My Other Obsession

Much of my adult life I have been more a quilter than a writer. For years I told the stories I had about African American life with fabrics, thread and needles. Even though I loved books, I never thought I could write a novel, didn't think I was really smart enough to do that. But then a story, a story I knew was my story, caught my imagination and I was compelled to set out my writer's journey.

Writing fiction, I would find, was a lot like piecing and quilting fabric . You stitch thousands of words together to create an intricate pattern of theme, plot and characterization. Then, one by one, you layer all the pages, one on top to the others, to produce what you hope will be an interesting and powerful work. Over the years, I became more writer than quilter because I found I couldn't serve two obsessions properly. However, recently my fabric love came back to me in the form of an invitation to celebrate the anniversary of a quilting project I was involved in some 13 years ago.

In 1997 a few of my quilts were selected to appear in the book, African American Quiltmaking in Michigan put out by the Michigan State University Museum. I remember being so thrilled to be included. It felt wonderful to have my quilts documented as part of Michigan history. Afterwards, I felt confident enough to open a small studio where I taught African American quilting for years. Then, the writing fever hit and I became more of a novelist. I thought quilting for the most part was in my past.

Imagine my surprise when two weeks ago I got a invitation to the African American Quiltmaking in Michigan reunion. The Michigan State University Museum is holding reception for the quilt artists and quilt owners whose work were featured in the book and exhibit. The reception is a part of the Unpacking Collections: The legacy of Cuesta Benberry. A Symposium on Researching and Using Quilt History Collections. Saturday morning I will be heading up to Michigan State to celebrate the quilter I was and still am. I plan to do the full day of lectures in addition to going to the reception, because quilts and quiltmaking have become an an important part of my next novel. After ten years, my two artistic halves are now merging into a joyous creative whole and that is a wonderful thing.

Where Have I Been?

Where have I been ?

I’ve been away editing my speculative novel Act of Grace, putting more shine on the pages before it goes out into the wilderness of readers and critics. It has been an amazing journey back into my Grace’s world of conjuring, faith, African American mythology and magic. It was good to be back in her company again. She is so different from when she first flowed out on to my yellow note pad some ten years ago; but then I was a inexperienced writer back in those days-- full of more passion than skill.

Grace was born shouting, her first words came in a very vivid dream one night . Woke me from a deep sleep, with what was then the first line of the novel. After that she didn’t shut up or stop growing until I was done and she and I had a publisher. Every now and then I still hear her voice as I work on my second novel and let’s just say my new characters are not amused.

Soon Grace will be speaking to a wider audience. I’ll be blogging more because as her world opens up I will have more to say.

The Nature of Happiness

I think I truly began my journey toward becoming a writer twenty-two years ago in 1987. I was thirty-three years old, ten years into a dead end job, and still not sure where I was going in my life. The only thing I was sure about, was I wanted to be a writer, however, that seemed like a Don- Quixote- impossible dream like goal that only other smarter, prettier and more imaginative people could achieve. Real writer didn’t look like me I thought, and besides what were the odds I had any real talent.

But I had the wordy itch and finally it occurred to me that I at least needed to try and scratch it just once. One evening as I went to an event at a local community college, I saw a poster for the school’s literary journal Northern Spies. They were requesting submissions so I sat down and over the next two weeks composed an essay about my grandfather. To my delight and surprise, Northern Spies accepted my little essay. There was a fancy reception and reading for those whose work they published. I remember being nervous as I got up in front of a small but appreciate crowd to read:

The Nature of Happiness.

On this winter day with cold so deep one could call the sun a liar, I have made my heart and archaeologist and sent it to sift through my past; down, down, down to the thin layer of subconscious matter that contain the faint images I have of my grandfather, who died when I was young.

Most of my memories of the Reverend Dr. John Van Catledge are created from my mother’s lore, but because he was what I wish to become ­scholar, writer, teacher most of what I understand about my grandfather flows from my small collection of his photographs and written works. Few photographers caught his smile. Some might say he had no love for the camera. To me, however, he embodied the African and African belief that constant smiling denotes a lack of seriousness, sincerity and character. What the Yoruba defined as ashe , a spiritual wisdom is what my grandfather projected with his calm eyes and sealed lips.

No, he had no mirth for cameras to steal, but his written work revealed a scholar’s joy of learning, a writer’s hope filled vision of life. There is one splendid letter he wrote to my mother about the nature of happiness. It is this letter I open now because today melancholy is too good a friend, contentment seems a distant rumor, and the sun still is a shameless liar. I will read myself well and whole again.

I didn’t know it back then, but the word, Ase literally means “ it is so”,or “may it be so.” I believe now that when I wrote that word down and then said it aloud up at the podium, I set into motion, the full power of my dream

Ase…it is so.

I am to be an author in a few months. Act of Grace, my novel will be birth into the world by Plenary Publishing come February 16, 2011.

A Martin Luther King Day Remembrance

When I was a senior in college I did an internship with the King Center. Those three months of service and study in Atlanta changed my life. King's philosophy of Nonviolent Social Change tends to show up in my fiction. To celebrate MLK day here is a favorite selection I took out of my novel Acts of Grace .




