RIP Mildred Loving

Mildred and Richard Loving fought the law against interracial marriage and won. As a black woman married to a white man, I owe a debt to Mrs. Loving. A couple of things about this on my mind this morning: Mildred was arrested for marrying a white man (spending more nights in jail than he did) and 33 years later I married my husband at the Denver County Courthouse in front of a judge with the full support of the law. And now the son of a white woman and a black man just might be our next president. The times they are a changin'.

Here's Mrs. Loving's obit from the NY Times (I'm proud to note she agreed with me on the rights for everyone, gay and straight, to be able to marry):

Mildred Loving, a black woman whose anger over being banished from Virginia for marrying a white man led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling overturning state miscegenation laws, died on May 2 at her home in Central Point, Va. She was 68. Peggy Fortune, her daughter, said the cause was pneumonia.

Mildred and Richard Loving, in 1967, were arrested in Virginia. The Supreme Court ruling, in 1967, struck down the last group of segregation laws to remain on the books — those requiring separation of the races in marriage. The ruling was unanimous, its opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, who in 1954 wrote the court’s opinion in Brown v. Board of Education, declaring segregated public schools unconstitutional. In Loving v. Virginia, Warren wrote that miscegenation laws violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause. “We have consistently denied the constitutionality of measures which restrict the rights of citizens on account of race,” he said.

By their own widely reported accounts, Mrs. Loving and her husband, Richard, were in bed in their modest house in Central Point in the early morning of July 11, 1958, five weeks after their wedding, when the county sheriff and two deputies, acting on an anonymous tip, burst into their bedroom and shined flashlights in their eyes. A threatening voice demanded, “Who is this woman you’re sleeping with?”

Mrs. Loving answered, “I’m his wife.” Mr. Loving pointed to the couple’s marriage certificate hung on the bedroom wall. The sheriff responded, “That’s no good here.” The certificate was from Washington, D.C., and under Virginia law, a marriage between people of different races performed outside Virginia was as invalid as one done in Virginia. At the time, it was one of 16 states that barred marriages between races.

After Mr. Loving spent a night in jail and his wife several more, the couple pleaded guilty to violating the Virginia law, the Racial Integrity Act. Under a plea bargain, their one-year prison sentences were suspended on the condition that they leave Virginia and not return together or at the same time for 25 years.

Judge Leon M. Bazile, in language Chief Justice Warren would recall, said that if God had meant for whites and blacks to mix, he would have not placed them on different continents. Judge Bazile reminded the defendants that “as long as you live you will be known as a felon.”
They paid court fees of $36.29 each, moved to Washington and had three children. They returned home occasionally, never together. But times were tough financially, and the Lovings missed family, friends and their easy country lifestyle in the rolling Virginia hills.

By 1963, Mrs. Loving could stand the ostracism no longer. Inspired by the civil rights movement and its march on Washington, she wrote Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and asked for help. He wrote her back, and referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union.
The A.C.L.U. took the case. Its lawyers, Bernard S. Cohen and Philip J. Hirschkop, faced an immediate problem: the Lovings had pleaded guilty and had no right to appeal. So they asked Judge Bazile to set aside his original verdict. When he refused, they appealed. The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the lower court, and the case went to the United States Supreme Court.

Mr. Cohen recounted telling Mr. Loving about various legal theories applying to the case. Mr. Loving replied, “Mr. Cohen, tell the court I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can’t live with her in Virginia.”

Mildred Delores Jeter’s family had lived in Caroline County, Va., for generations, as had the family of Richard Perry Loving. The area was known for friendly relations between races, even though marriages were forbidden. Many people were visibly of mixed race, with Ebony magazine reporting in 1967 that black “youngsters easily passed for white in neighboring towns.”
Mildred’s mother was part Rappahannock Indian, and her father was part Cherokee. She preferred to think of herself as Indian rather than black.

Mildred and Richard began spending time together when he was a rugged-looking 17 and she was a skinny 11-year-old known as Bean. He attended an all-white high school for a year, and she reached 11th grade at an all-black school.

When Mildred became pregnant at 18, they decided to do what was elsewhere deemed the right thing and get married. They both said their initial motive was not to challenge Virginia law.
“We have thought about other people,” Mr. Loving said in an interview with Life magazine in 1966, “but we are not doing it just because somebody had to do it and we wanted to be the ones. We are doing it for us.”

In his classic study of segregation, “An American Dilemma,” Gunnar Myrdal wrote that “the whole system of segregation and discrimination is designed to prevent eventual inbreeding of the races.” But miscegenation laws struck deeper than other segregation acts, and the theory behind them leads to chaos in other facets of law. This is because they make any affected marriage void from its inception. Thus, all children are illegitimate; spouses have no inheritance rights; and heirs cannot receive death benefits.

“When any society says that I cannot marry a certain person, that society has cut off a segment of my freedom,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1958. Virginia’s law had been on the books since 1662, adopted a year after Maryland enacted the first such statute. At one time or another, 38 states had miscegenation laws. State and federal courts consistently upheld the prohibitions, until 1948, when the California Supreme Court overturned California’s law.
Though the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision in the Loving case struck down miscegenation laws, Southern states were sometimes slow to change their constitutions; Alabama became the last state to do so, in 2000.

Mr. Loving died in a car accident in 1975, and the Lovings’ son Donald died in 2000. In addition to her daughter, Peggy Fortune, who lives in Milford, Va., Mrs. Loving is survived by her son, Sidney, of Tappahannock, Va.; eight grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

Mrs. Loving stopped giving interviews, but last year issued a statement on the 40th anniversary of the announcement of the Supreme Court ruling, urging that gay men and lesbians be allowed to marry.

Every day is Mother's Day!

Over at A Place of Our Own Book Club, they've designated the entire month to celebrate mothers. They have a number of different bloggers who will be participating and the ones who get the most comments will win prizes (one of which is a copy of Orange Mint and Honey!). And the folks who visit the most blogs, leaving comments, also have a chance to win a gift basket filled with FREE BOOKS!

