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.

Mission Accomplished

When I finished my first novel, I promised Grace, my heroine, that I would find her a good home. I've kept my promise. My dream of publishing has come true, but it didn’t happen the way I always imagined it would.

After long years of dues paid to learn my craft I queried and finally got an agent– I was hopeful, she was hopeful. She did her best to sell the book; however, it seemed that many traditional publishers and editors believed with all their hearts and bottom lines that African Americans only wanted to read urban literature or romance novels. They were also convinced that white people didn’t want to read anything by African Americans.

My novel fell into the genre of speculative fiction. It came complete with intelligent black folks, living intelligent lives. No magical negros or vapid black sidekicks. My agent got back letter after letter saying, “We like this novel but we don’t believe these charaters......( insert stereotypes here.)

“I’ll keep trying.” My agent said. However, I could tell she was discouraged.

I was suppose to wait on my agent to do the magic that agents do, but as the rejections piled up I knew I was probably going to have to pave the way to publishing success my own self. One November morning last year, my agent sent me another flurry of rejection emails and I got angry. I typed into Goggle: African American Literary Publishers and up popped the name Plenary Publishing.

I took a look at the website and it appeared the people behind Plenary were serious. Sometimes you have to take a leap off the cliff into the unknown and trust that God and the ancestors will throw you some wings on the way down. I followed their detailed submissions directions, pressed the send button and waited and waited and waited some more. I waited so long I almost forgot that I had submitted to them. Great blessing sometime come to those who wait. On May 13, the day after my birthday, I received a request for the full manuscript of my novel Act of Grace. I only had to wait a little while longer after that.

I am pleased to announce that my novel, my baby made of words, love and imagination, will be published by Plenary Publishing in February of 2011. I will be writing more about my upcoming publishing journey later as I get use to the idea that my best dream has come true and Grace now has a wonderful home.

YOU HAVE TO ENTER TO WIN

The Speculative Literature Foundation was launched in January 2004 to promote literary quality in speculative fiction. Every year they offer a grant for older writers . Every year I put off entering. Well, this year I got my behind in gear and entered a selection from my novel Act of Grace and guess what I won!!!

They said of my work

"We enjoyed your writing sample very much, especially the compelling opening that pulls the reader into the story, the tight, sharp, beautiful prose, and Grace's folksy-but-modern-Southern-down-home narrative voice that's both straightforward and intimate. "

Information about me and my entry should be up on the SLF website so take a look, and all you writers who are over fifty please take the time to enter next year.

An Old Song For A New Revolution

WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED

We shall not, we shall not be moved

We shall not, we shall not be moved

Black and white together,

We shall not be moved

LiveJournaler neo_prodigy has created a campaign and Live Journal community for visibility of speculative fiction fans, artist and writer of color inspired by the infamous and still on going RaceFail 09 .

He asked that on Monday May 18, 2009, anyone who identifies as a POC/non-white post the beautiful Banner above along with, their speculative short stories, artwork, poetry or simply write a post on their blogs as an act of protest to show we will not be silent or invisible.

The day of protest is entitled Fen Of Color United or more aptly, FOC_U.
White allies are encouraged to also show solidarity for this event by posting the banner above and expressing the need for diversity and speaking out against the bigotry in the genre, through posts and/or their creative work as well.

Full post: http://community.livejournal.com/foc_u/435.html