Excerpt Two :


The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death
Oscar Wilde

After such knowledge, what forgiveness
T.S. Elliot

I have this memory left over from the hospital, Mr. Gilmore, that I feel I should share with you. I’m not even sure if it is real. It has the texture of being a figment of fever, trauma, drugs and remnants of Bible verses. I believe I was coming out of unconsciousness after surgery. I felt myself trying to shove aside the darkness the way you push away dirt to get out of a hole. Eventually I saw a circle of light with Monroe’s face stamped on it, and I stopped digging

“Exactly why did I save him?” I shouted up to Monroe.

“Love,” Monroe shouted back, “but not the kind of love one has for God or friends or lovers but Agape the love of redemptive good will for all people. It’s the kind of love that makes it possible to save an enemy.”

“Like when Jesus said love your enemy.”

“Yes,” Monroe replied, then I heard him chuckle “Dr. King once said that we should be happy Jesus didn’t say “Like your enemies, because like is such a sentimental and affectionate word. King’s view was that it was hard, perhaps impossible to be affectionate toward a person whose avowed aim is to crush you. Agape love allows us to get past the hate. It allows us to recognize the fact that all life is interrelated, all humanity involved in a single process. You did what one human sister should do for a brother.”

"I’m tired of being so damn magnanimous.”

“I know, Rabbit.” he told me, “but it’s important that you are.”

Love I am beginning to learn Mr. Gilmore is stronger than death and even a greater mystery than life.

Originally posted Jan 2008

Speak, So You Can Speak Again

I have a review of the book Speak, So You Can Speak Again: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Lucy Anne Hurston (Doubleday 2004) up on the truly wonderful blog COLOR ONLINE. Take a peek and while you are over there, tour the rest of the blog to see all the wonderful work this organization is doing to encourage girls and young women to read. They focus on women writers of color for adults YA and children. They love to talk books, culture and literacy, so I encourage all of you to stop by.

Read the full text to the article mention in the review What White Publishers Won't Print by Zora Neale Hurston on Bernice L. McFadden's blog NAKI.

Also read Tayari Jones take on Zora Neale Hurston's article.

Classic Black Speculative Fiction

W.E.B DuBois was an amazingly versatile writer and scholar. He wrote a speculative fiction short story called The Comet in 1920. It is included in the anthology Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora by Sheree R. Thomas. The Comet is also available as a stand-alone e-book.

The premise of the story is that in a vaguely futuristic yet oddly contemporary world, a passing comet casts a shadow of death over Manhattan. Only two survive: a black man whose world has been one of poverty and hard work, and a white woman who knows only leisure and privilege. If humanity is to have a future, the two must build a new world from the wreckage of the old.

DuBois spent his final years in Ghana where he is still deeply revered. A small museum houses his extensive library, a bronze bust of him, academic regalia from Harvard and, finally, his outdoor tomb. During my visit to the W.E.B. Du Bois Memorial Centre for Pan-African Culture , the guide took out a first edition copy of The Souls of Black Folks , one of DuBois's personal copies, and allowed me to touch it. I was honored and thrilled.

If you have a chance give The Comet a read, and leave a comment about what you think.

SO, WHAT IS THE NOVEL ABOUT ?

Now that I've signed my publishing contract people ask, "So, what's your novel about?" Because this book has been more in my head than out in the world, I usually end up hemming and hawing like I don't know or can't remember what I have been working on for a good chunk of my life . Truth is, it's hard to summarize any novel in a few words. However, one of the skills writers who want to be authors have to learn is how to pitch their novel succinctly to agents, publishers, booksellers and, of course, readers.

The one sentence pitch for my novel Act of Grace sums up the essence of the novel and offers a taste of the conflict. It's the no frills explanation I give when I'm asked about my work. This is usually all people want to hear. It's enough to make them go, " OH, that's interesting." :

When Grace Johnson a bright, perceptive African American high school senior, saves the life of a Klansman named Jonathan Gilmore, everyone in her hometown of Vigilant Michigan wants to know why.


The longer pitch is below. This is from the heart of the query letter I sent to agents :


When Grace Johnson a bright, perceptive African American high school senior, saves the life of a Klansman named Jonathan Gilmore, everyone in her hometown of Vigilant Michigan wants to know why. Few people, black or white, understand her act of sacrifice especially since rumor holds that years ago a member of the Gilmore family murdered several African-Americans including Grace’s father. Grace wants to remain silent on the matter; however, she discovers the decision to speak is not hers to make. Ancestral guides emerge in visions and insist she bear witness to her town’s violent racial history so that all involved might transcend it.

With hindsight made telescopic by suffering and the wisdom found in African myths, Grace recounts a story of eye-for-an-eye vengeance that has blinded entire generations in her hometown. Haunted by anger and trauma she wonders if she can do as the spirits have asked and lead Mr. Gilmore, the town of Vigilant and her own soul on a journey toward reconciliation and redemption.


Writing about Grace, has been a powerful journey into the meaning of forgiveness and redemption. True to her name, my character has tested all of my assumptions about race and community. She has also reshaped many of my attitudes about the nature of good, evil, love and hate. I love Grace for all the hard and wild places in my soul she has forced me to explore. I hope with all my heart that readers will come to love and appreciate her as well.