Blogger Angelia is discussing "community mothering" today, which is the same concept as "it takes a village to raise a child." Be sure to check out all the blogs each day and leave a comment. You'll read something interesting and you could win FREE BOOKS!

Addendum: Due to popular demand (LOL) I'll be participating in Every Day is Mother's Day...on Mother's Day! Watch for my post (and leave me comments please!) on Sunday, May 11.

Pajama Chat with Pearl Cleage

Okay girls and boys, get your fancy jammies on for this Pajama Chat. Pearl Cleage is in the house!

Carleen Brice: You started out writing plays, correct? What led you to the theater?

Pearl Cleage: i have always loved the theatre. my mother and my father used to take us when i was growing up in detroit. we saw everything, from ossie davis and ruby dee in "purlie victorious" to dame judith anderson in "agamemnon" to rudolph nureyev with the royal ballet to jose greco and his passionate flamenco dancers to an updated version of shakespeare's "taming of the shrew" where they drove real motorcycles on the stage to alvin ailey's "revelations." i loved it all! i loved the movies, too, but the immediacy of live theatre was always so exciting. anything could happen! so i started writing short plays when i was really little.

i was one of those kids who always put together a chrsitmas play or a thanksgiving play that everybody had to watch after they've eaten that huge holiday meal and they are powerless to move. i'd recruit my cousins and my big sister and we'd do the christmas story or the pilgrims landing at plymouth rock. i doubt that we were very good, but we always got an enthusiastic response from our captive audience, and i was hooked! i acted and wrote plays all through school, but when i got to college, i stopped acting and concentrated on writing. i have written thirteen plays and i'm really happy to say they have all been professionally produced.

CB: How is writing a novel different than writing a play? Do you have a different process?

PC: i never intended to write novels! i had been happily writing my plays and then i had an idea for a story that would not fit on the stage. it was too long, there were too many characters, too many settings, too much internal dialogue. so after weeks of trying to change it enough to make it fit the stage, i gave up and decided i'd try to write it as a novel instead. since i had never written a novel, i was intimidated by the form. i didn't know where to start, how to proceed, how to wrap things up. as a playwright, i had been working to develop my craft for years. now here i was, facing something totally new. i took a deep breath, and calling on the spirits of alice walker and toni morrison to help me, i plunged in.

this, of course, was a mistake. anytime you try to conjure up great writers to work on your book with you, there is bound to be some confusion. for me, it was trying to write third person like they do. i was used to writing dialogue, not description. when you write a play, you say: "it is a sunday afternoon on the sidewalk outside of a harlem brownstone. the year is 1930." then the set designer does the research and creates a set that looks like that harlem sidewalk. the costumer designer creates authentic period costumes, the lighting designer makes it look like a sunny city afternoon, and the actors bring their charisma and skill to making the characters come alive. now, as a novelist, i had to do all that myself, in addition to creating characters and making them walk, talk and move through their story.

i was overwhelmed and after a few months, i was floundering around with two hundred pages that i hated. i was trying so hard to be a serious novelist that i wasn't having any fun and reading my pages, i knew the reader wouldn't have any fun either. so i took a bold step. i said a mental apology to alice and toni, threw away all those pages and started again, but this time i was writing first person. it worked like a charm. as a playwright, i'm used to letting the characters speak. once i started writing in the main character's voice, the book came alive. ava johnson had a story to tell and all i had to do was get out of the way and let her tell it. i had a ball. the book turned out to be what looks like crazy on an ordinary day, and i've been writing novels ever since.

CB: Are you still writing plays? What about screenplays for any of your books?

PC: i still write plays. i just wrote one last year called "a song for coretta." it takes place in atlanta as five women wait in line to go and pay their respects to mrs. coretta king who lay in state at ebeneezer baptist church. when i saw the television coverage, i was very moved by the picture of all those folks, standing in the rain at midnight, waiting to say good by to someone they admired and respected so much. the play was done at spelman college, where i was teaching at the time, and then at seven stages theatre. we had a great cast and a wonderful director in crystal dickinson. we sold out every show! the play is currently going into production in several other cities. "a song for coretta" was the first play i had written in ten years and it felt good to be working in theatre again. i am thinking about another play already!

as far as screenplays are concerned, my husband, zaron burnett, who is also a writer, is working with me on screenplays of several of my books. i am curious to see how they will translate. people are always casting the movies for me, especially blue hamilton! of course, denzel washington in blue contacts is always the first one they mention!

CB: Your books always include messages about social justice and just being good to one another. Is that a conscious plan on your part when you start writing?

PC: i am a true child of the sixties so i'm always trying to make the world a better place! i am convinced that if every person would just do their part, we could solve any problems we have, worldwide! i grew up in a very politically conscious and politically active family and i'm sure that's part of why the people in my books are always so deeply rooted in their community. the southwest atlanta neighborhood i'm writing about has been my home for thirty years so i am acutely aware of our problems, but i am also aware of what a vibrant place it is. i hope the books encourage people to look around at their own communities and get involved in something to make it better. the women in my books work with young people, support refugees, help new mothers, employ the homeless, grow peace gardens and participate in anti-war demonstrations. they also find time to fall in love, have babies, raise families, go to the beach, fly kites and laugh with their friends. i never thought you had to give up romance to be a revolutionary!

CB: It’s been a while since I’ve been to Atlanta. Is the West End you describe in your latest books really the way you describe it: well-kept with all-night businesses and men who tips their hats to ladies and women who feel safe walking at night? Or is this an urban African American neighborhood as you’d like to see it?

PC: i wish i could say that west end is exactly as i describe it, but we're not there yet. one of the things i'm always trying to do in my books is to create the kind of neighborhood i want to live in. i want to be able to walk at midnight, fearlessly. i want to be able to sit on my front porch and not hear gun fire and i sure want to have some men around who tip their hats and know how to say "good morning!" i want to eat fresh vegetables from the bounty of community gardens, so, i try to paint those pictures. i try to make readers remember how it feels to be safe and happy and loved and free. if we can see it, we can be it! (i told you i was a sixties child!)

