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Written by Tina McElroy Ansa - Narration by Tina McElroy Ansa - Abridged Fiction - 4 CASSETTES - 6 hours

Publisher, Harper Audio (April 2002)

It is the weekend of the Peach Blossom Festival in the tiny Georgia town of Mulberry, and LaShawndra, an eighteen-year-old hoochie-mama, has messed up . . . again. But this time she isn't sticking around to hear about it. She plans instead to hitchhike out of Mulberry with her arms wrapped around some handsome stranger on a motorcycle avoiding the repercussions for her actions.

Not that her mother seems to care; after all, Sandra is busy working on her flourishing real-estate career and on a tenuous relationship with the local minister. It's LaShawndra's grandmother, Lily Paine Pines, a highly respected cornerstone of the Mulberry community; who is out scouring the streets at midnight looking for her granddaughter.

Over the course of one weekend these women, guided by the wisdom of three unexpected visitors -- the ghosts of Miss Moses, Nurse Joanna Bloom, and Miss Eliza Jane Dryer -- will learn to face the pain of their lives and discover that with reconciliation comes the healing they all desperately seek.

About the Author: Novelist Tina McElroy Ansa calls herself "part of a writing tradition, one of those little Southern girls who always knew she wanted to be a writer." She grew up in Middle Georgia in the 1950s hearing her grandfather's stories on the porch of her family home and strangers' stories downtown in her father's juke joint, which have inspired Mulberry, Georgia, the mythical world of her four novels.

Tina McElroy Ansa was born in Macon, GA, the youngest of five children. In 1971, she graduated from Spelman College, the historically black women's college which is part of the Atlanta University Center in Atlanta, GA. Her first job after college was on the copy desk of The Atlanta Constitution, where she was the first black woman to work on the morning newspaper. During her eight years at The Atlanta Constitution, she worked as copy editor, makeup editor, layout editor, entertainment writer, features editor, and news reporter. She also worked as editor and copy editor for The Charlotte (NC) Observer. Since 1982, she has been a freelance journalist, newspaper columnist and writing workshop instructor at Brunswick College, Emory University and Spelman College.

Tina McElroy Ansa was a Writer-in-Residence at her alma mater Spelman College in Atlanta, GA in the Fall of 1990 where she also taught creative writing. In addition to touring for her books and giving lectures, she has presented her work at the Smithsonian's African-American Center's Author's Series; the Richard Wright/Zora Neale Hurston Foundation; the PEN/Faulkner Reading Series and fundraisers at the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Schomburg Center and the PEN American Center. She is on the Advisory Council for the Georgia Center for the Book and on the host committee for the Flannery O'Connor Awards.

Reflecting her concern with the issue of homelessness in this country, she has participated in fund-raising events including readings at the SOS-sponsored Writers Harvest at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, GA and at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. She has also volunteered for fundraisers and house-buildings for Habitat for Humanity and has read at Atlanta-based fundraisers for Aid to Children of Imprisoned Mothers.

She and her husband, Joneé Ansa, have lived on St. Simons Island, GA since 1984. Together they produced and directed the 1989 Georgia Sea Island Festival, a 20-year old grassroots festival that seeks to preserve crafts, music, slave chants, games, food and the spirit of the African-American people who lived and worked as slaves on the rice and cotton plantations along the Georgia coast. Ms. Ansa is an avid birder, amateur naturalist, and gardener. She always has collard greens growing in her garden among the black-eyed Susans and moonflowers.