A Day of Service Because We All Can Serve.

My favorite King quote:

"Everyone can be great because anyone can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't even have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve... You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love..."

~Dr. Martin Luther King

Chaos or Community? The question King asked is as valid now as it was when he was alive. I'm hoping for... betting on that we will choose community, because King also reminds us that " We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Have wonderful day of service!!

Where All My Charaters Are

I recently completed a blog tour with Pump Up Your Book and I must say I learned a lot about myself as a very introverted author trying to make my way in a market that requires many extrovert skills.

Thank God for all the lessons I learned from reading the blog, Shrinking Violet Promotions: Marketing for Introverts. If you are introvert and the thought of promoting your novel gives you hives or make you want to hide under your bed, head on over to this very useful site for all the information you need to become an effective advocate for your work.

Now, one of the blog posts I had to write during the tour was an exercise called: “Five Things You Didn’t Know About ___” (fill in the blank with one of your character’s names.)

At first I dreaded writing about this I think because writing in Grace's voice after being away from her so long felt a little odd and I was fearful I couldn't do it anymore. However, once I got into it I found it very instructive and I think this exercise might also prove helpful to those of you who feel they need to flesh out the characters in their own work.

Below is what I wrote for the blog, The Plot: Where All The Characters Are:

Five things you didn’t know about, Grace Johnson from Act of Grace by Karen Simpson.

(In the first person voice of my character Grace Johnson talking directly to the audience.)

I was not named Grace just because it matches the theme in the book. My author mom, Ms. Simpson, knew I was not named lightly. Family lore has it that along with everything else my parents fiercely argued about what I was to be named. If it had been left up to my mother’s gaudy, soapoperish taste, I would have been christened Diva Rose. A name only a stripper could love or use. My father saved me. He told my mother that he had read that people’s lives proceed from their names the way rivers proceed from their sources. The name Diva Rose was like a creek, while the name Grace was like the Nile. My daddy wanted great things for his first-born. He wanted his girl child to be able to handle responsibility. So he gave me the name of his grandmother because she was the strongest and most spiritually powerful woman he knew.

I am not fat. People, I tell you my size in the first chapter of the novel so all you folks who think I’m tipping the scales at three hundred pounds, please. My author mom should have listened to her friend Sherlonya who told her to make me a size 14 instead of 16, Sherlonya knew that just like appearing on TV, appearing in a novel makes you look heavier than you are. I’m full figured but healthy. I’m not as beautiful as my sister, Jamila but then who else is? I guess I’m ranting about this to get to what’s important because what I look like had nothing to do with the reasons why I took bullets to save the life of that racist, Mr. Gilmore.

Being able to talk to the dead isn’t all cake and candy. The ancestors remind me that I have been given the power to talk to and for them so that I might help others live better lives. This explanation is supposed to be my balm from Gilead. I would be lying though if I said this knowledge completely soothes my soul or makes me feel more whole and less wounded as I try to help other with their problems.

I’m learning to cook. My aunt Peaches is teaching me how to make my favourite dessert, Better Than Sex Cake. It’s this flourless chocolate cake slathered with caramel, topped with cumulus mounds of whipped cream, flakes of toasted coconut, and huge twigs of chocolate shavings. It’s great. Now, I don’t know if it’s better than sex… um at least not yet. Anyway, if you ask my author mom she’ll hook you up with the recipe for the cake.

I am all about my music. If you want to know about me, and why I do things, marinate on some Coltrane because for me it is as he said, “No matter what … it is with God. He is gracious and merciful. His way is through love in which we all are. It is truly – A Love Supreme.”

The Winners Are

Wihelmina wins the novel.









David Wanty wins the music

Thank you everyone for your participation.

Dave and Wihelmina please email me your addresses at simpsonactofgrace(at) gmail.com so I can get your prizes to you.

Moonbeam Award Shines on Act of Grace

The 2011 Moonbeam Children's Book Awards recognized my novel Act of Grace as the gold medalist in the Young Adult Religion/Spirituality category.

The awards ceremony will be held during the Traverse City Children's Book Festival on November 12, 2011.

I was a little dubious when my niece Lauren told me that not just adults would like my novel. She was right and I owe her some flowers and lunch:)

I am excited and very honored.

About the Moonbeam Award
Presented by Jenkins Group and Independent Publisher Online, the Moonbeam Children's Book Awards are designed to bring increased recognition to exemplary children's books and their creators, and to support childhood literacy and life-long reading. Awards will be given in 30 categories covering the full range of subjects, styles and age groups that children's books are written and published in today.

