Our first book is 100 Years From Now Our Bones Will Be Different. It was published with the help of family, friends and strangers on Kickstarter. The book is about a fictional African-American family as told through their epitaphs and illustrated portraits. Basically, the book contains brief stories and recollections from the perspective of people after they’ve died. We were inspired by Edgar Lee
Masters’ 1915 book Spoon River Anthology. Our book is written in the same way, but will also include illustrations. It makes you want to read about all of the family members so you know what happened to everyone in the last 100 years. Our book portrays African Americans through complex yet beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking perspectives during actual historical events. The book also highlights several LGBT characters and their passions and struggles. The goal is to create a positive literary and illustrated work which covers a kaleidoscope of black stories and individuals. To accurately characterize the family members, we had to do a lot of research into the social, political and economic history of the United States as it pertains to African-Americans. One of our goals is to donate copies of the book to at least 50 libraries across the United States so students can easily have access to these stories. REVIEWS
"Inspired by Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology, this illustrated collection of first-person epitaphs follows 40 members of a fictional African-American family from 1915 to 2015. The epitaphs provide brief but powerful glimpses into the family members’ lives and personalities, social changes, and a web of secrets and traumas. Opposite the first-person epitaphs, McWilliams’s expressive sepia portraits freeze glimmers of hope, pain, uncertainty, and weariness on each face. Throughout, McWilliams and Vedawala achieve a haunting beauty through the voices of the dead.... Alternately melancholy, raw, and hopeful, it’s a striking account of a family’s perseverance in the face of recurring injustices, violence, and tragedy." Ages 12–up. (BookLife)
