Powder Necklace Pierced Amazon's Bestseller List!

For a hot minute, thanks to you, Powder Necklace was on Amazon's Top 100 Bestseller list!! Thanks to every single one of you who Facebooked it, bought it, tweeted it, reviewed it, and recommended it. Please help me keep the momentum going and tell your friends to put it on their summer reading and book club lists, pick it up as a gift, and otherwise support. I'm happy to call or Skype into book club meetings, answer any questions you have about the book/my writing & publishing process, or to sign copies of the book and mail it back to you. Let me know!

And thanks again!

Read Bernice L. McFadden's "Black Writers in a Ghetto of the Publishing Industry's Making"

A few quotes to chew on from Bernice L. McFadden's Washington Post op-ed "Black Writers in a Ghetto of the Publishing Industry's Making":

"the work of many African American authors... has been lumped into one heap known as 'African American literature.' This suggests that our literature is singular and anomalous, not universal. It is as if we American authors who happen to be of African descent are not a people but a genre much like mystery, romance or thriller."

"Walk through your local chain bookstore and you will not see sections tagged British Literature, White American Literature, Korean Literature, Pakistani Literature and so on."

"For various reasons, the average, struggling, non-morbid Negro is the best-kept secret in America."

Leave That 9-5 Up on the Shelf

...And just enjoy yourself!

It's been a CRAZY coupla weeks and I have so much to report! Come out to the Kente Cloth Festival party hosted by KenCar Fashion Magazine tonight and I'll fill you in on all the deets. If you can't make it out, they'll be streaming it live on the internet, so check it out and watch me do my very bad rendition of the adowa.

My sister-scribe, the genius Ayesha Harruna Attah will be in the house autographing her brilliant novel Harmattan Rain which was shortlisted for the prestigious Comonwealth Writers Prize so come support two authors and get your dance on too.

More to report after this weekend which includes:

1) doing a video shoot at Girls Write Now, the awesome org I volunteered with for four years where I had the pleasure of mentoring four sharp and insanely talented young women;
2) playing model and signing books for tomorrow afternoon's Beleza fundraiser for Manhattan's New Design High School
3) and cheering on Ghana's Black Stars in this afternoon's World Cup game!!!!

USA, you know I love you, but I'm rooting for the Black Stars today.

My Mother Just Set Up a Reading For Me!

My mother was at the Borders Express in Green Acres Mall yesterday afternoon and asked for a copy of Powder Necklace. When the manager led her to the book, Mommy proceeded to let her know she didn't like where it was placed in the bookstore; then she suggested I do a reading. Then my mom called me at work and put the manager on the phone with me to firm up the logistics!

I'll be reading on July 10th at 2pm. If you're in the Queens, NY/Valley Stream, Long Island area that day, come through!

Readings as Networking Events

So another thing about readings: they're awesome networking events. Where else can a writer meet and exchange info with authors she admires, meet these authors' friends (who are usually in the biz), meet the bookstore owner, share info about her own book, and wrangle an invitation for a post-reading dinner?

l to r: Kwame Alexander, Victoria Christopher Murray & AALBC.com's Troy Johnson

Readings as Performance Art

(l to r) authors Victoria Christopher Murray, Tinesha Davis & Kwame Alexander

I've been going to a ton of readings lately to support friends and also to study "reading performance" technique since as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm still trying to get the hang of this reading/interviewing thing. Last month I went to Isabel Allende's reading at Barnes & Noble and I definitely filed that in my "when I'm a rockstar" folder. Ms. Allende took the stage--after a Barnes & Noble rep gave the packed house a full preamble about what was and was not going to go down including no individual pics with the author and no personalized autographs, the room was just too packed for all of that--and read like a star, joking with the crowd about the presence of kids cramping her plans to read certain lovemaking scenes and fielding all manner of questions (there were a few crazies in the house) afterward with the deftness of a pro.

I went with my dear friend Daphne and her friend and when we went to get our books signed we were instructed to have the books open to the page she would sign so we could keep the long line moving. When we got to the table Ms. Allende's eyes lit up at us and she let us take pics of her signing. For the two seconds that we personally interacted with her, she made me feel like I knew her.

