A Conversation with Authors Kaia Alderson & Monica Chenault-Kilgore

Piscataway Public Library proudly presents A Conversation with Authors Kaia Alderson and Monica Chenault-Kilgore. 

Piscataway High School alumna of the Class of 1994, Kaia Alderson is a historical women’s fiction author with a passion for discovering “hidden figures” in African-American women’s history. She gravitates toward the stories of women who defied social, racial, and gender norms by refusing to stay in their “place” during a time when doing so could get them socially ostracized and/or killed. 

Alderson recently published In A League of Her Own (2024), which is based on the incredible life of Effa Manley, a woman civil rights activist with a dream who wound up co-owning and managing a baseball team.  This is the fascinating story of how she turned the Newark Eagles into the Negro Leagues Champions of 1946.  Her debut novel, Sisters In Arms (2021), tells the story of the unsung women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. 

Edison, NJ, transplant Monica Chenault-Kilgore writes historical fiction to illuminate the unsung, resilient women who blaze trails to succeed despite insuperable odds. Her sophomore novel, The Jewel Of The Blues (2024), is set in the sparkling 1920s jazz era among the bustling backstage life of a young performer. The story combines romance, drama, and suspense with a glimpse into the hard scrabble life of African American entertainers performing along the vaudeville circuit. 

Chenault-Kilgore’s debut novel, Long Gone, Come Home (2023), spans the joyous peak of the 1930s jazz era to the Great Depression and civil rights movement, and weaves a poetic tale of love, life, and loss as one woman searches for her husband who suddenly disappears.