Kathleen B. Jones – Jill Grinberg Literary Management

Kathleen B. Jones

Kathleen B. Jones was born and educated in New York, receiving a B.A. in Political Science from Brooklyn College, and a Ph.D. from the political science program at CUNY’s Graduate School and Center. After teaching women’s studies for two decades at San Diego State University, she resigned to focus on writing, recently earning an M.F.A. in fiction from Fairfield University. Her debut novel, Cities of Women was published by Keylight Books in 2023. Her scholarly writing includes six books published with academic presses—three monographs and three edited anthologies of critical essays. Diving for Pearls: A Thinking Journey with Hannah Arendt won the 2015 Barbara “Penny” Kanner Book Award from the Western Association of Women Historians. Kathleen’s essays and short fiction have appeared in Fiction International, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, The Briar Cliff Review, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.

Agent

Katelyn Detweiler

Cities of Women

Cities of Women is a work of historical literary fiction inspired by a decade of research on the medieval life and times of the proto-feminist, Christine de Pizan, the first European woman of letters to support herself as a writer. Like A.S. Byatt’s Possession, the story moves between present and past in a dual narrative, evoking the spare joys and monumental pitfalls facing medieval women artists, and a contemporary woman who becomes obsessed with medieval books.

Verity Frazier, a disillusioned professor of history, risks her career when she sets out to prove that the artist responsible for the illuminations in the medieval manuscripts of Christine de Pizan was a remarkable woman named Anastasia. As Anastasia’s story unfolds against the richly evoked 15th century backdrop of moral disaster and political intrigue, yet extraordinary creativity, Verity finds little evidence of the artist’s existence, while discovering the missing pieces to make her own life whole.

Praise for Cities of Women

“With a scholar’s commitment to accurate detail, and the heart of a lover of beauty, Kathleen B. Jones’s engaging and well-crafted parallel story brings to light female creativity in medieval France. Jones’ s writing is as colorful and lucid as the illuminated manuscripts at the center of her novel, and the unforgettable story makes Cities of Women a must read for anyone interested in finding and honoring the forgotten women of western art.” –Laurel Corona, author of The Mapmaker’s Daughter

”At its heart, Cities of Women by Kathleen B. Jones is both a detective story about the search for, and love letter to, the women who worked on the beautiful illuminated manuscripts of the medieval era. The novel is both sensitive and well researched, an accomplished debut which marks Jones out as one to watch.” –Laura Shepperson, author of Phaedra

Publisher

Keylight / Turner Publishing

Publication Date

September 5, 2023

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Historical Fiction

Rights

Turner