Poet Laureate Ann E. Wallace, Art House Productions, and Jersey City Office of Cultural Affairs present: Book Release Celebration for Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID’s Long Haul. The evening will feature a poetry reading, with a discussion led by Jayne Freeman, followed by a book signing and reception. Books will also be available for purchase and signing at the event.

Ann E. Wallace’s new poetry collection Days of Grace and Silence: A Chronicle of COVID’s Long Haul (Kelsay Books, April 2024) documents the author’s day in, day out experience of living--alongside her also-sick daughters--through COVID in spring 2020 and its aftermath, with illness, pain, and healing laid against a broad backdrop of pandemic deaths, mental health crisis, and social unrest. Despite the difficult nature of the topic, hope, nature, and resilience are present throughout the collection. Indeed, the final sequences of poems, written in years two and three of the pandemic, provide a respite from the loss and sickness and looks through a reflective lens on what has become a chronic illness. Ann E. Wallace, PhD is the 2023-24 Poet Laureate of Jersey City, New Jersey. As a long-time survivor of ovarian cancer, a woman with multiple sclerosis, and one of the nation's first Long Covid patients, she has lived and written through illness for more than thirty years. Pain, disability, and disease—as well as hope and resilience—have inspired and informed her work as a poet, memoirist, patient advocate, and scholar.



April 12, 2024 at 6:30 pm 
Art House Productions
345 Marin Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07302