CB: A lot of writers (published and not-yet-published) read the blog. What’s the best advice anyone ever gave you about writing?

PC: my father gave me some wonderful advice when i was working full time and raising my daughter and keeping up an active social life. i was spending my time doing everything but writing and, of course, i was whining about it. my father listened to me for about fifteen minutes and then he said, "nobody's going to give you permission to write. they're always going to have other things for you to do. if you want to write, you better start writing." my feelings were hurt because i was looking for some sympathy, but he was right. nobody is going to give anybody permission to write. if you want to do it, it is up to you to make a way to do it. the best book about the writing process that i've come across is anne lamott's bird by bird. it's widely available in paperback and it's got lots of good advice and laugh out loud stories about the craziness that all writers think is theirs alone, but which is really just part of the process.

CB: What changes have you noticed in publishing since your first novel, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, which was an Oprah Book Club pick?

PC: i think the biggest difference i've noticed in publishing is that there is a lot more emphasis on business and a lot less emphasis on the artistic development of the authors. publishers are struggling to find a way to make books commercially viable in an age when people are getting so much of their information from electronic sources. i think writers feel this pressure, too, and sometimes it gets in the way. the craft of writing doesn't have anything to do with the business of best sellers. when the two get confused, nothing good can come of it.

CB: Those of us who are black female writers sometimes feel especially discouraged about the current book scene. (Did you see Denene Miller’s essay? NOTE: You have to scroll down.) Any words of encouragement?

PC: there exists a vibrant community of black women writers. some of these writers are commercially successful and some are less well known, but many of them are working at the top of their game. they are writing wonderfully and their work deserves to be widely read, reviewed, discussed and enjoyed. the problem is that we don't have viable publishing houses with viable distribution systems that are dedicated to publishing black women authors and aggressively marketing their work. what we need are some businesswomen who can see that publishing can be both culturally significant and commercially robust. there are so many avenues for marketing the work of black female authors that have not been fully explored, including book clubs, churches, sororities and professional organizations. to my sisterwriters who are feeling downhearted about the current book scene, i suggest that maybe we should start trying to find some bright young women with business degrees and see if we can make them see the possibilities for a future in publishing. in the meantime, our job is to keep telling our stories. if not us, who? if not now, when?


Thanks Pearl for your time!

Pajama Gardener contest!

I thought I was doing something gardening in my p.j.s until last year when I heard about World Naked Gardening Day, which this year is being celebrated today.

In honor of this holiday, I'm reopening a contest I launched last year. Email me (carleen at carleenbrice dot com) a jpeg of you gardening in your jammies and I'll send you a free, signed copy of Orange Mint and Honey! This contest is open to the first 7 people who email me. The contest was originally for the first 10 people and we had 3 winners last year:

Virginia in Australia

Lois in Denver

Lisa in Centennial

I was going to offer 2 books to anybody who sent me a naked gardening picture, but, no offense, I don't really think I want to know y'all that well!

Fort Collins rescheduled

Due to the weather, I won't be signing at the Reader's Cove tonight. We have rescheduled the event for 7 p.m. May 15th (when we ALL hope it won't be snowing!).

Pearl Cleage is coming to the blog!

Big news: Pearl Cleage is doing a Q&A with the Pajama Gardener! She answers questions about her plays and books and her writing process. I will post our discussion Monday May 5. Spread the word and stay tuned!

To recap, the contest will be launched on May 3 and Pearl will visit us on May 5. May is looking great!

Quirky? Who me?

The fabulous Ladylee tagged me for a meme. Here are the rules:

Link the person who tagged you.
Mention the rules in your blog.
Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger's blogs letting them know they've been tagged

My quirks (well 6 of them that I can share here, anyway):

1) I enjoy the sound of my husband chewing popcorn. At night, if I’m lying around reading a book and he starts to eat a bowl of popcorn, it’ll put me right to sleep. It’s very relaxing. I've been known even to ask him to make popcorn so I can listen to him eat it.

2) I have to keep everything I need to know in eyesight. So that means piled on my desk, pinned on corkboards, written on a white board or on a million sticky notes around my desk. My clothes are mostly in piles in my bedroom or hanging on the back of the closet door or the bedroom door (where I can see them). Seriously, if it’s out of sight I forget about it. Halloween candy can hide out until next Halloween as long as it’s put away. This is how bad it is: I’ve “found” clothes I actually forgot I owned because they were hung in my closet. I’ve bought a pair of shoes EXACTLY like ones I already had at home because I forgot I had them because they were in the back of the closet.

3) Since my friend Diane enjoys this quirk of mine so much, I’ll include it. Even though I no longer do it. I used to cross out the candies in the See’s Chocolates catalog I didn’t like and circle (and sometimes number in order of deliciousness) the candies I did like. Since I only have sugar-free or low-sugar chocolate now (Dagoba is the best!), it kind of takes the fun out of the See’s catalog.

4) I like raisins and bread. But I only like raisin bread if there aren’t too many raisins in it.

5) I lost the ability to tell right from left (without a lot of thought and then I’m still wrong half the time) after my mother died. When giving directions, she used to have to pretend to sign her name to figure out which way was right and which was left. (She was right-handed so the hand that was moving was the right hand.) Before she died I didn’t have a problem with it.

6) We feed our cats every 3 hours. We can’t leave food down all day because Vishnu will eat until the food is gone or he explodes, whichever comes first. But Hazel spent the 10 years before Vishnu came to live with us (a dark day in Hazel history) eating 60 3-bite meals a day. So if she “meal feeds” twice a day, she barfs. The compromise is small meals throughout the day. Whether we trained the cats to eat every 3 hours or they trained us to feed them every 3 hours, I couldn’t tell you. But I’d put money on the cats.


