Though I love featuring interesting folks here in the Brava and Bravo section of my blog, I’ve found that I can no longer keep up with the time it requires. Writing full-time is taking all the energy I have, and many things have had to give. Sadly, the upkeep of this category is one of them. There are many fascinating profiles here, so please cruise through and enjoy!
Just one look at those beautiful eyes and it’s evident that Bernice McFadden has stories to tell. Lots of stories. I met Bernice via social media and was immediately drawn to her strength and courage. With a rock-solid belief in herself and her talents, Bernice grabbed hold of her dream of becoming a published author with both hands. And here’s the thing—she flat-out refused to let go!
And that’s what success is all about.
I’m delighted to feature Bernice on Brava today as she celebrates the release of her latest novel, Gathering of Waters, which is already being praised by readers and reviewers from coast-to-coast and promises to be a book club favorite. So please welcome a wonderful woman and an award-winning author who is a living example of what it means to reach for that rainbow!
PROVIDENCE
by Bernice L. McFadden
The other night I watched Morgan Freeman on Master Class, which airs weekly on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN channel. I had had a glum sort of day. I wasn’t feeling very good about a number of things that are going on in my life. But try as I might to distract myself, the best I could do was climb onto my couch and curl up in my comforter.
There is where I remained until Morgan Freeman’s glowing face filled my television screen. He spoke about the challenges, obstacles and struggles he faced at the dawn of his career. He spoke incessantly about the hand of providence – the divine guidance that we all experience, but so many of us fail to acknowledge.
I am well aware of providence and have tried to live with the idea in the forefront of my life. But I am a flesh and blood woman and so it’s not always easy to see the forest for the trees.
Thirteen years ago, I had put nearly ten years into shopping the manuscript which would eventually become my debut novel: SUGAR. Back then I was told in more than 75 rejection letters that there was no audience for my book.
Those letters made me angry. Sometimes I cried out of frustration because I knew the editors and agents were wrong. They didn’t live in my heart, soul and memory. They couldn’t feel the constant prodding I felt. They didn’t know that as much as I wanted to abandon the ridiculous idea of becoming a published writer—there was stronger force urging me forward.
And then one day, during the early months of 1999, I received the letter that would forever change my life! Sugar was published in January of 2000 and my literary career was born.
It was nothing for me to quit my job, buy a house and car. My friends thought I was crazy. “How do you expect to make a living as a writer?” They asked.
Why would I think that I couldn’t make a living as a writer? I had hundreds of examples that were doing just that! And besides, I told those doubters—this is what I was put here to do. This is my destiny!
Fast forward to 2006.
I was notified by my long time publisher that by book, Nowhere is a Place, would be the last novel of mine that they would publish. Okay, I thought to myself. No problem. I’ll find another publisher in a few days. A few days turned into three years.
During those three years, I felt as if I was reliving those years before I secured my first book contract. I received numerous rejection letters that echoed one major theme: “I think Bernice L. McFadden’s career is over.”
I thought, well maybe it is. Maybe I should be grateful for the run I had. Maybe I should apply for a job at the post office and just forget about this writing thing. I said all of that but, that “thing” inside of me wouldn’t go quietly away. And the urge to continue on—no matter how heartbreaking the journey—continued to beat like a drum. And so I remained obedient to the call and in 2009 I finally secured a publishing deal with Akashic Books, a small, very well respected press here in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY.
They published Glorious, my first literary novel in four years. The book went on to win numerous awards and accolades.
I’m hoping my newest novel Gathering of Waters will achieve much of the same.
I thought I’d share this story with your readers because there is something to be said about staying true to your calling. Much to be said about holding on and weathering the storms that blow through your life—about passing the test so you can have a testimony….
Bernice has written many books, and they are shown below:
You can find Bernice’s books at fine bookstores and they can also be ordered online.
Please visit Bernice McFadden’s website HERE.
You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook.
