Renaissance House's Abigail McGrath Previews Book, THREE LITTLE WOMEN at Martha's Vineyard, 8/7

Abigail McGrath, founder of Renaissance House: A Retreat for Writers & Other Artists, will be previewing her book in development, Three Little Women, at the Harlem Fine Arts Show @ Martha's Vineyard Authors' Pavilion on Wednesday, August 7 at 3:30pm at Martha's Vineyard Regional High School, 100 Vineyard Road in Oak Bluffs.

McGrath, an author, playwright and filmmaker, was the model for the character of Shelby in her aunt Dorothy West's best-selling novel The Wedding, which became a mini-series produced by Oprah Winfrey starring Halle Berry. Three Little Women is an historical novel about three generations of women living on Martha's Vineyard. The tale takes off from where The Wedding ended. It is a fast moving ride from the pre-Civil War South to the Harlem Renaissance to Sixties Civil Rights to Andy Warhol and beyond. The story is funny, sexy, revelatory and educational. McGrath's inspiration for the novel was the remarkable lives of her aunt Dorothy West and her mother, poet Helene Johnson, who were established writers during the Harlem Renaissance. McGrath's person path has taken her from being a Civil Rights Freedom Rider to an Andy Warhol superstar to Paris's Folies Bergere to being a playwright, actor and filmmaker.

At 4:00pm, Renaissance House Writer-in-Residence, noted poet Afaa Michael Weaver, will speak and sign books. Weaver, a NEA and Pushcart Prize winning poet, is the author of 11 books of poetry, including The Government of Nature, The Plum Dance and My Father's Geography. A Pew Fellow in poetry, Weaver taught in National Taiwan University and Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan as a Fulbright Scholar. He is the director of the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Center at Simmons College.

The Harlem Fine Arts Show @ Martha's Vineyard Authors' Pavilion is free to the public and will be held from12:30pm -7:00pm. It will feature noted authors such as Harriette Cole (108 Stitches: Words We Live By and Jumping the Broom: African American Wedding Planner); Toure (Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means To Be Black Now and I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon) and Sheilia Bridges (The Bald Mermaid: A Memoir and Furnishing Forward).

Renaissance House: Retreat for Writers & Other Artists was named in honor of Harlem Renaissance Writers Helene Johnson and Dorothy West. Renaissance House provides writers and other artists with a subsidized retreat away from life's responsibilities and the space in which to create new works of art. Located in the Oak Bluffs section of Martha's Vineyard, it is one of the few retreats designed for issue-oriented writers, writers of color and writers of social justice. Applications are available for September and October retreats. For more information on Renaissance House, check out the website on www.renaissance-house-harlem.com

The Harlem Fine Arts Show has one of the largest and most prestigious collections of works featuring African-American emerging and established artists from around the world. The Martha's Vineyard show will host more than 20 emerging and affluent artists. For more information, contact the Harlem Fine Arts Show at www.hfas.org