Join us on Women & Children First's Crowdcast Channel for the virtual book launch celebrating the release of Miles From Motown by Lisa Sukenic! For this event, Sukenic will be in conversation with Carol Coven Grannick.
After moving from her beloved Detroit neighborhood to an unfamiliar suburb on the outskirts of the city, Georgia lies to prevent becoming disqualified from the contest (which is for Detroit residents only) by using her aunt Birdie’s address. With her older brother deployed to Vietnam, and her family worried about when—or if—he’ll make it home, Georgia tries to settle into her new life. But she misses the old—her friend Ceci, the cracks in the sidewalk that used to catch her skates, the hide-and-seek tree, and the deli on the corner. She wonders if she’ll ever make new friends or feel like she belongs. To make matters worse, she must also find a way to intercept the contest finalist announcement that will be mailed to Aunt Birdie’s mailbox before her family uncovers her deception. During that summer, Georgia discovers her own resiliency in the face of upheaval and the power of truth when lies ring hollow.
Lisa Sukenic is a poet, author, and educator. She teaches 4th grade at The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. She is co-coordinator of the Global Reading Challenge which promotes children reading, analyzing and discussing diverse literature. As part of her language arts program each year students become authors by planning, writing, revising and reading mentor texts and present their novels at a reading. In the school year 2021-22 Miles from Motown will be included in the intensive novel in verse curriculum. Lisa received the Mary V. Williams Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2008. Miles from Motown was named Finalist in both the Many Voices Manuscript Contest and the Laura Crawford Memorial Scholarship in 2016. Miles from Motown won the Prairie Writer’s Day, SCBWI-IL manuscript contest in 2016. She was selected Finalist in The Kraken Book Prize for Middle-Grade Fiction, and awarded a contract for Miles from Motown from Fitzroy Books in 2019. Her other publications include short stories in A Reason To Be Here and Turningpoints, and Haikus in Every Day Haiku, Not for Ourselves Alone: Gender Politics and Parenting for the 21 st Century, and the chapbook The Poems That Ate Our Ears. In 2009, Lisa received her poetry certificate from the University of Chicago Graham School.
Carol Coven Grannick is a poet, children’s author, and clinical social worker. Her lifelong dual love of poetry and stories that explore hardships and difficult emotional issues facing younger children merged when she discovered middle grade novels in verse. Her own debut, Reeni's Turn, a middle grade story about a shy, introverted character’s search for body acceptance, courage, and her own strong voice, was awarded Finalist in the Katherine Paterson Award at Hunger Mountain and Honorable Mention in the Sydney Taylor Manuscript Competition. Carol received a Ragdale Foundation Residency and two Illinois Arts Council Grants to complete the work. Carol also has a passion for short fiction and poetry for the very young child, and her work appears in Cricket, Ladybug, Babybug, Highlights, and Hello! Her poetry for adults appears most recently in West Texas Review, Otherwise Engaged, and The Write City Magazine (Chicago Writers Association). Her chapbook addressing her husband’s traumatic hospitalization in 2012, CALL ME BOB, is due out in early 2022. Carol graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in Creative Writing and received her M.S.W. from the Wurzweiler Graduate School of Social Work. Her writing life was peppered from childhood with poetry, essays, and scholarly papers until she began her passionate and committed journey into children’s literature in 1999. As author and clinical social worker, Carol also chronicles the writer’s “inner narrative arc”, exploring and supporting emotional resilience. Her articles and interviews appear at Cynthia Leitich Smith’s award-winning blog, Cynsations, the SCBWI-IL’s Prairie Wind, the GROG Blog, and multiple other online venues.