This is a big week for Sarah, and I’m thrilled for her. Sarah is funny, smart, talented, and she’s someone I consider to be a valued friend. I met Sarah last year via social media and we immediately clicked. To converse with her or read her books is to know that she has a sensitivity about the human heart and its frailties. Sarah’s love of story runs deep, as does her attention to detail.
You’ve most likely heard the buzz about her much-anticipated new novel, The Baker’s Daughter, which was just released. Already garnering praise from early readers and reviewers, it’s a book that’s sure to spark many discussions and be a book club favorite. I can’t encourage you enough to run out and buy a copy!
In celebration of her new novel, I invited Sarah to be my guest on Brava today. I’m so glad she accepted. So, without further delay, here’s Sarah.
Who is that Man in the Moon?
by Sarah McCoy
I’m imagining us cozied up on a purple velvet sofa in your living room cradling cups of tea. Thanks for having me over to chat, Beth.
My second novel, The Baker’s Daughter, is anchored by strong female characters and their relationships to one another—mothers to daughters, sisters, girlfriends. All of which are vitally important to the story; however, I thought I’d take a moment to highlight a couple of the men in my book. Specifically, the fathers. Although they don’t take center stage, both of my protagonists, Reba and Elsie, are deeply affected by their fathers, and both of their fathers are profoundly transformed by war.
My relationship with my dad differs from my characters in that I was blessed to have a father who worked hard to develop a relationship with me. He’s the firstborn of three boys, and I’m his only daughter. In addition, he went to college at West Point Military Academy and spent thirty years as an Army Ranger. (Talk about a preponderance of testosterone.) But growing up, he wasn’t the least bit standoffish. He rolled my frilly socks to the perfect cuff, told me my hair smelled delicious after washing it in Strawberry Shortcake shampoo, sat front and center at ballet recitals, clarinet performances, cheerleading competitions and yes, book readings. That’s how I know him. But from a very young age, I also understood that his life was partitioned. He was my dad, and he was a soldier. That might not sound outlandish but when you stop to think about those two occupations, they’re polar opposites. One is a nurturer, the other…
My dad deployed to Desert Storm in 1990. He returned when the war ended and I remember asking my mom, “Did Daddy have to kill anyone?” She said no, and I believed her because that was what I wanted to hear. The question had worried me for months and I expected an answer to quell it. I never asked my dad directly. I didn’t want to possibly hear something else, which would make my mom a liar and my dad a killer. On their own, those labels are slanderous, yet when applied to wartime, they gain something akin to honor. The noble lie. The noble kill. Whatever the truth might’ve been, my mom was protecting me, loving me, with her response. My dad was protecting and loving us too when he strapped on a gun, got in a tank, and took to the sands of Kuwait bound by honor, duty, and country. To this day, he doesn’t talk much about his time served in Desert Storm or in the Iraq War.
When my husband and I moved west to El Paso, my parents unloaded all of their storage boxes marked “Sarah” for me to take along: ancient baby dolls and New Kids on The Block T-shirts, dried roses from high school homecomings and pictures from Hawaii to Germany—childhood mementos. Amid the odds and ends, I found a cassette with my dad’s handwriting on the side: To Sarah. Since tapes have gone the way of LPs, my car had the only player we still own. I put it in and prayed the magnetic thread and spools had held up after all the years.
“Hey, girl. Daddy’s sitting here washing his stuff out. There are a lot of sandstorms over here, but it’s clear out tonight. You can see the man in the moon.” In the background was the splish-splash of a tub. “Your mom says you’ve been a big help to her. She’s got her hands full with your brothers and work, ya’know. You just keep on giving her hugs. Would you mind doing that for me? Now I got to get to bed. We’re going out on patrol early tomorrow. Pray for me, baby girl. Sweet dreams.”
Then the tape clicked off and clicked back on with another day’s greeting.
Listening as an adult, I heard the tired pinch in his voice, the singsong of a brave front, the attempt to convince me that everything was hunky-dory— to convince himself too. I could ask him what happened over there but I won’t. Not because I’m scared of the answer but because it’s past. That period of history does not define my dad. He was part of it and so it’s indelibly a part of him. But that’s only a fraction of his life. A small part of the greater whole.