A few days later I went to my girl Kseniya's group reading. Kseniya is one-third of the writing group I was part of that helped me get Powder Necklace in shape and her writing is incredible. Reading her work made me want to read Pushkin and Dostoyevsky and all the other literature coming out of Russia/inspired by the tradition. In a darkly poetic bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Ks read under a single spotlight to a room of filled seats. I stood on the sidelines wearing my camera like a backstage pass snapping away. In other words, it was very rockstar too, in an underground artist sort of way.

So I always subconsciously knew readings were about "performing" for the crowd in much the same way a musician or actor commands a room, manipulating the audience with body language, eye contact, inflection, and personalization, but last night I went to a reading at Hue-Man that inspired me in all the right ways to find my own reading performance style. I went to see my new writer friend Tinesha Davis read from her book Holler at the Moon. She read alongside Victoria Christopher Murray (who was doing an advance reading of her 14th book Sins of the Mother!) and poet Kwame Alexander who recited vulnerable and rhythmic pieces from his latest And then You Know and what was cool about what they did was when one finished, the other picked up, as if they were continuing where the other left off. Though their books seemed very different from each other as far as content, you got the sense that they were sharing different strands of this intricate story. It was exciting! And it made me want to buy all three books which I did.

My First Out-of-State Trip for the Book!

I felt very author-ish this weekend, y'all. I did my first out-of-state trip for the book to the Afr'Am Festival in Norfolk, VA. I hadn't heard of this fest before but apparently it's been going on for 27 years. It's super-fun.

There were food trucks selling seafood, funnel cakes and smoothies; there was a bazaar of arts, crafts, and clothing tents; and there were two performance stages set up across Town Point Park. Less than 30 feet from the Literary Cafe tent where I spent the bulk of my time, Mario asked the screaming teens (and their moms) in the crowd if they wanted to "Braid [His] Hair". Fun.

The Literary Cafe was awesome. I got there on Saturday (5/22) just in time to listen to the panel on Self-Publishing. I like to think I'm driven, but these authors had me beat. Each one of them had not only written and independently published their books, but they had also worked to establish and negotiate individual relationships with booksellers across the country including Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon to carry their books. Later that day there was a "Black Love Today" panel that featured erotica author Bridget Midway and other writers whose books deal with family and love. Conversation got real as talk turned to marriage stats for black women and definitions/expectations of "submission" in marriage. There were a lot of platitudes being shared so my favorite part was when moderator and Literary Cafe chair Tiffany Smith asked each panelist to share their current relationship status; definitely put their comments in perspective.

I spoke on the "Teens & What They Want" panel on Sunday which Tiffany moderated with her teenage daughter. Four teens joined me and author Jonathan Queen to share what kinds of books pique their interest and what makes them pick up a book in the first place. I took mental notes mostly -- the cover is mui important, the synopsis on the back of the book should leave them with questions about the story that they want answered, they're more apt to read a book recommended by a friend versus their parents or teachers -- and chimed in with what about Powder Necklace would appeal to the young adult audience.

I mentioned that it was important to me to add a story about the first-generation American experience, specifically the experience of children born to African immigrants, to the discourse. I saw the adults nodding in appreciation, but what really seemed to resonate with the teens in the tent was the theme of moving/being uprooted that's in my book. They all related to the awful feeling of leaving the familiarity of friends, school and neighborhood behind to be "the new kid" somewhere else.

Festival volunteer Fran Taylor wearing a kente stole embroidered with the words "Powder Necklace"

After my panel, there was the "Little People Doing BIG Things" panel which featured a team of brothers who had published 7 year old author Jayla Watts and fellow author 17 year old Bree Thomas who published her first book at 15 -- preceded by Tiffany Smith's youngest daughter's performance of Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise". They were so adorable.

In between panels, I got to meet several of the authors. Many of them had written several novels and they were all so encouraging and generous with their advice and info. I'm definitely looking forward to returning to Norfolk and next year's fest.