Fabu, Sherry Lucille, Catrina J. Sparkman

The Wisconsin Book Festival kicks off 2023 with a launch event for new books by three local authors. We Eat to Remember: Soul Food Poetry is the latest collection by former Madison poet laureate Fabu Phillis Carter. Sherry Lucille, author of the “Love Trilogy” series, returned in 2022 with Falling, a novel about a relationship between people with different world views and pasts that intervene. Flight of the Blackbird, Part 1 is the latest from Catrina J. Sparkman.

media release: Love Released Again: 2/19/23 - 2:00pm, Central Library, Community Room 301 & 302

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courtesy Sherry Lucille

A close-up of Sherry Lucille.

Sherry Lucille

Book Launch of new works by authors Fabu, Sherry Lucille, and Catrina J. Sparkman.

Fabu Phillis Carter is an artist professionally known as Poet Fabu in Madison, Wisconsin. She is a poet, columnist, storyteller, and teaching artist who writes to encourage, inspire and remind.  Selected as the first African American to become a Madison Poet Laureate (2008-2012), she continues to share the Black experience living in the South, the Midwest and in Africa. She served as poetry editor for Umoja Magazine and Madison Magazine. In 2019, she was poetry

editor for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets annual edition. She currently serves as poetry editor for the Capitol City Hues and is a culture columnist for the Cap Times newspaper. Dr. Fabu Carter has a PhD from the University of Nairobi, the African Women’s Center. She was recently selected as a Commissioner for the Madison Arts Commission. Also in 2021, she is co- hosting Poetry for Life, a telephone poetry session every Thursday with Poet Gary Glazner. In

2022 that has become the in-person Poetry and Arts Café held on the first Tuesday of each month at the UW South Madison Partnership Office.

Fabu is the author of seven books of poetry, Poems, Dreams and Roses, In Our Own Tongue, Journey to Wisconsin:  African American Life in Haiku, Love Poems. Journey to Wisconsin…won an Outstanding Achievement in Poetry award by the Wisconsin Library Association and the last three are on Mary Lou Williams, jazz genius. They are Remember Me: Mary Lou Williams in Poetry, Sacred Mary Lou and a Mary Lou Williams Coloring book. She is a Pushcart nominee in poetry with poems in Rosebud, PMS, Callaloo and the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters. 

About We Eat to Remember: Soul Food Poetry (by Fabu):

We Eat to Remember: Soul Food Poetry is a book about the history, culture and joy connected to the foods Black people eat, why we eat specific foods and also the ways we eat them as well. This book of poetry goes back to our food narratives that started in Africa, continued through the slave experience in America and are vibrant and present today.

Sherry Lucille is a motivational speaker, life coach, and author. As founder of Inspiring Destiny, she seeks to help people to unlock their hidden potential and to live life brilliantly. Her published works include the Love Trilogy: Love Changes, Love Dreams, and Love Promises. All three novels are set in Chicago circa 1969 and deal with interracial romance.

In 2022, she completed Falling, which she dubs her first Black on Black Love Story. When two vastly different world views collide in a small Tennessee town and secrets become unearthed, the playboy and the practical girl have to decide if their budding relationship is too high a price to pay.

As a celebrated and award-winning retired school counselor for almost thirty years, and having been a foundational teacher for children and youth in Christian education and a Dance Director, Sherry believes she brings a wide range of knowledge, experience, and encouragement to her writing and every endeavor. She loves people interactions and sharing stories with those she encounters.

About Falling (by Sherry Lucille):

All of his adult life, Jasper Johnson has gotten exactly what he wants, which explains why his beloved benefactor’s request is unexpected and irritating. It’s 1970 and this flashy playboy extraordinaire has the world by its tail; and, what he wants now is more, more, more. In a shocking reversal, his indulgent benefactor pulls him from cavorting across Europe and Africa and instead, ties his future to attaining a college degree—once and for all. No graduation. No funds. No future.

Escaping the dreary existence of her Chicago home, Karen Stone heads for Tennessee. . Young, resolved, and beloved, Karen is beckoned here by a promise of a higher calling. In less than a year at Longview Nursing Home, she is known for being a passionate, clever, and resourceful young woman. And despite her new focus, Karen continues to attract the attention of more than one handsome young man. So, when Jasper Johnson appears on the scene with his alluring eyes and wily charm, she is uniquely unmoved. 

Jasper Johnson, who’s not used to being ignored, pursues the elusive Miss Stone. His constant machinations bring him and Karen into an unlikely union. While Karen deliberates their future, or lack thereof, she faces a trauma sent to destroy the very essence of who she is. Too hurt to persevere, she flees to her childhood home: hoping to restore the security which was so violently wrenched from her. Following Karen, Jasper reunites with his Chicago family. While there, he discovers that his past demands a reckoning; Karen’s love comes at a great price; and, if he’s not careful, he could face a devastation of his own.Warring with their pasts and present, Karen and Jasper are indeed “falling.” Hurtling to the earth below, will they be shattered: or find the love strong enough to pull the pieces together?

Catrina J. Sparkman has carved out a successful career niche as a grassroots theater artist and authorpreneur of several works of fiction and non-fiction. Including such titles as Doing Business With God, Passing Through Water, Opening the Floodgates, and The Fire this Time just to name a few.

Catrina is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison with a bachelor of arts in English, creative writing, and a master's degree in African American Studies. Catrina is a woman artist who wears many hats. An instructor of theater and drama, a content creator, workshop trainer, public speaker, publisher, book coach, and creative consultant for various national and international organizations.

Catrina is the owner of the Creator’s Cottage, a maker studio space for artists and writers located in Madison. Catrina is also the founder and CEO of The Ironer’s Press Ministries, a non-profit that serves the needs of women and children of color in Wisconsin through the use of social action theater, publishing and the creative arts.