I’m not naïve. I understand that war is monstrous. That wicked men do terrible things, and men with good hearts do difficult things. I know that right and wrong get muddled by beliefs, loyalty and love, and that the righteous path of yesterday looks misguided at best today. We’re only human. We all have dark sides to our moons. The question then becomes, can love redeem?
I believe so. There’s really no alternative.
__________________
Please visit Sarah’s website HERE.
You can also find her on TWITTER and FACEBOOK.
Today is October 4, 2010—a day that Erika Marks will never forget; it’s the day her debut novel Little Gale Gumbo launches into the world. I met Erika, who is talented, lovely, and genuinely kind, via social media, and I’ve enjoyed watching the excitement build toward this special day. She’s worked hard to claim her place in the world of published authors, and I’m delighted to be featuring her here on Brava!
Please welcome Erika as she shares personal thoughts on the art of story.
People often ask writers where their story ideas come from.
Speaking for myself, that inspiration can change from manuscript to manuscript. Sometimes it is the germ of an idea that comes from passing an abandoned house on a road trip or overhearing a conversation standing in line at the grocery store; other times it’s something less fleeting: a plot idea you’ve been growing for years that finally fruits, or that character you’ve sketched a hundred times in your mind who finally steps out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
In the case of my novel, LITTLE GALE GUMBO, place had as much to do with my inspiration as character. I had moved to New Orleans in 2002 to pursue a degree in Historic Preservation. It was love at first sight and I knew at once I would eventually write about the city. (I defy any writer to spend even a week in that glorious city and not find themselves so smitten, so inspired that it takes great effort not to write about it!)
But I never imagined that it would be a natural disaster, an event that would threaten to devastate my beloved city that would ultimately bring me to the story of LITTLE GALE GUMBO.
Though I ended up setting my novel a few years before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, it was my experience of evacuating the city after the storm that had a tremendous impact on my story. In the days after the hurricane, when my husband and I finally had to leave the city, we—along with the world—began to comprehend the upheaval that would now face so many thousands of people displaced by a single event. Knowing New Orleans as I did, and knowing how unique and remarkable its residents are, I could not imagine how hard it would be for New Orleanians, some of whom had never lived anywhere besides New Orleans, to relocate without warning, without the pieces of their lives, and in so many heartbreaking cases, even without members of their families.
It was the concept of this life-changing upheaval that ultimately inspired me to create my story. What happens when someone has to start over in a new place, without time to prepare, without the ability to bring any of their belongings with them—how do they cope? How do they survive? But ultimately, how do they thrive?
For Camille Bergeron, it isn’t a hurricane that takes her and her two teenage daughters to a new life on an island off the coast of Maine, but the desire to put behind her a storm of another kind. Though she hasn’t time or the means to transport her worldly possessions, she still manages to arrive on Little Gale Island with the most important pieces of her heritage and her identity: her mother’s Creole recipes, her love of jazz music, her Voodoo spells, and most of all, her daughters. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it certainly doesn’t happen seamlessly, but eventually the Bergeron women find a way to bring New Orleans to Maine, and every life on the island is richer for it.
Which proves, perhaps, that we don’t have to go far to find our stories. Maybe we don’t have to go anywhere at all. Maybe—so long as we keep our eyes and our hearts wide open—it’s our stories that ultimately find us.
Please visit Erika’s website HERE.
You can also find her on Twitter @erikamarksauthr and Facebook
Melissa Crytzer Fry is extremely talented, smart, kind, and beautiful–inside and out. She’s also one of my favorite people. Melissa, an award-winning freelance writer and novelist, is passionate about the written word, nature, animals, and also photography. These passions are beautifully expressed and explored on her blog What I Saw. I highly recommend that you check it out.
Though Melissa in incredibly busy, she graciously accepted my invitation to be featured on Brava, and I’m delighted that she did. So please welcome Melissa as she talks about how her love of photography has impacted her writing (and vice versa).
