I have been wonderfully fortunate. My book recently received a glowing
review from Booklist, a major trade magazine. This review will allow me
access into the library market. Some libraries have already ordered the
book. Among them are Vanderbilt University, Auburn University at
Montgomery, the Brooklyn Public Library and Brooklyn College.
My books will be available in bookstores beginning this May. Among them
are Books-a-Million, Hastings, Hue Man Bookstore, and Borders. The book
can also be ordered online at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com and
Book-a-Million.com and in-store at Barnes and Noble.
I will be making personal appearances at Barnes and Noble in Park Slope,
Brooklyn, on June 15 and the Harlem Book Fair on July 23.
I will be touring the South in the fall and the Midwest in the winter.
Information on any upcoming events/appearances can be found on my
website www.cwritesabook.com.
Q: When and why did you begin writing? A: It seems that I was always writing something. When I was a
young girl, at age seven or so, I fashioned myself a television critic,
penning letters to may favorite shows offering possible ideas for
improvement. For my efforts, I received promotional postcards featuring
cast members or information about fan clubs. (I became a member of JJ
Walker Fan Club.) Then, at the tender age of 10, I began to write
melodramatic short stories. I was probably influenced by the nightly
soap operas of the day.
As I advanced in school, teachers began to emphasize the technical
aspects of writing more than the creative. Feeling intimated and
discouraged, I .stopped writing. When I did return to the craft, I
focused more its practical expression and wrote press releases and
marketing presentations.
Years later while attending graduate school in television production at
Loyola Marymount University in California, I rediscovered my passion.
While I did enjoy making short pieces and even winning awards for my
efforts but I found writing screenplays my greater passion. I tried to
explore this passion after graduation but dwindling funds did not allow
me to do so. I did pen a screenplay based on the experience which I will
transform into a novel tentatively titled, The Names Have Been Changed.
Broke, busted and disgusted, I moved to Alabama to live with my retired
mother for a bit. I began teaching at local colleges and universities
and found it fulfilling. One day, I decided to write an op-ed because I
felt that I had just as many opinions as anyone else; so many that I
wrote for the Montgomery Advertiser, Huntsville Times, Birmingham News
and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I began to spread my wings and write
for home and garden supplement for the Advertiser and career pieces for
SUCCEED Magazine.
In the back of my mind thought about the people I had encountered. I
wrote about them issues/challenges they faced and how they reflected
larger societal issues. I thought I would compile those stories into a
book someday. I don’t know how it happened to this day but it happened
sooner rather than later and sooner came sooner than I had thought it
would. I began shaping those stories and adding more and the book,
Bearing Witness emerged. I felt I need to let the world know their truth
and the truth about the South’s complexity.
Q: When did I first consider myself a writer? A: I was standing before my class the first day of the semester.
I had been writing regularly for over a year. Like every semester, I
told the classroom a little about myself. I always mentioned California,
my various jobs, may have mentioned my writing but I never said I was a
writer until that moment on that very day. I knew I had truly made a
commitment to this divine path and I haven’t stopped since.
Q: How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing?
A: As a child and pre-teen, my family traveled around the United States
a great deal. When I was young, I remembered seeing white women
waitressing at bus stops, Native Americans selling wares along the side
of the road in New Mexico and Arizona and farmers, skin red from the hot
sun, working in Midwestern corn fields. I always wondered what their
stories were and who would tell them. I decided to start with stories of
the South because it’s important to me to write about what I know and to
express my perspective as an insider/outsider.
Q: Do you have a specific writing style? A: My style is quite casual – more conversational. I also try to
inject humor whenever and wherever I can.
Q: How did you come up with the title for your book? A: I believe we are “bear witness” to the struggles, challenges
and joys of life – our own as well as others -- and our testimony has
the power not only to inform but to heal. The “not so crazy in Alabama”
subtitle is in response to the prevailing myth, often generated by the
media, that people who live below the Mason Dixon line are a bit wacky.
