Announcing the launch of Cynthia Sylvester’s debut book, “The Half-White Album.”
The doors open a 6:00 and The Half-White Show begins a 7:00. This will be a combination of readings from the book and live music from The Half-White Band: Pepper Joy, Nichole “Soul” Cajori, William Writt, Pax Garcia, and Rev PJ.
“The Half-White Album” is published by the University of New Mexico Press as part of the Lynn and Lynda Miller Southwest Fiction Series. This event is co-sponsored by the University of New Mexico Creative Writing Program.
This powerful debut collection explores lives lived between worlds. Sylvester masterfully weaves together fiction, poetry, and nonfiction to give readers a poignant though fractured view of her characters’ lives, their loves, and their struggles. Told from the perspective of an urban Native, the work details a journey led by the nomadic band, the Covers. It is an experience meant to heal generational trauma and bring back into the light people who may otherwise be forgotten. At its heart, The Half-White Album is a healing ceremony of the author’s own creation, a process grounded in music that celebrates what it is to be human and imperfect and to love imperfectly.
Cynthia J. Sylvester is an enrolled member of the Diné, born into the Kiyaa’áanii Clan for the Bilagáana Clan. She is a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her flash fiction and short stories have appeared in ABQ in Print, Leon Literary Review, Lunch Ticket, As Us Journal, and Bosque–The Magazine, among others.