Trying on the Photographer’s Hat
Aspiring novelists are often advised to simply observe. That means mining the environment for stories, paying close attention to people’s quirky habits, speech patterns and gestures. The seeds of a storyline sprout from simple glances at everyday objects, from facial expressions, from overheard conversations.
And while viewing life through a writer’s eyes is terrifically helpful advice to anyone, so is another recommendation that is rarely offered: See the world through the eyes of a photographer.
When your goal is to capture a beautiful image – preserving that precise moment in time – something interesting happens. You instinctively begin to look at your surroundings differently. You find yourself tilting the camera, moving in and out of the sun for different effect, positioning yourself on the ground despite the biting red ants congregating near your head (yes, this has happened to me).
What you’re doing is looking at your subject from different perspectives, different angles. And in doing so, you really start to notice. You see and experience details – things you’d have simply shrugged off, ignored – the movement of the yellow jacket on the purple petals of lupine, the scent of rain on parched earth, the hum of the locust in the nearby acacia bush.
What a treasure-trove for the writer (or anyone who wants to live in the moment)!
Do you have to be a trained photographer with fancy equipment? Absolutely not. I have never taken a photography class (most professionals are nodding their heads emphatically, “We can tell!”). But that’s not the point.
The point is to change your mindset, change the way you view the world. Even if your pictures aren’t perfect or even worthy of sharing (yes, I’ve got plenty of those), you’re forcing yourself to see differently, to absorb details, to be present.
Soon you’ll be seeking photographable images in every moment – in the office, outdoors, in classes, at the supermarket – even if your camera isn’t near.
I stumbled upon my photo odyssey purely accidentally, as a result of outdoor hikes with a neighbor and friend who shared my wonder of the desert southwest. Our five-mile hikes became more about exploration and photos than heart rates and fitness.
The most thrilling part of this discovery has been its impact on my writing. My now-constant wide-eyed wonder and appreciation for detail has improved the sensory writing in my current work-in-progress (WIP) tenfold. The snippet below, from my current WIP, was inspired by these very hikes and their resulting photos:
Hope wiped her eyes and nodded. She looked out at the glowing mountains, now a Sedona red with the sun’s tinting, and waited for Charlie to return. She had begun this morning like most others, with a brisk jog among the low-statured desert vegetation, the amorphous plants and trees rising like green clouds from the flesh-colored dirt of the ranch’s rolling hills.
She closed her eyes. There was nothing about her morning ritual that she didn’t savor. The wet-dirt smell of dusty creosote bushes after rain hit their delicate elliptical-shaped leaves, the fragrant prickly pear cacti when they were in bloom, like musky perfume, the yellow-flowered mesquite trees, and the fuzzy lemonade-colored, caterpillar-like flower pods of the acacia bush.
She took note of it all. And each morning when she reached the crest of the hill about two miles behind the ranch, she stopped and looked out at the Santa Catalina Mountains. Her morning tradition: take a deep breath, stand in awe at the extreme forces that shaped the mountains, the years and years of natural sculpting and uplift, pressure, pulling, and deformation.
Hopefully, with the crutch of my camera, I’ve taken the first steps in learning how to better picture everyday beauty with the naked eye and to paint pictures with words.
So, writers, readers – everyone – pick up that camera (even a disposable one) and look at the world through the eyes of a shutterbug. Your writing will benefit. Chances are, so will you.
~~~
Melissa, a Northwestern PA transplant, is living out her writing dream in southern Arizona, among wildlife ranging from javelina, bobcats and quail to mountain lions, coyotes and Gila Monsters. She and her husband are also the proud owners of two Bengal kitties. Besides being the author of the What I Saw nature/writing/creativity blog, Melissa is also the owner of AZCommPro Communications and a writer/enthusiast of literary women’s fiction.
Please follow Melissa on Twitter (@CrytzerFry).
Note: All photographs are copyrighted and owned by Melissa and may not be copied without her written permission.