What an exercise this would be for developing characters!


I’ll tag Sustenance Scout, Mary Ann, Lafreya, Urban Conjure Woman, Gina Black, and Kwana.

Events for the merry, merry month of May

This Thursday (May 1) at 7 p.m. I'll be in Fort Collins at The Reader's Cove. Northern Colorado folks, please join me!

Saturday, May 3 I'll launch a contest on the blog--another way you can get a signed copy of Orange Mint and Honey. (listen up, Demon Hunter!)

Friday, May 9 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. I'll be at the Underground Railroad Bookstore in Green Valley Ranch (NE Denver) for a discussion about mother-daughter relationships and a book-signing.

Sunday, May 11 Give mom a copy of Orange Mint and Honey.

Monday, May 26 I'll be swimming in a vat of margaritas for my birthday. Whoo hoo!

Thursday, May 29 at 5:30 I'll be signing at a reception for African American booksellers at BEA in L.A.

Saturday, May 31st (Time to be announced) I'll be at the Leimert Park Book Festival in L.A.

What are your plans for May?

Congratulations Lafreya!!!

This is just the best news! Lafreya has an agent for her novel! Lafreya was one of this blog's first readers and commenters, a friend of the blog since I started it. I'm so happy for her! Go over to her site and read about what it was like when she got the news--and congratulate her!

Lafreya, can't wait to BUY YOUR BOOK and feature you on my blog!!!

And kudos to Josephine Damian for spreading the news!

Poet Mark Strand in town

Mark Strand will be at the Lighthouse Writer's Spring Studio weekend, May 3 and 4. Strand is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, former US Poet Laureate, and one of the leading writers of his generation. His work--both poetry and prose--is wonderfully nuanced, dreamlike, and reverberant. Of his work, Harold Bloom has said "These poems instantly touch a universal anguish as no confessional poems can," and Louis Gluck has said that his work "infuses a wry tenderness; the wit we have come to expect has developed into a wildly supple instrument, a sort of celestial shrug. Poetry at this level manifests profound wisdom."

The New Yorker has written: "A poet of commanding intellect and haunting imagery, he catches glimmers that hover at the furthest reaches of consciousness." The New York Time Book Review wrote, "Strand's poems resonate with a shimmering sense of the infinite that befits his stature... His apparently simple lines have the eerie, seductive ring of the inevitable."

Here's one of his best known poems, just to give you a taste of his work.

Eating Poetry
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man,
I snarl at her and bark,
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.


For more samples of his work, check out the Lighthouse blog.

Gardening for peace

NOTE: Commenter #4 can still get a copy of Orange Mint and Honey!


Pearl Cleage's latest book Seen it All and Done the Rest is, of course, wonderful. One of the things I love about her books is there's always at least one character who still believes in peace, love and understanding. The character in this latest is Abbie, who we've seen before in Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do. In this book Abbie lobbies for starting a peace garden:

"We have to find a way to do whatever it takes to reclaim our country. And it doesn't have to be something big. It can be something that seems small. Something that helps you remember the good things. Focus on your neighbors. Focus on the mountains behind your house. Focus on any grandbaby you can find. Focus on music you sing with other people. Focus on growing something. That's why we're making a garden here and that's why we're going to call it the Martin Luther King Peace Garden Number One. Because if we can grow sunflowers on Martin Luther King Drive, maybe we can grow sunflowers in Baghdad, too."

Amen.

I haven't planted sunflowers in a while, but this just might be the year for them again. I'm going to plant for peace this year, what about you? Anybody else up for having a peace garden?

Tell you what, be the first person to leave a comment here that you'll plant something, ANYTHING, for peace this year and I'll send you Pearl's book.

Be the second person to tell me you'll plant for peace and I'll send you a copy of Walk Tall, which has a bright, cheery sunflower on the cover and words of peace inside.

I'll send the third person a copy of Orange Mint and Honey because that has a peace garden (of sorts) in it too.

Peace.

A little East Coast swing

Philly was fun. Actually, my signing was in Willow Grove, a suburb of Philly. On Friday, my cousins and I planned to go to Media to see a friend of mine and then drive down to a botanic garden. You know, me being "the pajama gardener" and all. Well, Shirley got VIP tix to go to a rally in Center City for Obama. Garden schmarden. Whatev. We went to see Obama! (Leslie and Kieran don't hate.)

Now if Obama looks a little flat and two dimensional here it's NOT because he's made of cardboard. They've been campaigning hard in PA and the man was a little tired.

Okay, so this isn't the real Obama. They had cardboard cut-outs of Hillary, Barack and McCain at a store in the 30th Street Train Station. Guess who everybody (except one little girl) wanted their picture with? VIP tix gave us access to the same block where he was speaking. The rally was on Independence Mall, which is about 3 blocks long. It was packed. The estimate in the paper the next day was 35,000 people. I swear I got tears in my eyes at the sight of a black man who could actually be president speaking between the buildings where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written.

He spoke about 20 minutes and knocked it out of the park as far as we Obamaniacs were concerned. (I'm a proud member!) The best part, though, was after the official rally when all 35,000 of us were leaving we continued the party. We chanted "Obama!" and "Yes we can!" and waved and screamed and folks honked their horns as we marched up Broad Street to City Hall. There was so much energy and enthusiasm and, yes, hope in the crowd of all colors, ages, classes, abilities, genders, you name it. As one woman next to me said, "We drank the Kool-Aid. And oh it comes in so many diverse flavors." I piped in that it certainly was refreshing. Then his motorcade went by and he rolled down his window and waved at us. Folks really lost their minds! I started to worry for the man as people chased his car.

On Saturday, I had the pleasure and honor of speaking to the Expressions and Exchanges Book Clubs. My cousins put together this event for their book clubs and friends, sorority sisters and relatives. These sisters are readers and it was so satisfying to know that people were actually getting what I was trying to say.

