In a special event organized by University of Iowa Press, author Jamie Brooks will read from her new memoir, The Fleeing Season: An American Mother's Migration Toward Safety and Justice. The Fleeing Season is the first book in the Locating Reproductive Justice Series, edited by Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz and Lina Murillo and published by University of Iowa Press, which explores reproductive justice within and beyond US borders to center global, transnational, regional, and local conversations on reproductive justice as theory and practice.

University of Iowa Press describes The Fleeing Season as: "An intimate, unflinching, and deeply political memoir of motherhood, migration, and the price of safety. One woman's reckoning with the promise — and failure — of the American Dream. The Fleeing Season maps a path toward reproductive justice." University of Iowa Assistant Professor Ashley Howard, author of Midwest Unrest: 1960s Urban Rebellions and the Black Freedom Movement, praises The Fleeing Season with: "a clear-eyed, unflinching account of a Black mother's decision to keep her children safe amid the multiple system failures that constitute modern American life. With tremendous heart, deep analysis, and moving prose, Jamie D. Brooks powerfully recounts her family's move abroad, away from gun violence, inadequate healthcare, and racial injustice and toward a more just and sustainable future."

Jamie D. Brooks is a lawyer who spent two decades advocating for reproductive justice and improving access, safety, and quality within the United States healthcare system—work she continues to do in London, England.

This event has been co-sponsored by the UI departments of American Studies, Political Science, Communication Studies, Sociology, Journalism, English, International Studies, Languages Linguistics Literatures and Cultures, and The Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program The Obermann Center, and the UI Center for Human Rights.