June 2024 News

OUR TWO JUNE RELEASES are unique examples of the power and beauty of story. Author Merideth Taylor’s work, a genre of historical fiction that Columbia University professor and scholar of African American literature Saidiya Hartman calls “critical fabulation,” combines years of research and hundreds of oral histories to imagine the everyday lives of enslaved people living on tobacco plantations in Southern Maryland. Author Muriel Fox’s memoir, a very personal history of second-wave feminism that only she, at age 96, could tell, provides critical insights about battles for women’s rights in the 1960s. It is an honor to publish books by these two, remarkable women.

Making a Way Out of No Way

Lives of Labor, Love, and Resistance

Merideth M. Taylor

A richly imagined, illustrated narrative of 150 years of life in slavery on tobacco plantations in Southern Maryland

In this well-researched work, the traditional central figure and linear plot of the novel has been replaced by an interwoven collage of scenes and community of characters that reflect the diversity of experience, “silences,” and incompleteness of the historical record. By largely avoiding graphic depictions of the violence perpetrated on the enslaved, this book allows readers focus instead on the remarkable resilience, ingenuity, skills, and cultural strengths that enabled them to make a way out of no way.

Hardcover with jacket, 208 pages,

7.38 x 9.00 in, 91 color images

All author royalties will be donated to the Historic Sotterley Descendant's Project.

Praise for Making a Way Out of No Way

“Merideth Taylor's evocative images, coupled with her elegant and heartrending prose, are a sensitive treatment of a dark chapter of our shared past.” 

—Patricia Samford, Maryland Historical Trust

“Making a Way Out of No Way is almost three dimensional – almost more a museum exhibit than a book. It gives us an almost tangible sense, through stunning photographs and carefully crafted scenes, of the love, hope, endurance, and pride of the enslaved people who lived and labored at Sotterley and other plantations like it in Southern Maryland.” 

—Elizabeth A. Pickard, historian, author Ruth’s River Dreams 

Merideth M. Taylor is Professor Emerita of Theater and Dance at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and a founding member of the African and African Diaspora and Women Studies programs at the College. She is author of Listening in: Echoes and Artifacts from Maryland’s Mother County; co-editor of In Relentless Pursuit of an Education: African American Stories from a Century of Segregation; and documentary screenwriter/director.

Merideth Taylor Events



Making a Way Out of No Way Photography Exhibition

Art In Treasured Spaces, 80 Calvert St., Annapolis, MD

Thru June 7

"Maryland Muse: A Tapestry of Inspiration" presents a diverse collection of two-dimensional creative works inspired by the unique cultural, beauty, and daily lives of Marylanders. Included in this display is photography from Merideth Taylor's new book, Making a Way Out of No Way.

Sotterley Presents: People & Perspectives with Merideth Taylor

Historic Sotterley, 44300 Sotterley Lane, Hollywood, MD 20636

July 10, 7 PM

Merideth Taylor will discuss the motivations and journey behind her new book. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. The event is free and hybrid with a pre-reception at 6:15 for in-person participants. Registration required. 

The Women's Revolution

How We Changed Your Life



Muriel Fox

In her candid, compelling memoir about the Second Wave feminist movement, Muriel Fox offers remarkable, firsthand stories of 30 people (29 women and one man). Those profiled include Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Pauli Murray, Heather Booth, Mary Eastwood, and others whom history should not forget.

Unlike books relying on secondary sources, Fox's memoir is built mainly from her own Feminism Files containing hundreds of letters, clippings, notes, and photographs that she archived. The book is truthful in revealing the movement’s struggles, maneuvers, sacrifices, feuds, betrayals, defeats, and victories large and small. This is a noteworthy, comprehensive book about the laws, lawsuits, and victories that helped the modern women's movement change the world.

Hardcover, 320 pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in, 36 b/w images

Praise for The Women's Revolution

“Muriel Fox was there at the beginning of the modern wave of feminism, and her book, The Women’s Revolution, reveals how a small group of women started a worldwide transformation that continues. Anyone striving for a more equal future will be inspired by her experience.”

