in Haiti, is the founder & facilitator of Authentic Poetry workshops. She has been the recipient of grants from CREATE and Poets & Writers. She’s also a returning teaching artist/poet at the Omega Institute in NY, where she was the recipient of the Juno Cottage residency for The Women’s Leadership Program. Her poetry is published and/or forthcoming in The Yale Review; Mantis; Penumbra Literary Art Journal; Urthona: Buddhism & Art; Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & The Arts; The Dewdrop; Braided Way: Faces & Voices of Spiritual Practice; Shambhala Times; Poetica Review and numerous others. Jerrice is the author of seven children’s books and Wintry Mix. She’s a Pushcart Prize nominee for 2024 & Best of the Net in 2022 by Blue Stem. Her poetry and collaborative songwriting are featured on the nominated Grammy award album, Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti.

Learn more about the authors opening for Baptiste below: 

Mary K O’Melveny is the author of four poetry collections and a chapbook. Her most recent, If You Want To Go To Heaven, Follow A Songbird (Jerry Jazz Musician 2024) is an album of poems, art and music available at https://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/if-you-want-to-go-to-heaven-follow-a-songbird-mary-k-omelvenys-album-of-poetry-and-music/ Mary’s award-winning poems have appeared in many print and on-line literary journals and anthologies and on international blog sites. Her book Flight Patterns was nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her collection, Merging Star Hypotheses, was a semi-finalist for The Washington Prize, sponsored by The Word Works. Mary has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Mary is also an active member of the Hudson Valley Women’s Writing Group and her poetry appears in the Group’s two published anthologies, An Apple In Her Hand and Rethinking The Ground Rules. Mary lives with her wife near Woodstock, New York.

Joanne Godley lives in Mexico City. She is a physician, writer, poet, and a second year MFA student at Pacific University. She is a Meter Keeper in the Poetry Witch Community and an Anaphora Arts fellow in both poetry and fiction. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in the Bellevue Literary Review, Mantis, Light, FIYAH, Pratik, Account, among others. She was twice nominated for a Pushcart prize. Her prose has been published in the Massachusetts Review, the Kenyon Review online, Juked, Memoir, among others. Her second chapbook, Doc.X, was recently published by Black Sunflowers Press. Her website is:  joannegodley.com

Pre-order Coral in the Diaspora

Pre-order Baptiste's collection Coral in the Diaspora here. All orders will ship early August. 50% of proceeds from sales of Coral in The Diaspora will go to Ecole Mixte La Redemption in Duvivier, Cite Soleil, Haiti as the author has family connections to the school itself. Baptiste's Aunt Mirlande Derosier Laurore is the Volunteer Executive Director of the school, and her uncle Roodly Laurore, who is a published Haitian poet, is a volunteer teacher at the school too.