What a wonderful turnout and discussion we had! Thank you, ladies!!

Some members of the Exchanges Book Club, which has been meeting for more than 20 years!

Some members of the Expressions Book Club, which has been meeting 14 years. I was the first author they had at one of their meetings when Walk Tall came out.

I love this woman!

Sorry! This used to be a video of Michelle Obama on The Colbert Report. She was gracious, funny and so smart. Love her! You might still be able to find it on Comedy Central's site.

Love from Philly!

Barrels of fun!

Just returned from Kris Radish' reading at the Highlands Ranch Tattered Cover. After an hour on the road, because Highlands Ranch is friggin far and because I can't read directions, I made it for what was a really fun evening. Kris handed out presents (one lucky reader got a t-shirt) that tied in to her books. She talked about her latest book Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA and talked a bit about what her idea of paradise is. She didn't wear the ears for the whole signing. Just till she got our attention.

Kris is a genius at branding herself and her books. Lots for a newbie novelist to learn there. She had women in the audience who had come out last year and have read all her novels. (This is her first hardcover.) One reader even brought Kris a bottle of wine! Now, that's a loyal audience! Cough. Not that I'm hinting to my readers or anything.

Speaking of my readers, tomorrow night at 7 p.m., I'm going to be at the Southglenn Library, 7500 South University Boulevard (Dry Creek and University), where I will read to, sign for and ply my audience with treats. I promise it will be loads of fun! I'll leave the house at noon to make sure I'll be there on time! Hope you can make it.

I got home in time to watch The Daily Show. Jon Stewart's take on having an "elitist" president was funny and EXACTLY the way I feel. I want a president way smarter and way better than me!

Now on to The Colbert Report, which is being broadcast from Philadelphia UNTIL I GET THERE of course, when the show returns to NYC. Damn you, Colbert!

Cover art

My editor has her first meeting with the design crew for Children of the Waters today. Seriously? Already?! Yep. We're currently scheduled for release this time next year. So now's the time to get started.

Over the weekend, I spent some time cruising book covers to see what I liked. I also looked on stock photography sites for images that could apply to my story. I emailed my ideas to my editor who will share them with design. However, as most of you probably know, they're only suggestions. The publisher gets the final say about the cover. My editor has been very good about keeping me in the loop, though, so I hope my ideas will at least give the designer a place to start. Children of the Waters is about connection, race, identity and what really makes a family. So an image like this could work.

One of the characters in my story has an ancestor altar. I made one and took a photo of it. I think a similar (professional) picture could make a compelling cover.

(The jigsaw puzzle pieces are a key element of the plot.)

This novel has spiritual and mystical aspects in it, so I'd love an image that speaks to that (and like puzzle pieces flower petals are a recurring image in the story).

Then I saw this lovely image on Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez' blog, and I'd be open to an illustration or painting too. Interestingly, her post was about an ancestor shrine and she mentions her late grandmother...readers of this blog might remember the late grandmother plays a part in my story!

I'm curious: What kinds of covers grab your attention?

My Town Monday: You call this art?

Denver has a new piece of public art. It's located at Denver International Airport, which since I am traveling often to promote my book I get to see way too much of. Our public arts folks are googly-eyed over it, but I find it hideous. Even worse than ugly, it doesn't mean anything to me. It's supposed to be about movement and power. OK. So why is it blue? Why does it have Satanic red eyes? And thick black veins going through it (which this picture spares you from)? I'm not inclined to be one of those people who think art should mean something obvious. Or should always be "pretty." But boy this mustang doesn't do it for me.

And it's not our only piece of not-so-great public art. We also have a big blue bear (we like big blue animals for some reason), which peeks into the Convention Center. It's cute. And amusing. Ha, ha, a big blue bear is looking inside at all the conventioneers. But...art?

However, my votes for the worst public sculptures are these:

These stick-figure dancers hang out in front of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Whatever planet these folks are from, can we send them back? Please. Perhaps these "big giant heads" (which Hubby actually likes) located in City Park can help them find their way home.

Anybody moved by some public art in Denver or somewhere else?

Have you bid yet?

The ebay fundraisier for the Dunbar Village victims ends Sunday. Last chance to bid on signed books and help with your poems, stories, novels and other projects from writers who know what they're doing.

Thanks to all who've already bid or sent checks!!

Kris Radish coming to town

How could you not love a writer named after a vegetable? Just like her name, her writing is fresh and delicious. Kris will be at the Tattered Cover in Highlands Ranch at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 15th reading and signing her new book Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA. What better way to start spending that tax rebate than buying a book (or bidding on getting your own writing reviewed by an expert!)?

From Kris' website:

Welcome to Paradise and the hilarious, inspirational, and sizzling hardcover debut of author Kris Radish. Searching for Paradise in Parker PA is a story of how one woman's search for happiness within her marriage -- and within herself -- turns a whole town upside down.

When Lucky Lipton wins a trip to Paradise -- a.k.a. Costa Rica -- his wife Addy hopes they will be able to turn their marriage around. But on the day of their departure, Lucky fractures his back tossing their luggage into his truck. With the husband she barely knows anymore parked indefinitely on the couch, Addy decides its time to make big changes-and drastic choices.Addy begins a crusade to revive her dreams -- and she takes the women of Parker, Pennsylvania along for the wild ride.

Soon Parker men will realize they'll have to step up to the plate to keep their wives and lovers happy. And an entire town is about to learn that to reach Paradise, you must travel through your heart-and to get there, you might not even have to leave home.

Kris is asking readers to share their ideas of paradise. Mine involves a hammock, turquoise waters, smooth beach, warm sun, and drinks with umbrellas in them. What's yours?

Dunbar Village

Monday is when Travis and friends blog about their towns. Today, I'm blogging about my virtual town: my blog community and the power of banding together across the internet. We've all helped each other immensely. I'm making a pitch today for us to help someone else:

Tayari Jones has put together a fabulous fundraising auction to help support the victims of the Dunbar Village crimes. (If you don't know the story, gang members did something really, really, terrible to a mother and her son. If you have a strong spirit, you can read about it here. If you don't have a strong spirit, just take my word.)

