At the 2018 Women in Music Festival, held at the Mississippi University for Women, Jessica will sing long-time friend, composer Lauren Spavelko’s latest project, Baby Book, which was chosen as the 2017 winner of the 5th Annual Young Composers Competition dedicated to Gian Carlo Menotti in Spoleto, Italy. The work is truly a work for women, by women. It is a six-movement song cycle for soprano revolving around themes of pregnancy, miscarriage, and motherhood, based on the poetry of Chloe Yelena Miller’s collection of the same name. The collaborative intentions of the composer and poet are to bring women’s voices and experiences of these life events to prominence in order to foster support and dialogue.