Author: Jessica Powers

Celebrating a Year of Catalyst Press

A sampling of the Catalyst catalog (plus Jessica’s own YA novels)

Around 50 people attended Catalyst’s first anniversary party at Towne Center Books in Pleasanton, California, a few miles away from Catalyst’s Livermore headquarters. Three musicians from Cheza Nami came to make music, representing Africa from the west coast to the east coast. We sang and danced, drank wine and ate cheese and cake, and talked books. I spoke briefly for about 15 minutes, talking about why I started Catalyst and fielding questions from the audience. The most embarrassing, asked by my 8-year-old son, was the following: Which book is your favorite? Since one of my authors, Caroline Kurtz, was in the audience, I didn’t feel like I could really answer that! Instead, I talked about two books that I have published which I feel are really important books to be out in the world: The Lion’s Binding Oath and Other Stories by Ahmed Ismail Yusuf and Shaka Rising: Legend of the Warrior Prince. Continue reading “Celebrating a Year of Catalyst Press”

From the Editor’s Desk: 2018 Reflections

This comes from our newsletter series, From the Editor’s Desk, where Catalyst founder/publisher, Jessica, gives you a peek behind the Catalyst curtain. Subscribe to our newsletter to get more looks inside Catalyst HQ, author Q&As, giveaways, and more!

I have to tell you the truth, I’m feeling kind of tired. But it’s a good tired! 2018 was a whirlwind year (following 2017, its own kind of whirlwind) and included many firsts. For this Editor‘s Desk column, I thought I’d tell you what some of those firsts were–all of them worthy of celebration. And hopefully I’ll find some time to do just that this month–celebrate all the firsts of 2018. Continue reading “From the Editor’s Desk: 2018 Reflections”