Many creative folks have joined with Tayari (myself included) to offer autographed books and services for writer-types (like manuscript critiques!). Please go over to ebay and bid. There's something for everybody who reads this blog. I've donated a signed copy of Orange Mint and a review of a nonfiction book proposal.

Tayari, George Saunders, Nichelle Tramble,Sarah Schulman, Laila Lalami, Joy Castro, Martha Southgate, D. Nurkse, and Honoree Fanonne Jeffers are offering fiction manuscript critiques. Check out that list!!

If you just want to write a check to help the family, here's where to send it:

Individuals who would like to donate money to the victims can go to any Wachovia Bank and donate to the St. Ann’s Victim’s Assistance Fund. Donations will go directly to the mother and her son.St. Ann’s Catholic Church will accept donations. Checks can be made payable to the "Dunbar Village Victim Assistance Fund - St. Ann’s". Donations can be mailed to: St. Ann’s Catholic Church, 310 N. Olive Avenue, West Palm Beach, FL 33401.

Fascinating look at the writing process

This is a short video of Donna Grant and Virginia DeBerry talking about how they write together. Really interesting look inside 2 successful writers' (though they count themselves as 1 author) lives. In a fit of generosity I gave a cousin my copy of Gotta Keep on Tryin'. Now I gotta get another copy!

Thanks Connie Briscoe for letting me know about it! (Psst, Connie has lots of other good info for writers at her blog on writing and publishing.)

Message from the Authors Guild

Amazon tightens grip on long tail


Last week Amazon announced that it would be requiring that all books that it sells that are produced through on-demand means be printed by BookSurge, their in-house on-demand printer/publisher. Amazon pitched this as a customer service matter, a means for more speedily delivering print-on-demand books and allowing for the bundling of shipments with other items purchased at the same time from Amazon. It also put a bit of an environmental spin on the move -- claiming less transportation fuel is used (this is unlikely, but that's another story) when all items are shipped directly from Amazon.

We, and many others, think something else is afoot. Ingram Industries' Lightning Source is currently the dominant printer for on-demand titles, and they appear to be quite efficient at their task. They ship on-demand titles shortly after they are ordered through Amazon directly to the customer. It's a nice business for Ingram, since they get a percentage of the sales and a printing fee for every on-demand book they ship. Amazon would be foolish not to covet that business.

What's the rub? Once Amazon owns the supply chain, it has effective control of much of the "long tail" of publishing -- the enormous number of titles that sell in low volumes but which, in aggregate, make a lot of money for the aggregator. Since Amazon has a firm grip on the retailing of these books (it's uneconomic for physical book stores to stock many of these titles), owning the supply chain would allow it to easily increase its profit margins on these books: it need only insist on buying at a deeper discount -- or it can choose to charge more for its printing of the books -- to increase its profits. Most publishers could do little but grumble and comply.

We suspect this maneuver by Amazon is far more about profit margin than it is about customer service or fossil fuels. The potential big losers (other than Ingram) if Amazon does impose greater discounts on the industry, are authors -- since many are paid for on-demand sales based on the publisher's gross revenues -- and publishers.

We're reviewing the antitrust and other legal implications of Amazon's bold move. If you have any information on this matter that you think could be helpful to us, please call us at (212) 563-5904 and ask for the legal services department, or send an e-mail to mailto:staff@authorsguild.org?subject=RE%3A%20Amazon%20Tightens%20Grip%20on%20Long%20Tail%3B%20Info%20Requested

Rights for furniture-lovers

A few years ago I was one of the Colorado Voices writers in the Denver Post. It's an opportunity for "regular" people to write op-ed pieces. One of the essays I wrote was called "Don't Defend My Marriage" and it was about the fact that the arguments against gay marriage are the same old ones they used against interracial marriages not so far back in the day. (As I noted in my essay Colorado's anti-miscegenation laws weren't repealed until 1957...six years after my house was built.)

As you might imagine, I got emails. Boy did I get emails! My favorite was from someone who was apoplectic about the idea that allowing same-sex folks to marry would not only lead to man-and-beast nuptials, but where would it end?! he or she wondered. "Why don't I just marry my couch! What would you think of that?!"

Hubby had the best response. In his deep seductive voice he asked, "Is it a leather couch?" We laughed. A lot. But now this guy makes me realize that perhaps my e-mailer was on to something. Perhaps I reacted too quickly. So I've thought long and hard about this and I want to note for the record that what goes on in the privacy of someone's house between consenting human adults and pieces of furniture is none of my business. And if the human adult and the picnic table should decide to get married one day, who am I to stand in their way?

The dirt is calling

It rained in Denver last night, a strange occurrence, but one global warming will have us getting used to. The rain pleased the daffodils, tulips and scila flowering all over. And it made me want to get back to the dirt. The week before I left for VA, I was able to do some cleaning up in the yard--raking leaves and such--and it felt good. It felt soul-renewing. Sacred.

So I'm reminded of an article by my friend Stephanie Rose Bird on Sacred Gardening for Conjuration.

Here's an excerpt:

By conjuring natural and spiritual energy, knowing the language of flowers, trees, certain deity and elementals, a magical garden is easily within in your reach. Having strong intent—knowing and owning your purpose—promises the desired outcome.

Read the whole article at Divine Caroline, a site that I'm planning to spend more time at.

VA va voom!

The folks in Charlottesville sure know how to put on a book fest! I was at the VA Festival of the Book for 3 days and it was a whirlwind of meeting wonderful people who were all there to celebrate books! I felt like I had finally found my home planet. Thank you Nancy Damon and everyone associated with the festival! Oh yes...there are pictures!


This is the puddle jumper one takes from DC to the cute little airport in Charlottesville.

