Showing results by narrator "Toni Ann Johnson" in All Categories

Homegoing by Toni Ann Johnson follows a middle-aged African American woman facing loss as she returns to her conservative, White hometown. The novella tackles issues of race, isolation, childhood trauma, abandonment, and ultimately healing. Homegoing won the Accents Publishing Inaugural Novella Contest.

Serena is a Bermudan jazz singer whose demons lead her to abandon her daughter Artie. Artie's anger eventually drives her to Serena's younger lover, Jamie L'Heureux, a jazz superstar. The spirit of Charles Mingus thrums throughout the story as these two women tangle in a syncopated mother-daughter relationship.

We follow the family as Phil begins his private practice, as Velma opens her antiques shop, and as they buy new homes, collect art, go skiing, and have overseas adventures. It seems they've made it in the white world. However, young Maddie, one of the only Black children in town, bears the brunt of the racism and the invisible barriers her family's money, education, and determination can't free her from.

Pressured by her "challenging" mother, Harlow Kennedy, an ambitious and unattached woman, agrees to marry politically ambitious pretty boy Addison Whitmore. The match will elevate Harlow's non-existent social standing and guarantee financial security for life. The wedding will take place as soon as Harlow returns from her BFF's wedding in India.