Sigma Alpha Iota

14 Summer 2022 • sai-national.org SAIs in e News SAI Rosalyn Story is a Fort Worth Symphony violinist, author, and adjunct professor of black music history at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She joined SAI in the 1970s at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and was inducted as a Member Laureate by the Fort Worth Alumnae Chapter in 2012. Her first book, And So I Sing: African American Divas of Opera and Concert, was the inspiration for the PBS documentary Aida's Brothers and Sisters: Black Voices in Opera, a film she appeared in, and for which she served as consultant. Her 2004 novel More an You Know was an Essence magazine best seller and subject of an Essence magazine feature. Her 2010 novel set in post-Katrina New Orleans, Wading Home, was nominated for a Hurston Wright Foundation Legacy Award. Story's new novel, Sing Her Name, is based loosely on the life of American soprano Sissieretta Jones (1868-1933), a Black diva of the 19th century. Jones was the highest paid Black performer of her time, and she was the first Black woman to headline Carnegie Hall in 1892. Jones died in 1933, impoverished and largely forgotten, even though she performed for U.S. Presidents and European royalty. Sing Her Name tells the story of "beautiful and brilliantly talented Celia DeMille…a nineteenth- century concert artist who has won fame, sung all over the world, and performed for American presidents. But racism bars her from achieving her place in history as one of the world's greatest singers, and she dies in poverty, all but entirely forgotten. In 21st-century New Orleans, Eden Malveaux, a thirty-something waitress with a beautiful but untutored voice, is the sole guardian of her 17-year- old brother. Motherless for most of their lives, she has struggled for years to make ends meet in order to keep the promise she made to their dying father: to protect her wayward brother and raise him as if he were her own child. Aer Katrina displaces them to New York City, Eden seeks safe refuge—not only from the ensuing flood, but also to hide her brother from the law, while she works to divert him from a path of crime, prison, or worse. Months into their New York stay, Eden's estranged Great Aunt Julia summons her back to New Orleans for a brief visit, and the older woman gives Eden something that alters the course of her life: a box she found in the midst of flooded rubble containing a hundred- year-old scrapbook and a mysterious and valuable gold pendant necklace belonging to one of the greatest singers in history — Celia DeMille. Eden returns to New York, but as she explores the artifacts of Celia DeMille's extraordinary life, curiosity grows into obsession, then into an inspiration that propels Eden into a world she never dreamed. With the help of new friends, and buoyed by the diva's story, Eden's new life in New York takes a dramatic turn toward unimagined success. But just as she is poised to make her mark on the world's stage, her brother's dangerous choices catch up with them, and Eden must confront buried secrets from her complicated childhood. To face the promise of her future, Eden must first reconcile years of regrets and leave behind the guilt of the past — and perhaps even the brother she loves." (Press Release, Agate Publishing, Inc.) (ISBN: 978-1-57284-297-7) In the second episode of the SAI Podcast, Stephanie Riley chatted with Rosalyn Story about her newest book. They also discussed her inspiring book on the history of African American singers in opera, And So I Sing: African American Divas of Opera and Concert. The podcast can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and from our direct link on Buzzsprout: https://the1903sigmaalphaiotapodcast.buzzsprout.com Sing Her Name

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