I’m looking forward to talking with Lee Hawkins, author of I Am Nobody’s Slave, for the first-ever McNally Jackson Book Festival! In conversation, we’ll explore the complexities of family history and the intergenerational legacies we carry. We’ll discuss race, inheritance, trauma, and resilience—and how confronting the past can offer hope for future generations. June 3, 6:30 pm, South Street Seaport. . . .
I’ve renamed my newsletter from Ancestor Trouble — still a focus and preoccupation — to Meditations on Kinship, which better reflects the breadth of my thinking and feeling and seems like a capacious home going forward. After considering other options, I’m staying on Substack for now. I’m unpersuaded that the alternatives are guaranteed to avoid platforming hate speech, but they . . .
I was surprised and delighted to discover a generous review of Ancestor Trouble by Deanna Korte in the latest issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. Here’s an excerpt: Maud Newton, in a fascinating author debut, shows readers that our ‘obsession with ancestors opens up new ways of seeing ourselves.’ Newton… takes the reader on a journey of genealogical exploration, . . .
There is truly nothing more fulfilling to a writer than knowing your book found a reader who connects with it as something longed-for. And this week I learned that it’s even more exhilarating if the reader pulls out a quote from the book that describes the motivation for writing it. On Instagram, the writer Leah De Forest did just that! . . .
I’ll be appearing remotely this Friday, October 18, as part of Narrative Healing’s in-person “Listen to Your Ancestors” weekend retreat at the beloved Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, led by Lisa Weinert, with Jamia Wilson, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, and Kim Thai. I’ll be teaching on writing about ancestors as a transformative and even sacred practice.