Annie Dawid

Annie Dawid’s 6th book, Paradise Undone: A Novel of Jonestown, was published Nov. 18, 2023, the 45th anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre, in the UK and Europe by Inkspot Publishing. It is available worldwide on Amazon and many other online bookstores, in Kindle and paperback.

Paradise Undone has been Book of the Month on a UK website and book of the week on 24s, USA website. See Books page for more.


G.P. Gottlieb
, writer, podcast interviewer, review on Goodreads:

Paradise Undone opens on the 30th anniversary (11/18/08) of what has come to be known as the “Jonestown Massacre.” A survivor explains how Reverend James Jones saved him from the street when he was an addict. Annie Dawid, in clear, moving prose describes how The Peoples Church had been a haven and Jones had been the savior of poor, struggling, mostly Black and mostly addicted people. Then the church and its followers moved to the Guyana jungle, and Jonestown fell sway to the increasingly erratic rules of the reverend, who when not high, was busily siring babies. On November 18, 1978, visiting U.S. Congressman Leo Josesph Ryan was assassinated, and 917 people drank arsenic-laced punch or were murdered, all by order of Reverend Jimmy Jones.

This is a must-read. I think it’s important to remember what can happen when an erratic, self-absorbed leader acquires power. I interviewed the author: https://newbooksnetwork.com/annie-daw…

Interview with Talk Radio Europe, 11/30/23

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_vB2PxeqayWeZIp3qDPiXaUA_CiGAjPy/view

February podcast with Leadville Laurel

Second podcast, UK website, 11/23

https://shows.acast.com/bookable-space/episodes/bookable-space-with-annie-dawid

First TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@inkspotpublishing/photo/7315394434525400352

Interview with Gary Taylor, 2/24
Interview with Nigerian author Peter Okonkwo, 12/24

Reviews: The Jonestown Report, The Denver Post, The Colorado Springs Gazette, Writing to be Read, The Wet Mountain Valley Tribune, Readers’ Favorite

See BOOKS page to read all 7 reviews as of 2/24

Paradise Undone

Publisher’s website

Annie’s 5th book, Put Off My Sackcloth: Essays, was a runner up in the memoir category of the Los Angeles Book Festival and received honorable mentions from the San Francisco, New York and New England Book festivals. It was a finalist in the non-fiction International Rubery Book Award and in the Memoir category of Book Excellence.

Book Launch for

Brookwood Gallery Opening, Westcliffe CO 2021

Annie introduced her book of essays at March 19, 2021 storytelling in Westcliffe, Colorado https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_n67rX3RrWtTyrugIoDF8qUbugDYZtvf/view

Put Off My Sackcloth: Essays, was published by The Humble Essayist Press and is available there https://www.the-humble-essayist-press.com/ and on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, also in Kindle and Audible, narrated by the author.

Annie Dawid lives and writes in South-Central Colorado. An English professor and director of creative writing for 15 years at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, Annie left full-time teaching for full-time writing. She founded BloomsburyWest, a retreat for writers and artists, in 2006 and shuttered it in 2012. She teaches creative writing for the master’s program in writing at the University of Denver, University College.

Annie edits manuscripts in prose and poetry. Please see Editing Services page for more details.

Annie Dawid’s book of linking stories, And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories Of A Family, won the 2007 Litchfield Award for Short Fiction and was published in 2008. Her second book, Lily in the Desert: Stories, was published in 2001 by the Carnegie-Mellon University Press. Her first book, York Ferry, a novel, is now in a second printing from Cane Hill Press of NYC. It won the 2016 Rubery International Book Award in Fiction.

All books can be bought online, along with her first book, York Ferry, which won the International Rubery Award for Fiction in 2015. You can also buy copies of books directly from the writer. Her photographs, assemblages and rugs have also appeared in various literary magazines as well as shows in Oregon and Colorado. She also designs and hooks rugs, which have been featured in Colorado galleries.

Her last volume is a poetry chapbook, Anatomie of the World, from Finishing Line Press, 2017.

In 2004, she was writer-in-residence at the University of North Dakota’s annual writer’s conference. In 2003, she taught master classes in the short story at the South Australia Writers Center in Adelaide. In 2005-2009, she visited campuses in Arkansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Colorado. In

Annie has taught workshops at the Taos (NM) Summer Writers Conference (2010, 2013) and Castle Rock (CO) Writers Conference (2013, 2017).

Annie Dawid is a regular contributor to the Jonestown Institute website.
Click here to see her Jonestown page and some of her commentaries.