Farewell to Francine

We are grieving the loss of long time CWC board member Francine Thomas Howard, who passed away this month. Thanks to a recording we made prior to her passing, you can still hear her read from her new book, Scattered Seed, at our Book Launch on June 11, 2023.

We were all honored to know and work with her in the California Writers Club Berkeley, for so many years. Her gifts to our organization were endless, from the parties she sponsored to the contests she ran. As a writer, she was a rocket, shooting from obscurity to the NYT Bestseller List. But she always made time to help other writers because of her AKA sorority values of volunteering. Her guidance as our elder was immeasurable, energizing our JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion) values, constantly bringing marginalized voices, stories, and people into our center. She christened our equity program after Virginia Prentiss, Jack London’s nanny/mother/benefactor, a former enslaved woman great spark of Oakland’s literary contributions.

Francine’s books also bring important unwritten stories to the page, cultural historic fictions based on her own ancestors. In every novel she illuminates an era, from the Middle Passage through Jim Crow, revealing the deep diversities within Black and white, the complexities of love and brutality, the burden and hope of every child, the strength and resilience of motherhood. (Francine’s books are all great reads for Black History Month!)

While Francine was with us, as a member of the CWC, she published:

• Page From a Tennessee Journal, the first of AmazonEncore‘s original manuscripts ever released.,
• A Waltz in Tennesee, the sequel
• Daughter of Union County
• Scattered Seed
• Paris Noire 
• The Sisterhood Hyphen

ʺRemarkable…as suspenseful as it is rich in detail.ʺ  — USA Today

In Memory 

    “Francine will be deeply missed by all of us.” —Terry Tierney

    “Francine was so instrumental in making the Anne Fox Page One Writing Contest come to fruition. She undoubtedly made a lasting positive impact on CWC-Berkeley.” —Keith Gaboury

    “I feel so fortunate that she left so many amazing books behind. I will be reading her for years to come, and gifting the seeds of her soul. I feel so grateful to have known her, to have worked with her on many things, to have learned much from her, and to have called her a friend.” —Kristen Caven

    “Francine is and was an absolute treasure.” —Karma Bennett

   “In her work on the board she was superb, always asking us to look around the corner. But when it came to writing, what a mind! She always had time to discuss the craft, and you better listen. Together we started a little subcommittee on diversity. That came out of a discussion we had at a board meeting about cultural appropriation. Started me thinking. I wondered if I’d been guilty of that with one the characters in the novel I was working on. I sent a few pages to Francine. She helped me figure out which way was up. I am indebted to her for the joy she gave me.” —Gary Durbin

Feel free to leave your own memories of Francine in the comments!

Sail on, Francine!

Francine’s Website

Francine’s Obituary