New Tour Stops

These are my next stops on my tour with PUMP UP YOUR BOOKS! Hope you can find the time to ride with me each day as I talk about my novel and my writing life.



October 10 ~ Interview at The Book Bin


October 11 ~ Interview at The Examiner


October 13 ~ Guest Post at The Book Connection


October 12 ~ Interview at Inky Blots


October 14 ~ Guest Post at Divine Caroline

I 'M ON TOUR

I’m on tour with PUMP UP YOUR BOOKS! for the month of October and November. My list of tour stops for the week of October 3rd to October 7th is listed below. Hope you can find the time to ride with me each day as I talk about my novel and my writing life.

October 3 ~ Interview at Pump Up Your Book

October 4 ~ Interview at Paperback Writer

October 5 ~ Interview at The Writer’s Life

October 6 ~ Guest Post at The Plot

October 7 ~ Guest Post at The Plot

Meet Me At The Crossroads For A Book And Music Giveaway

I'm hosting a giveaway of a copy of my novel and some great Blues music, but first the story behind it all.

This year is the centennial celebration of the legendary Blues musician Robert Johnson birth. Robert Leroy Johnson was born in Hazelhurst Mississippi on May 8, 1911 and for Blues scholars and fans alike, his life and death are a fascinating blend of folklore, myth and legend. Perhaps the most pervasive story about Robert Johnson is that he sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads in exchange for extraordinary prowess with the guitar. According to legend, Johnson had a burning desire to become a great Blues musician and was "instructed" to take his guitar to a crossroads at midnight. There he was met by a large black man (supposedly the Devil) who took the guitar and tuned it. The black man played a few songs and then returned the guitar to Johnson, giving him mastery of the instrument. According to some, this was in effect, a Faustian bargain, where in exchange for his soul; Robert Johnson was given the ability by Satan to create the Blues for which he became famous.

Now, when I was a kid, I always wondered about this legend. Why did it have to be Satan that he met? Better yet, why was the Devil a black man? It was only later as I began to do more research on the subject of African cultural retention in the United States for my Masters degree did I begin to understand that it wasn't the Devil that made Robert Johnson do anything.

Aside from the fact that it was another singer named Tommy Johnson and not Robert Johnson, who actually made the claim that he sold his soul, references to the Devil do fill Robert Johnson’s lyrics as well as those of many other Blues songs. However, the Devil in these songs may not only refer to the Christian story of Satan. More than ample evidence of African religious retentions surrounding the African Orisha Legba exists in the United States. Legba is considered the god of the crossroads and of the paths of man. A trickster, his role is to teach humility and thankfulness by testing humans.

So, when African-Americans born in the 19th or early-20th century said that they or anyone else had "sold their soul to the devil," they may have had very a different understanding of who the large black man standing at the crossroads was. Legba, as a guardian of the crossroads could also bestow powers and extraordinary gifts of talent on those who came to petition him on moonless midnights at the intersection of two roads.

It is this more African take on the Robert Johnson crossroads legend that I weave through out my novel Act of Grace. Oba, the tall big black man , Grace Johnson encounters at a Jazz and Blues festival, bestows on her a powerful and frightening message about her future. Grace suspects that Oba may be imaginary, or worse, evil. It is only later in a conversation with her great grandmother, Nana Grace that she finds out who he really is:

“He is a teacher, a guide, an opener of the way. In ancient Greece, he was the
god Hermes; in ancient Rome, he was the god Mercury. In Africa, he could be
called Legbe, Ellegue, Elegbara or Eshu. You would know him best as the entity
bluesman Robert Johnson met at the cross road to bless his guitar. Now, in this
time and place he calls himself Oba."

THE GIVE AWAY!

A copy of my novel: Act of Grace

A copy of the CD: 100 Years of Robert Johnson by Big Head Blues Club and Big Head Todd & the Monsters

This record is a tribute to the late Robert Johnson to celebrate his centennial and is produced by Grammy winning producer Chris Goldsmith. The guest musicians include such great guest musicians as BB King, Hubert Sumlin, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Charlie Musselwhite, Ruthie Foster, Cedric Burnside and Lightnin' Malcolm.

How to Enter:

Leave a comment, question or the name of your favorite blues singer in the comment section of this post or like my facebook page Karen's Jazz Kitchen and leave a comment by midnight October 8th EDT to be entered into a drawing for either the book or the music. Please state in your post whether you want the CD or the book. One person for each item will be chosen randomly using Random.org