7 Points Press presents A Book Release Celebration

7 Points Press will be hosting a book release celebration at Southall House on Thursday Nov. 6, at 6pm. Admission is free for this event. 

The authors will read and discuss their work, and books will be available for sale. Authors include Donna Geise, J. D. Manders, Jeanie Thompson, and Wayne Sides. 

About the authors:

Donna Geise began writing after her recent retirement as a literature and composition teacher. Expressing meaningfulness beyond sentimentality, creating accessible poems in a conversational tone, and the linking of sound and sense are her ultimate goals. Her poetry collection Searching for a Song was published in the fall of 2025 by 7 Points Press.

J. D. Manders is an author, historian, and poet who deployed three times to the Middle East with the U.S. Army National Guard. The Desert Calls is a cycle of poems that explores his deployment experiences. Although many of the poems are highly personal, he chose to publish them to help other veterans.

Jeanie Thompson (Montgomery) is an award-winning poet and literary arts leader. She is the retired founding Director of the Alabama Writers’ Forum. Her books include The Myth of Water: Poems from the Life of Helen Keller, The Seasons Bear Us, and White for Harvest. In 2024 Thompson received the Albert B. Head Legacy Award for her work as a poet and literary arts activist.

Wayne Sides is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Alabama Department of Art and has been a force for more than 40 years in the Shoals area community art scene. His photographs have been published widely and exhibited in museums throughout the country and abroad. Thompson and Sides have collaborated since the mid-70s while attending the University of Alabama.

About the books:

Searching for a Song – Donna Geise: Searching for a Song is a gathering of accessible poems meant to provide reassurance, solace, and optimism without being didactic or heavy-handed and that sometimes incorporates a bit of wry humor. Each poem--written in a relaxed conversational style--shares a fresh viewpoint on such universal ideas as hope, perseverance, and the importance of relationships. Intentional choice of form and structure contribute to meaning in poems that range from free verse to fixed forms including ballade, sonnet, sestina, and villanelle as attention to details, diction, imagery, and syntax connects sound to sense.

The Desert Calls – J. D. Manders: Written during and after his three deployments to the Middle East, this cycle of poems by J. D. Manders explores the desert experience, including absence from home and family, the tribulations of a combat zone, visions of death and suffering, emotional longing, trials of faith, and the long road to recovery from war. In the end, he discovered that, though he's left the desert, it remains with him and in him. Although many of the poems are highly personal, J. D. Manders chose to publish them to help other veterans in overcoming their own desert experience.

My Gaia – Jeanie Thompson and Wayne Sides: My Gaia, a poetry and photography collaboration, is a lyrical view of Alabama. Thompson’s eleven poems range from sketches of the resonant Alabama landscape to personal interactions with imaginary figures such as a North Alabama cotton farmer, and Helen Keller’s gifted teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy. Sides’ photographs focus on aspects of Alabama landscape, with a few European scenes thrown in for good measure. In a choreography of images and details, Sides’ eye travels with the poems, deepening their imagery and expanding it.

This event will be held at the Southall House, next door to the Kennedy-Douglass Art Center’s main building, at 209 E. Tuscaloosa St. Call 256-760-6379 for more information.