Book Launch: The Day Tajon Got Shot

The Project:

In March 2015, ten teen girls from Beacon House in Washington, DC started writing a novel during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. They began with one central question: What really happens in a community when a black youth is the victim of violence by police? How are those individual lives affected?

Each writer takes on the perspective of a central character – the victim, the police officer, the witness, the parent, the friend, the officer's kids – and examines how it feels to be a human being on all sides of this event. Their stories thoughtfully explore issues of race, violence, loyalty, and justice in a community torn apart but seeking connection.

We can't wait for you to read it.

The Event:

Join us to learn more about this ambitious project, and be the first ones to get your hands on the powerful new book!

• Meet the teen authors and hear about how and why they wrote.
• Hear dramatic readings of scenes from the book by professional actors.
• Discuss the role of teen voices in the new civil rights movement with all book contributors, including a poet from Split This Rock and teen photographer from Critical Exposure.

Book Sales:

• Books will be on-sale at the event.
• If you can't make it that evening, you can always pre-order copies online through Shout Mouse Press, to be shipped after book launch.
• For bulk orders and educator/nonprofit discounts, contact kathy@shoutmousepress.org

Complimentary appetizers will be provided, and the full menu at Busboys and Poets will be available for individual order.

About Beacon House:

Beacon House is a nonprofit, community-based organization that provides tutoring, mentoring, cultural, athletic, recreational and nutritional programs to at-risk children, ages 5-18, who reside in and around the Edgewood Terrace community in Ward 5 of Washington, D.C. Beacon House's goal is to lift as many children as possible up and out of their often difficult circumstances.

About Shout Mouse Press:
Shout Mouse Press is a nonprofit writing program and publishing house for unheard voices. Through writing workshops that lead to professional publication, we empower those from marginalized backgrounds to tell their own stories in their own voices and, as published authors, to act as leaders and agents of change.

In partnership with other nonprofits serving communities in need, we are building a catalog of mission-driven books by unheard voices. Our authors have produced original children's books, memoir and poetry collections, and novels-in-stories that expand empathy, engage the disenfranchised, affirm the vulnerable, and increase understanding of unheard perspectives.