Category Archives: Celebrations

Celebrations, JaxbyJax, Scribblers Sharing Info, What's Happening

Jessica Stark to grace JaxbyJax

Jessica Q. Stark is the author of Buffalo Girl (BOA Editions, forthcoming 2023), Savage Pageant (Birds, LLC, 2020) and four poetry chapbooks, including INNANET (The Offending Adam, 2021). Savage Pageant was named one of the Best Poetry Books of 2020 by The Boston Globe and Hyperallergic. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Best American Poetry, Pleaides, & Glass Poetry Journal, among others. She serves as a Poetry Editor at AGNI and is an Asst. Professor of Creative Writing at UNF.

Jessica will read at 11:00 AM on Saturday, October 29 in the Rooftop Garden.
To see the Event Guide, click here.

JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival IX, a celebration of Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville, will be held on Friday, October 28 and Saturday, October 29, 2022 at the Jessie Ball duPont Center, 40 East Adams Street, Jacksonville, Florida 32202. Click here for directions and parking information.

JaxbyJax is grateful to our generous sponsors: JaxNEXT100, Jessie Ball duPont Center, Moving the Margins, 904WARD, Happy Tapir Press, Bab’s Lab, Jacksonville Literary Arts Alliance, The Volstead, JaxPsychoGeo, Scribbles, and Brad Kuhn & Associates, LLC. Please click on their names to learn more.

Celebrations, JaxbyJax, Scribblers Sharing Info, What's Happening

JaxbyJax Welcomes Michael G. O’Connell

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Michael G. O’Connell, a Florida native, is a retired creative director/illustrator who spends much of his time writing and reading. He was first published as part of a Twitter experiment where he and hundreds of others wrote a novella with Neil Gaiman. An award-winning poet, his short stories have appeared online and in print, including The Bacopa Literary Journal and Kaidankai: Ghost and Supernatural Stories. He is currently editing his first novel and illustrating his wife’s children’s book.

Michael will read at 2:30 PM on Saturday, October 29 in the Lecture Hall.
To see the Event Guide, click here.

JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival IX, a celebration of Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville, will be held on Friday, October 28 and Saturday, October 29, 2022 at the Jessie Ball duPont Center, 40 East Adams Street, Jacksonville, Florida 32202. Click here for directions and parking information.

JaxbyJax is grateful to our generous sponsors: JaxNEXT100, Jessie Ball duPont Center, Moving the Margins, 904WARD, Happy Tapir Press, Bab’s Lab, Jacksonville Literary Arts Alliance, The Volstead, JaxPsychoGeo, Scribbles, and Brad Kuhn & Associates, LLC. Please click on their names to learn more.

Celebrations, Darlyn's Events, JaxbyJax, Scribblers Sharing Info, What's Happening

Valarie Esguerra to Read at JaxbyJax

Valarie Esguerra grew up writing and directing plays for her church, as well as performing in local theatre. She worked as a creative for TeleNext Media and Flyover Studios, companies that produced family-friendly movies of the week for Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble. Valarie was one of four artists chosen for the arts integration residency program “Lift Every Voice” sponsored in part by the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville and Duval County Public Schools.

Valarie will read at 2:30 PM on Saturday, October 29 in the Rooftop Garden.
To see the Event Guide, click here.

JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival IX, a celebration of Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville, will be held on Friday, October 28 and Saturday, October 29, 2022 at the Jessie Ball duPont Center, 40 East Adams Street, Jacksonville, Florida 32202. Click here for directions and parking information.

JaxbyJax is grateful to our generous sponsors: JaxNEXT100, Jessie Ball duPont Center, Moving the Margins, 904WARD, Happy Tapir Press, Bab’s Lab, Jacksonville Literary Arts Alliance, The Volstead, Scribbles, and Brad Kuhn & Associates, LLC. Please click on their names to learn more.

Celebrations, Scribblers Sharing Info

Ardain Isma and Village Care Publishing

Village Care Publishing would like Scribblers to have the following information about its latest release, Bittersweet Memories of Last Spring, by Dr. Ardain Isma:

Ardain Isma is a career educator, university professor and a scholar. He is an essayist and editorial board member of several universities’ publications, including the NSU (Nova Southeastern University) TESOL journal. He is the Chief-Editor of CSMS Magazine, a magazine which represents the principal medium for the Center for Strategic and Multicultural Studies (CSMS), a professional organization made up of academics whose aim is to promote Cross-Cultural Awareness. Ardain Isma has written extensively on three main issues: writers’ tools for success, social justice, and multiculturalism. He is also the author of Midnight at Noon, a contemporary novel that describes not only the current state of modern day Haiti, but also provides in-depth elements for readers to understand Haiti and its glorious past. Ardain Isma currently lives and works in suburban Jacksonville. 

Dr. Isma hosts a show called The Conversation wherein her interviews poets and authors.


Bittersweet Memories of Last Spring is a novel of faith, love, and identity. In 1980, 17-year-old Yrvin Lacroix is in a sailboat from Haiti bound for Miami, Florida in search of a better life. He leaves behind his beloved mother, his siblings, and Régine—his childhood sweetheart to whom he has made a promise to return.  

In Miami, despite his precarious situation as a refugee, Yrvin joins Haitian exiles in the fight against the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti as well as the struggle for refugee rights. He believes a win against the odds will help him shape the course of his life.    

As time passes, Yrvin’s love and passion for Régine begins to fade. Attending school is his main objective. On a rainy December day, he meets Michaela, a mixed-race girl of Dominican origin and fellow student at his school. They fall in love. But that love suffers a major setback when Yrvin learns of Régine’s presence in Miami. Yrvin must now face a scorned Régine while staying focused in school and preserving his relationship with Michaela. Will he succeed?