You are hereJana Laiz & Ann-Elizabeth Barnes and "A Free Woman on God's Earth" at the Stockbridge Library

Jana Laiz & Ann-Elizabeth Barnes and "A Free Woman on God's Earth" at the Stockbridge Library

Start: Sat, 02/27/2010 - 10:30am

On Saturday, February 27yh at 10:30 Am, join The Bookloft at the Stockbridge Library for a morning with Jana Laiz and Ann-Elizabeth Barnes, the authors of the new book A Free Woman on God's Earth: The True Story of Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, the Slave Who Won Her Freedom! Come listen to stories, hear passages from the book, and get your copy signed!

A biography for children ages 8 and up, A Free Woman on God's Earth tells the story of Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, a slave owned by the Ashley Family of Sheffield in the 18th Century. After more than 30 years of bondage, Mumbet successfully sued for her freedom in a Great Barrington court of law, setting the stage for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783.

Jana Laiz has been writing for as long as she can remember. She wrote her first novel at age 6: Fuzzy Wuzzy Rabbit. She is the author of the triple Award Winning novel, Weeping Under This Same Moon, Elephants of the Tsunami, written to raise money for tsunami relief, and the co-author of "A Free Woman On God's Earth, The True Story of Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, The Slave Who Won Her Freedom". Fascinated by other cultures, Jana studied anthropology and Chinese language at University. She is a teacher, a writer, an editor, a publisher, a photographer, a mom, an animal lover and keeper of pets, a sea glass collector, a jeweler, a musician and a dreamer. She is passionate about our beautiful planet and endeavors to make a difference in the world and to work with others who feel the same. Her novel, The Twelfth Stone, a Celtic American faerie tale, adventure, romance, coming of age, environmental novel for adults and young adults is due out soon. She lives in a 200-year-old farmhouse in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

Ann-Elizabeth Barnes has been a story-teller since she was a child. Her favorite thing to do is to make complicated subjects uncomplicated. She likes to put history in context so that it is easier to remember. She likes to make history interesting, simple and manageable! To this end she developed the now 10 year old “Mumbet in the Schools” program for which she has received numerous Massachusetts Cultural Council grants and lots of help from the teachers and children in Berkshire County schools.