POETRY GIRL Press Release

Ohio author’s poem-play & t’s to benefit service dogs, young women writers & rising actors

POETRY GIRL Media Release PDF 

 

Poems are like People

Just like
people

 

some poems 
are better than others

 

some question
like a mother
who needs to know

 

some resemble
prayers
and ask for something

 

some stutter and fumble
searching for just
the right word

 

some never find it

 

just like
people

 

some are better than others
-Annie Blankenship, age 12, in POETRY GIRL

 

Poetry Girls are everywhere! Especially in April, National Poetry Month.

POETRY GIRL, Young Adult (YA) Fiction, by writer Nancy J. Jones is available just in time for Poetry Month. Jones began her career teaching English at Milford (OH) High School in school year 1976-77. In 1980, the Xavier University alum won a graduate teaching assistantship in Journalism at Ohio University and changed her career to Public Relations and Marketing.

 

POETRY GIRL© tells the story of next-door neighbors and friends, two girls who write poetry to deal with events and emotions, while growing up in a lively subdivision in the Sixties and Seventies. “Kelly Kaufman” is the youngest of four children whose father blames her for her mother’s illness. “Annie Blankenship,” the narrator, is an only child fascinated by the people and relationships around her. Kelly’s mom babysits Annie, who bears witness to it all and is compelled to tell Kelly’s story, along with her own. The girls’ adventures and trials are charming, poignant and sometimes heart-wrenching, but most of all real.

 

Jones incorporates plenty of poems written by both girls to tell the stories that matter to them both. It’s a story that sweet, creative daughters and kind-hearted and protective mothers and fathers can share. Although Jones was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1989 after two years of seemingly unrelated symptoms, she was able to continue her career until 2008 when the progression of MS stopped her in her tracks.

 

But in August 2007, Jones’ one-woman show was performed by actress Sherman Fracher and directed by Drew Fracher at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinnati. “I won several local and national grants based on the first 10 pages of the script for ABOVE THE 37th PARALLEL,” she says.

 

Ultimately, the play was performed in three more venues and raised more than $40,000 for MS research.

 

“What’s different about this publication,” Jones says, “POETRY GIRL will direct all proceeds to three non-profit organizations.” Among the three non-profits: service-dogs-in-training at Circle Tail in Pleasant Plain, Ohio, that provides trained service dogs at no cost to recipients within 90-miles of Greater Cincinnati in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana; women and young women writers at Women Writing For (a) Change in Cincinnati, Ohio; and students enrolled in the Acting Program at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

 

Dogs play an important part in POETRY GIRL; women and young women writers are encouraged to keep writing; and six sophomores in the Acting Program at UC’s CCM recorded the audio version of POETRY GIRL.

 

For suggested donations of $10 or $20, listeners and readers can click on the recording or download the manuscript at www.poetrygirl.org. Purple, pink or black short- or long-sleeved (with POETRY GIRL in neon green) T-shirts are available at www.Booster.com/poetrygirl for $20 and $25 with proceeds divided among the three non-profits.

Copyright 2017 by N.J. Jones