Who did I find my first night in town? Judy Merrill Larsen (All the Numbers), Therese Fowler (Souvenir) and Kim Reid (No Place Safe)! The four of us met in the hotel bar for a very serious discussion about books. :) Kim, I already knew. This was my first time talking with Judy and Therese in person, but I'm sure onlookers would have never guessed. It was like getting together with women I've known for ages.

The UVa Women's Center sponsored a reception for women writers. Here's a great group! The author in the hot pink jacket is Jenny Gardiner, author of Sleeping with Ward Cleaver. Thanks Jenny for the rides over to the U!

The Ballantine Babes at the Author's Reception, which closed the festival Saturday night. We also met Mike Farrell (BJ from MASH), but I didn't take his pic. Judy introduced me to Rosemary Harris, author of Pushing Up Daisies. Hello, she's a gardener and a novelist? How did we not know each other?


On Sunday morning the Charlottesville chapter of the Links, Inc. threw a spectacular brunch to celebrate the African American literary tradition. I am so grateful I was able to be there! Thanks to Tamyra Turner, Donna Martin and all the Links members! This photo is of 2 of my new favorite writers: H.G. Carrillo, author of Loosing My Espanish, and Stacy Hawkins Adams, author of Watercolored Pearls.

Stacy and me at brunch. (Another room service flower in my hair)

One of the big highlights for me was meeting Walter Mosley at the brunch. When we were introduced, he recognized the title of my book! I know why he looks suspicious in this picture--I started a line of groupies taking his photo. Why I look suspicious, I don't know.

Other cool writers I met at the fest: Evans Hopkins, author of Life after Life, Adam Bradley, The Collected Manuscripts of Ralph Ellison's Unpublished Second Novel (which isn't out yet), Emilie Richards, author of MORE THAN 60 NOVELS!!!, Jennifer Niesslein, author of Practically Perfect in Every Way, Rachel Bagby, author of Divine Daughters and Peter Melman, author of Landsman: A Novel.

I heart Book Clubs!

Muchas smooches to all the book clubs who are reading Orange Mint and Honey!!! Seriously, authors owe as much to book clubs as we do to booksellers, so you have my deepest gratitude! If you're in Colorado, I can meet with you in person. If you're out of state, email me and I will do a phone in to answer your group's questions.

Send me a jpeg of your group reading my book and I'll send everybody a little orange mint somethin somethin (bathsalts or candies, anyone?).

In the back of the book there are recipes for orange mint tea and cookies. But I also have other recipes good for a book club meeting. For example, orange mint mojitos! Get the recipe over at Tayari Jone's place. As part of a weekly feature for spring called Cocktails with Writers she's posting recipes. Poet Honoree Jeffers' Almond Joy Cocktail sounds delish!!

I'll post other recipes here soon.

Best line in a movie. Ever.

I'm so excited! The Ten Commandments is on (and I can watch KU basketball on the commercials). I've seen this movie every year it's been broadcast (except last year when I was devastated to miss it). What could be better than Yul Brenner in a skirt? (Moses shmoses, Ramses is hot!) Charlton Heston as a Jewish savior? Vincent Price as an Egyptian and Edward G. Robinson has a Hebrew overseer? And Yvonne De Carlo (Mrs. Munster herself!) as an innocent shepherd girl? Nothing! Except this line that Moses delivers to Nefretiri after he finds out he's really a Hebrew and goes to work in the mud pits with the slaves: "If my people reek, it's with the stench of injustice."

The best line ever spoken on film. Disagree? Tell me a better line. And by better, I mean more ridiculously campily wonderfully sublime than that.

Seriously, though this movie is very over the top, it's also a really wonderful epic story. I can never watch it without relating my own faith or lack thereof to the Hebrews. After they're freed from bondage and Moses has even parted the frickin Red Sea, as soon as the going gets a little rough they start to doubt again. It's a great allegory for whatever troubles we're dealing with in life.

Happy Easter (and Rock Chalk Jayhawk) y'all! So let it be written, so let it be done.

My First White Friend

With Obama's speech and the issue of race front and center, I thought I'd recommend a gorgeously written, important book: My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love, and Foregiveness by Patricia Raybon. I believe it's out of print, which is too bad, but get it from the library or buy a bargain copy. This book deserves as much acclaim as The Color of Water by James McBride.


From the jacket:


"'God help me. I stopped hating white people on purpose about a year ago.' With that daring confession, African-American journalist Patricia Raybon begins My First White Friend - a piercing account of how she decided, in midlife, to stop hating white America. In a hypnotic narrative that is part journal, part memoir, part social analysis, Raybon discovers that racial forgiveness is a dangerous choice. But the risk isn't in learning to love white people, it's in learning to love herself. 'That is the real matter. And it takes a harsh spotlight.'


Raybon turns that spotlight first on her fifties childhood in eastern Colorado, where she learned 'every race distortion ever performed by dark people: smiling when nothing is nice, laughing when nothing is funny, agreeing when nothing is agreeable.'


In that setting, Raybon mastered that polite 'grin of powerlessness,' urged on by the dogged upward mobility of her Mississippi-born father and the rigid rules of their middle-class life. But while she was soon acceptable to white people, she'd become an angry stranger to herself.


A quarter century later, Raybon realized her perplexed rage wouldn't be remedied by stoking her buried hate for whites, but by forgiving them, especially for the past. That 'audacious idea...a holy lunacy' meant first forgiving herself, but also forgiving her father for his seemingly excessive demands, her country for its caustic racial legacies, and even God for seeming to allow it all.


Along the way, Raybon unearths her family history to uncover the origins of her hate, then traces the significant chapters in her own life-among them her childhood confusion about race, her adolescent awe of 'white' culture, her discovery of sex and its mythology in black life, marriage and motherhood, her rediscovery of her religious faith and a friendship with her first white friend-to travel the hard road from hatred to forgiveness, trust, love, letting go, and moving on.


