We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anita Gail Jones. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anita Gail below.

Alright, Anita Gail thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

My mother, Mrs. Irene Gaines Jones, was an elementary school teacher/librarian and my father, Mr. Silas Jones, worked as a lard renderer at a meat packing plant, so I grew up in a light blue collar household. Neither of my parents considered themselves artists, and yet they supported both my older sister, Dr. Bettye Jean Jones, and me in our journeys in the arts: theater arts for Bettye, visual & literary arts for me. This support was no small thing for a couple born and raised in southwest Georgia who lived their entire lives there. They both held artists in high esteem, and I’m forever grateful for that. I only wish they were here to reap the benefits of those seeds they sowed. Sadly, our family lost Irene, Bettye and Silas within a seven year period in the 90s. I dedicated my debut novel, The Peach Seed, to all three.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m always looking at how the various aspects of my life inform each other, cross-pollinate and thereby help each other to grow. Writing is like raising a child—with both, foundation is key: preparing the child/writing for the road and not the opposite. I do not take lightly the privilege of being a mother and an artist—both processes are slow with high rewards for putting in the hard work. Through the baby years, seven years of homeschooling, then high school and into college, I remained dedicated to my writing. Balancing work and homelife was not easy; I could not afford the luxury of inspiration. When the window to write presented itself, I had to sit down and write. Period.

I’ve always made art from the time I could hold a piece of crayon to draw, and string words together to make sentences. I spent decades in the trenches, writing and making art even as I worked as a fashion model in New York and Europe through the 80s and 90s. Through rejection after rejection, the work remained its own reward. Working at craft, and seeing the work grow stronger kept me going.

I am most proud two things:
—not giving up. Years ago this quote from James Baldwin became by mantra: “Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.”

—producing (with my husband, Rob Roehrick), a book trailer for the novel. Book trailers are not as popular as they once were, so this decision was risky, but I never regretted making it. With the help of a good friend and veteran assistant director in the film industry, Annie Spiegelman, who made the dream come true. We assembled a talented, dedicated cast and crew willing to work for less in exchange for a beautiful portfolio piece. Got the job done in one chunky day of shooting in Inverness, CA at North Beach. To this day, the trailer is my therapy. Whenever I’d discouraged, I watch it and always feel better! And then, this happened: Film 14, a cinematic book trailer production company, chose our trailer for their 10 Best Book Trailers of 2023. Go here to watch the trailer, and a video of the making of: https://youtu.be/en4YKlYHE9o?si=99mmSsiZ8S1itgmr

My debut novel, The Peach Seed, began with a question for my father, Mr. Silas Jones, who had passed away so I was on my own for the answer. My dad was born in 1921 in southwest Georgia, a place where Black men of his generation lived in what James Baldwin called “the teeth of the Southern terror”—and yet—they managed to be leaders in their families, churches, communities when the domineering culture and the US government through laws and policies considered them less than human. I wanted to how they did this and turned to fiction for an answer.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Although I had been working many years to find an agent/publisher, it was not until February/March 2020 after I cold queried New York agent, Steve Ross, that my first positive reply came back: “Something in your letter prompts me to ask for fifty pages.” Hallelujah! By this time I had grown to love my manuscript, and wanted to throw up every time I looked at it. I sent the first fifty pages pronto. And within days, COVID hit New York City really hard. Steve said, “…we are in the belly of the beast.” My heart went out to the folks in NY, at the same time that it was consumed with fear that my novel would not survive the pandemic. The whole world was in a quagmire. Bookstores were closing, the book industry itself unsure of a future like all other industries. Devastated, I wallowed in that abyss for a few days until the same tenacity that had kept me moving forward for decades kicked in again. I pivoted to Plan B. The PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction had always been part of my plan if I didn’t find representation by June of 2020. The pandemic caused me to move that plan up a bit.This highly coveted prize promoting fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships was established by Barbara Kingsolver in 2000. It is awarded biennially to the author of a previously unpublished novel “of high literary caliber that exemplifies the prize’s founding principles” (Institute of Competition Sciences). Luckily, the competition was alive and well, so I entered at the end of August, grateful beyond belief to have somewhere to rest my weary literary head in the midst of Armageddon. My manuscript kept hanging in there, not being rejected which gave me more hope. Five months later, the news came that Peach Seed Monkey (my title at that time) was selected as one of the ten finalists.

This is proof of the importance of entering contests. Even if you don’t reach the moon, landing among the stars gets you noticed. When I circled back to Steve Ross one year later, March 2021, he remembered me, and my manuscript was now sprinkled with Bellwether dust, which confirmed and heightened his interest. By Easter he had read the whole manuscript and offered me representation. By Thanksgiving he had sold the manuscript to editor Retha Powers at Henry Holt in a two-book deal. So yes, when it finally happened, it happened fast, but this is the culmination of decades in the trenches.

One word: Endurance.

I write about this journey in a blog post: https://anitagailjones.com/landed-an-agent-at-last/.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Given a choice, I would not give you a nickel for social media platforms. Any of them. But that’s not the world we live in if you’re not already a super star and want to be taken seriously as an author and build readership. This much I know. You have to have a platform. So I treat it as a vital part of my promotional tool kit. And I have amazing help from Buzz Professor, Cheryl McLaughlin, whom I’ve known for years since I took a workshop from her where our first homework assignment was to go home and create a “sandbox website”. My advice is simple:

• take a workshop from someone you trust and build a website you can manage
• choose the social media platform that YOU can most tolerate (you don’t have to be on all of them) and use that as a satellite to bring people to your website.
• keep that website updated with everything you want folks to know about your business and links to buying.
• engage with people on social media; unfortunately, it’s not enough to just have the account sitting there with pretty pictures, etc. You have to be active in online communities.
• Do this by following a few high profile people in your field with values you share, (someone with lots of followers) and join the conversation: liking, commenting with your two-cents worth. THAT is the true value of social media. It’s an opportunity to get your voice/ideologies out there in the world. Yes, it’s time-consuming and you have to manage that, but with time, can be worth it. This is why you must be selective in who you follow and how much time you spend. (Don’t get sucked into arguments with crazies because there a PLENTY of them out there!)
• Most important: this is not the time or place for blatantly pushing your product or book. You’re showing people how you think about things, you’re “building” and if that resonates, “they will come.”

Contact Info:

• Website: www.AnitaGailJones.com
• Instagram: @anitagailjones
• Facebook: @anitagailjones
• Linkedin: @anitagailjones
• Youtube: @anitagailjones

Image Credits
Amira Maxwell