Author Janis F. Kearney Next Guest on Arkansas Folklife Web Series

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Janis Kearney

The Arkansas Folklife Web Series will feature author Janis F. Kearney of Little Rock at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 20. Host Lauren Willette will speak with Kearney about her latest book, Only on Sundays: Mahalia Jackson's Long Journey, and about her work in the field of community engagement and humanities through the non-profit Celebrate! Maya Project. The webinar is free and open to the public, and registration is required. 

Kearney is an author, writing instructor and non-profit founder and director. She graduated from the U of A with a B.A. in journalism. From 1993-2001, she served in the Clinton administration as director of communications for the U.S. Small Business Administration.

In 2014, Kearney founded the Celebrate! Maya Project. Its mission is to promote the life and legacy of Maya Angelou through service to Arkansas' communities and schools. She also founded the Read.Write.Share Writers Conference, which includes memoir-writing seminars, lectures and workshops around the state. She has written or co-written 17 books, including her first, the critically acclaimed Cotton Field of Dreams: A Memoir.

Other books by Kearney from her publishing company, WOW Publishing, include Something to Write Home About: Memories of a Presidential Diarist; Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton, from Hope to Harlem; Daisy: Between a Rock and a Hard Place; Sundays with TJ: 100 Years of Memories on Varner Road and Writing Our Lives: An Anthology of Southern Storytellers, Volumes I-III, a compilation of short memoirs contributed by Southern writers. 

The final two sessions of the 2023 Arkansas Folklife Web Series will be: 

•  Oct. 18 — Eric Maynard, Arkansas Game and Fish — Hunting and Fishing Traditions 

• Nov. 18 — Kat Robinson, Arkansas author — Arkansas Food Traditions 

Questions about the 2023 Arkansas Folklife Web Series may be directed to Willette at  willette@uark.edu. Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts is a statewide program of the University of Arkansas Libraries dedicated to building cross-cultural understanding by documenting, presenting and sustaining Arkansas' living traditional arts and cultural heritage.