—Gloria Steinem, feminist activist, author, founding editor of Ms. magazine

“Muriel Fox’s eye-witness account is honest, revealing and inspiring. It is a must-read for all who strive for social justice—for women and for all people."

—Brent Garren, Deputy General Counsel, SEIU Local 32BJ

Muriel Fox cofounded the National Organization for Women (NOW) and its powerful Legal Defense and Education Fund (now Legal Momentum), pivotal forces in the Second Wave Feminist Movement. Fox was also cofounder and president of the International Women’s Forum and chair of Veteran Feminists of America. As executive vice president of Carl Byoir & Associates, Fox became the world’s most preeminent woman in public relations. At age 96, she remains an influential voice in the feminist movement.

Muriel Fox Events

The Women’s Revolution: Book Signing with Author Muriel Fox

Rockland Center for the Arts

27 South Greenbush Road, West Nyack, New York

June 20, 7 PM 

Muriel Fox, who served as former president of Rockland Center for the Arts, will discuss and sign copies of her new book. The event is free and open to the public. 

Beckett and Justice

Cal State LA Library

5151 State University Dr., Los Angeles, CA

June 6–8

Join the Samuel Beckett Society’s 9th annual conference for roundtable discussions, theatrical performances, and the announcement of the Society's Writing Contest winners. On Thursday, Spoon Jackson will speak on the panel “Beckett, Incarceration and Education.” Registration is free and open to the public. 

Spoon Jackson is a writer, poet, and teacher who was sentenced to Life Without Possibility of Parole when he was twenty years old. He is the co-author of the double memoir By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives (New Village Press, 2010), with Judith Tannenbaum, and co-editor of the newly published homage to Tannenbaum, The Book of Judith: Opening Hearts Through Poetry (New Village Press, 2022) with Mark Foss and Sara Press. His poetry is collected in Longer Ago (2010). 

New portrait unveiling at

Americans Who Tell the Truth Gallery

Bates Mill Atrium, 35 Canal St., Lewiston, ME

June 7, 5:30–7 PM

Robert Shetterly unveils his new portrait of Lewiston native and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Bernard Lown, part of his ongoing series, Americans Who Tell the Truth. Lown's portrait and profile will be included in the third volume in the Americans Who Tell the Truth book series, Portraits of Peacemakers, to be published in October 2024.

Robert Shetterly is a visual artist, social activist, and writer. For the past twenty years, he has painted portraits of citizens who address issues of social, environmental, and economic fairness in the series Americans Who Tell the Truth, now the subject of the Kane Lewis feature-length documentary Truth Tellers, which is currently airing on American Public Television.

Root Shock Twenty Years On: Carrying the Message

The HUUB, 35 Cleveland St., Orange, NJ

June 8, 1–6 PM

Celebrate the 20th anniversary of Root Shock, Dr. Mindy Fullilove’s seminal book about urban renewal and displacement in the 1950s, with an afternoon of readings, reflections, films, live music, and great local food at the HUUB, a community arts initiative in the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Essex County’s Urban Ministry program. 

Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove is a social psychiatrist and educator. Her work centers urban mental health, displacement, and collective consciousness. She is the author of Root Shock, Urban Alchemy, Main Street, and more.

Iona Lecture with Mark Dowie

St. Columba’s, 12835 Sir Francis Drake Blvd, Inverness, CA 

June 6, 7 PM

Mark Dowie discusses his friendship with poet Judith Tannenbaum and lessons about life and death he learned while writing his new book, Judith Letting Go. The lecture and conversation are free and open to the public. 

Mark Dowie is a former publisher and editor of Mother Jones magazine. He recently retired from the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where he taught science, environmental reporting, and foreign correspondence. Dowie’s works have won nineteen journalism awards. He is the author of eight previous books.

