For Lilly Belle, the capital of Black America is about as far from her hometown of Smyrna, Tennessee, as a twelve-year-old can get maybe not in miles but certainly in mindset. Then a summer program for gifted young writers opens a whole new world for Lilly Belle. Jazz music in the street lulls her to sleep, her classroom is in a mansion, and the author Zora Neale Hurston is her teacher, helping her understand the power of words, especially her own.