Janelle M. Williams and Jamila Minnicks for GONE LIKE YESTERDAY *IN-PERSON*

Loyalty is thrilled to welcome Janelle M. Williams and Jamila Minnicks for an IN-PERSON event celebrating the release of Gone Like Yesterday! Join us at Loyalty's Petworth location at 7 PM on Thursday, March 23rd for a discussion, q+a & book signing! 

This event is free to attend but RSVPs are required—please use the form below. **If the RSVP form is no longer visible, that means the event has reached capacity. In that case, please email events@loyaltybookstores.com to join the waitlist!**

**Face masks are required for all attendees.** Please email events@loyaltybookstores.com with any questions.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A lyrical debut novel that asks what we owe to our families, what we owe to our ancestors, and what we owe to ourselves. Janelle M. Williams’s Gone Like Yesterday employs magical realism to explore the majestic and haunting experience of being a Black woman in today’s America.   

Gone Like Yesterday follows two Black women--Zahra, a listless college prep coach, and Sammie, a teenage girl and budding activist soon off to college--who are drawn to each other through the songs of gypsy moths. Gypsy moths have been singing the songs of Zahra’s ancestors to her for years, so when Zahra realizes that Sammie might be a moth person too, their paths become intertwined.

Then, the unthinkable happens: Zahra’s brother, Derrick, goes missing. Derrick has always been different—sensitive and connected to the spiritual world, he has been drifting from Zahra and her family for some time. But this time feels different. Zahra is panicked that he may really be gone for good, lost to her forever.

Zahra can’t let that happen. So, she, along with Sammie, embarks on a road trip from New York to Atlanta, Zahra’s hometown, in search of Zahra’s brother, but also to uncover just what the moths and their ancestors want with them, and what to do about their individual and collective futures.

Sharp and wholly original, Gone Like Yesterday is a novel about family and legacy but also a literary exploration of racial identity, self, and what it means to be found.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Janelle M. Williams received her BA from Howard University and her MFA in creative writing from Manhattanville College. She is the recipient of Prairie Schooner's Lawrence Foundation Award for her story, "From the Closest Waffle House." She was a 2017 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, and her flash fiction story "Harlem Thunder" was longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 in 2020. Her work has appeared in The Normal School, Shenandoah, Passages North, Split Lip Magazine, and Lunch Ticket, among others. She is currently the Director of Programs and Outreach at Writopia Lab. Gone Like Yesterday is her debut novel.

ABOUT THE IN CONVERSATION PARTNER

Jamila Minnicks’ novel Moonrise Over New Jessup (Algonquin Books, 2023), won the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Her short fiction and essays are published, or forthcoming, in The Sun, Lithub, CRAFT, Catapult, Blackbird, The Write Launch, and elsewhere, and her piece, Politics of Distraction, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In 2022, Jamila was awarded a Tennessee Williams scholarship for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and she also earned a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Jamila is a graduate of the University of Michigan, the Howard University School of Law, and the Georgetown University Law Center. She lives in Washington, DC.

Please note Loyalty has a zero tolerance policy for harassment or intimidation of any kind during this event.