Exit Velocity

Rowan Pickett's world has gone to hell, her sister murdered in a high school shooting, her mother leaving, and Rowan sitting home and mourning. But then reality kicks in: Rowan realizes that she wants to survive, and in order to survive she needs a job. This leads her to Titus Longshaw, leader of the socialist organization Working Class Control. Titus points Rowan to a job at Package Nova, a global shipping firm on Chicago's south side. As she battles to put her life in order Rowan acquires a powerful ally: Deeply, a parrot from another planet, sent to Earth on a mission. Because of Deeply she unwittingly attracts the interest of podcaster Jake Terranova, who is suspicious of the parrot's intelligence. As Rowan reconnects with friends and finds new ones at Package Nova, her life improves. But then her sworn enemy Zeb Snoddy returns. One dark night he confronts Rowan and her best friend, Keisha Longshaw. In this gripping contribution to women-fight-back fiction, Snoddy is met with resistance he never expected, and working class struggle is brought to life in exciting ways.

Barbara Gregorich intended to write 'Exit Velocity' back in the 1960s but got swept up in the staggering social-justice events of the times: the war in Vietnam, Black Liberation, and the struggle for Equality for Women. By the time the sixties settled, Gregorich was teaching college English courses. From there, she went on to become a typesetter, then a postal letter carrier, a writer-producer of educational filmstrips, and, finally, a novelist. 'She's on First' was published in 1987. From the time she was eleven years old, she wanted to be either a writer or a professional baseball player. Or, perhaps, both. The major leagues were closed to women - but that didn't mean Gregorich couldn't write about women playing hardball. After her novel came the highly acclaimed nonfiction work, 'Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball.' And then, finally, the road of writing and the road of social justice converged. In 2021 she published 'The F Words', a YA novel about teen rights and 'Exit Velocity' in 2024.