Margaret Randall to read at Agave Festival Marfa, Texas • June 6–9

Special guest Margaret Randall will be joined June 7th by poet, art historian, translator and editor, Roberto Tejada for a conversation about Margaret’s life; the power of poetry, translation and publication; and whatever else they desire. This is part of an annual festival with talks by preeminent historians, botanists, artists, anthropologists, and archaeologists. Enjoy tastings hosted by agave spirit producers, one-of-a-kind dining experiences, and performances by leading artists in contemporary and regional music—FREE and open to the public. 

More about the Festival HERE

Margaret Randall legendary poet, translator and revolutionary, will read from her work. Randall’s influence on contemporary poetry is basically indescribable. Co-founder, with Sergio Mondragon, of El Corno Emplumado (the Plumed Horn), a journal of hemispheric proportions which published important work by Cecilia Vicuña, Ernesto Cardenal, Philip Lamantia, Allen Ginsberg and others, Randall’s political engagement resulted in her being exiled from Mexico and denied entry into the United States after 1968.

Catherine Filloux's How to Eat an Orange

The Downstairs @ La MaMa, New York, NY

Thru June 16, 2024

A new one-woman play about the visual artist and activist Claudia Bernardi, her childhood in Argentina under the military junta, and her subsequent work digging up and healing the past. Histories are woven together in a kaleidoscopic play that depicts how both families and justice may be reconfigured.

More info and Ticket Purchase HERE

Hobart Festival of Women Writers 2024

Hobart, NY • June 7–9

Hobart Festival of Women Writers is entering its eleventh year! Fiction writers, essayists, memoirists, and all lovers of language are invited to celebrate the work of women authors and explore the writing craft. This year, New Village Press director Lynne Elizabeth will host a workshop on "What Publishers Need: How to Pitch Your Book Effectively."

More Festival info HERE

Mayumi Oda's artwork exhibited at

Donkey Mill Art Center, Holualoa, HI

Happy Veggies Exhibit: thru June 29

Works in the exhibition include a curated selection of prints, paintings, etchings and drawings by Oda, many of which have never been exhibited. Bring your ‘ohana and friends to explore, relax and create in this lush wonderland gallery. More info HERE

Discover Mayumi's beautiful anniversary editions of Random Kindness & I Opened the Gate, Laughing

Rodney B. Dieser for North American Review on Joyce Milambiling's Skyscraper Settlement: The Many Lives of Christodora House  

“A gold mine as it explains an often overlooked Settlement House with clarity, precision, depth and breadth. I have written on Settlement Houses for over twenty years, and even I was unaware of Christodora House. Overall, this book is well worth reading whether you know very little or are already acquainted with the history of Settlement Houses." 

Read review HERE.

Streetcar Suburbs News interviews Dr. Mindy Fullilove

“What if we understand Lakeland as the four pillars of a healthy urban habitat? And what if we said restoring Lakeland is lifting up what it taught us?”

Read interview HERE.

TED interviews Lily Yeh, co-author of Healing from Genocide in Rwanda: Rugerero Survivors Village, an Artist Book

“Think of the brokenness, the opportunity, and the people, the depth of what they have experienced in darkness became my guide.”

Listen to the interview HERE.

Otherwise Magazine on The Book of Judith: Opening Hearts Through Poetry edited by Spoon Jackson, Mark Foss and Sara Press

Spoon Jackson records with composer Timothy Reed for Tomorrow’s Ken, a collection of interviews with people who are currently or formerly incarcerated.

Listen to the program HERE.

Vietnam News Agency highlights Ron Carver, co-editor of Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War



“With such deep connections with Vietnam, Ron is delighted to see Vietnam-US relations being increasingly intensified.”

Read the article HERE.

The VVA Veteran reviews David Cortright's A Peaceful Superpower: Lessons from the World’s Largest Antiwar Movement 

“It is a valuable contribution to the study of peace movements.”

Read the review HERE.