Alexia Arthurs, fiction writer, explores life in the Jamaican diaspora, the challenges faced by women, and the legacies of slavery. Her first collection is How to Love a Jamaican (2018) — named a Best Summer Read by Entertainment Weekly and Buzzfeed. Novelist Zadie Smith said, “All of [the stories] convince and sing. All of them shine. In this thrilling debut collection Alexia Arthurs is all too easy to love.” Rosalie Morales Kearns is a writer of Puerto Rican and Pennsylvania Dutch heritage. Her first novel is Kingdom of Women (2016), “a feminist alternative history novel [that] explores the morality of violence” (Kirkus). Rigoberto Gonzalez called it, “provocative” and “fascinating” (NBCNews.com). A former UAlbany English Dept. lecturer, Kearns is founder of the feminist publishing house, Shade Mountain Press, based in Albany. Cosponsored by the State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education, Friends of the New York State Library, and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Dept. (LACS).