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Jamila Minnicks

Biography

Jamila Minnicks

Jamila Minnicks is the author of MOONRISE OVER NEW JESSUP, the 2021 winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Her work is also published in CRAFT Literary Magazine, The Write Launch and The Silent World in Her Vase. Her piece "Politics of Distraction" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, the Howard University School of Law, and Georgetown University. She lives in Washington, DC.

Jamila Minnicks

Books by Jamila Minnicks

Moonrise Over New Jessup
by Jamila Minnicks - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

In 1957, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup’s longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple’s expulsion --- or worse --- from the home they both hold dear. But as Raymond continues to push alternatives for enhancing New Jessup’s political power, Alice must find a way to balance her undying support for his underground work with her desire to protect New Jessup from the rising pressure of upheaval from inside, and outside, their side of town.