An honestly direct but deeply hopeful book, My First White Friend is a timely and original declaration of self-love and collective affirmation."


An excerpt:


"A book on racial forgiveness.

God help me. Because as I weigh the implications of it, and the potential of it, I clearly understand that the philosophy is provocative and good-but I know some people will hate me for it. Some will praise me for it. And some will censure me for it, or even rudely ignore me, deeming me desperate or dumb, or both. But I welcome any response even as I am resigned to it, because I am determined now to understand how my hate started, then figure finally how to slay it. Because hate has hurt me good over these long years. It has crippled me and cheated me and mugged me and left me scarred and impotent and dumb.

And if hate has done those things to me, it has done those things to millions like me."

The Hardest Working Woman in Show Business

Author tours. Do they work? Are they worth the time, effort, money? Does anybody even come out for them? We in the biz continue to debate. However, when you've got an audience, it must be worth it. Check out Jodi Picoult's tour schedule. This is the schedule of a woman who earns her spot on the best-seller lists the old-fashioned way! I need a nap from just reading the list of locales she's travelling to.

And I thought I was busy!! I'm off to the Virginia Festival of the Book next week. In April, I go to the Philly area to meet with book clubs. Then in May I'm going back to LA for the Leimert Park Bookfest and BEA. In September I'm doing the Downtown Omaha Bookfest. I'm hoping to get a few more trips in there too.

Below are pictures from the book party to end all book parties. My aunt Anita is one of the world's coolest aunts. Last Sunday she threw a party for about 1,000 of her closest friends and neighbors. We started at 1 p.m. and the last person left at 7! The wonderful Yvonne White put the finishing touches on the spread and made everything beautiful. Unfortunately, pictures don't do the table justice. (FYI, her line of candles are the best-smelling ever!)

She used palm and fern leaves and bunches of kumquats from her own yard. Plus, 100-year old silver trays from Morocco!

This is an antique card table where I signed books. Much prettier than it looks here.

The lovely Yvonne, me, cousins Michelle and Cary.

That's Gina Black...who took the bus over for the party! (I'm wearing an orchid in my hair from my breakfast tray at the Hotel Vitale the day before.)

Our hostess, Auntie Anita.

My aunt Carol, Anita's sister.

More cousins!

This is Anita's boyfriend Mac, a wonderful host!

This is June, who made orange mint cookies from the recipe in my book!

Brian. A friend I met years ago in Denver only to find out that my Aunt Anita was in his mother's wedding!

The San Francisco Treat

The day after I signed at Eso Won, I went to San Francisco. I was lucky: I had that evening and all day before my signing at Marcus to myself. Ballantine put me up at the Hotel Vitale, a tres chic hotel right on The Embarcadero near the waterfront. I spent my 1st night staring at the water in the East Bay and marvelling at the Bay Bridge. (Also had a meal of 2 appetizers and 1 glass of wine that cost $56!)

The next morning I headed out for the character-building "Who the Hell are You?" tour of downtown San Francisco. In theory this is when an author goes into a bookstore and sees stacks of her books on the front table and book-sellers rush up to her to beg her to sign them. In reality (at least for me) it involves praying that they have my book or if they don't, that they'll order it. A great big beautiful Borders didn't have my book in stock. City Lights didn't have it, but will order the next time they order from Random House, for which I thank them! I should note that on the way to LAX, my driver (I rode in style baby!) took me to a Borders in Culver City, which did have 1 copy of my book in stock (which I autographed). Back to San Fran. While I was in Chinatown, I decided to wander. I found myself at a tea bar with the world's greatest tea salesman, who is now my Chinese Uncle Gee. (This is Gee saying he will kick the ass of any bookstore owner who doesn't carry my book. ) They have wonderful teas! In you're in San Francisco, Gee puts on a great show, introducing you to a wide variety of teas and educating you about how to brew them. Just be sure not to share anything embarrassing. A young woman sitting next to me whispered that she was looking for a tea to help her have a bowel movement and Gee announced it to the whole room! However, to show you just how charming Gee is...she didn't go running out the door, but stayed and drank tea. I bought the lichee black tea. Yum! Check them out online.

That night, a driver picked me up and took me over the bridge to Marcus Books, the oldest black bookstore in the country. It's managed by Blanche Richardson--book-seller, writer and editor extraordinaire!

We had a great turnout (due mostly to a large contingency of cousins who came out to support me--thank you cousins!!!), and it was so much fun to be there. I've done many signings and 2 other book tours to other cities, and this is the 1st time that people who've actually read the book are showing up (and I'm talking about people not even related to me!). It is a great feeling to be able to discuss the book with folks who read (and, so far, enjoyed) the book. Dera from APOOO Bookclub was also there. Orange Mint and Honey is an upcoming selection for their bookclub--thank you APOOO! And thank you Marcus Books!!!

Books purchased on the road:

Conception by Kalisha Buckanon

The Darkness by L.A. Banks

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill by Mark Bittner

Song Yet Sung by James McBride (who also writes and plays music!)

Eso Won

Flying over the Rockies.

Part of a mural outside Eso Won.

Shauna Roberts drove over 2 hours to see me!!! Amazing!

Some fans striking a pose. On the far right is Donna, who drove over an hour!

Thank you James Fugate and the folks at Eso Won!!!! I hope to get back the end of May.

Note from the road

In San Fran and having a bang-up time. Heading for the airport to go back to L.A. but I needed to take this moment to plead with you all (preaching to the choir, I know) to please, please, please support your local indie book store. They are hurting folks. I signed in two of them (including Eso Won, which thought they'd be closed by the end of last year, but the community rallied to keep them afloat...so far) and stopped in the legendary City Lights Book Store. The word every place is the same: hanging on by a thread and hoping to stay open.

I'm broke as the next person. I love Amazon and the chains. And God knows I want my novel to fly off the shelves at Target. But maybe we can all make a practice of buying 3, 5, 10 books at our local indie for every 1 we buy online or at a chain.