Editor’s note: The majority of this post and the title were written/selected over two weeks ago. No, I’m not clairvoyant, but the irony is not lost on me.
What About Our Daughters Network- Couch to 5K
As those of you who are a part of the WAOD Network know, I am going to run a 5k this spring. I began training on Monday and am happy to report that I am still alive, although my hind quarters hurt. That being said if someone who is as out of shape as I am can run a 5K, most of y’all can do it. We even have a group over on the network for those who are going to make the attempt. If you would like to try the program yourself, You can visit the original Couch to 5K folks over at Cool Running. Right now I am on the treadmill, but in late February I shall be taking to the streets, assuming I haven’t torn, pulled or broken something. I’d wanted to run a marathon this year, but life happens so we’ll manage expectations and doctor’s visits with a 5K and perhaps a half marathon. But I know at least one WAOD Network member is running a marathon just prior to her trip to Europe. Don’t hurt em’ honey! Work it out!
RETURN OF KADIJA / Muslim Bushido!
Kadija is BACK! I knew she was undertaking an evolution and not an exit when she suspended posting at the Muslim Bushido.
Because I believe that Black women need new visions in support of sane and serene living, this new site will also focus on writing and the publishing industry. I know that many of you have at least one good book inside you, waiting to be born.
Black women need new visions. We need to hear new voices. We need to hear your voice in your own creative works. With the new site, I’m also dedicating myself to helping other African-American writers through what I’ve learned—and what I’m still learning—about writing and publishing during my adventures as a new author. I’ll let you look over my shoulder, and have the benefit of “hindsight in advance.” The benefit of learning through my ongoing experiences. Muslim Bushido
I’m ready Kadija! We missed you. Many Black Women’s Empowerment bloggers have moved on into publishing books such as:
- Black Women Deserve Better
- Black Women – Interracial and Intercultural Marriage: First and Foremost (Volume 1)
- That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Woman’s Poetic Memoir of Self-Discovery
Now Kadijah is joining their ranks with The Sojourner’s Passport: Lifestyle Optimization for African-American Women and I’m thrilled.
As amazing as blogging is, I’ve witnessed the power of people walking away with your words in printed form when I spoke at the Kentucky Women’s Writers conference. Its a completely different experience and a much larger audience. We must beat back the scourge of books being published that seek to demonize and diminish Black women. There is an obvious full frontal assault on professional Black women. These BWEs are leading the counter insurgency!
Another WAOD family Member Publishes First Book
In other news, I was thrilled to receive a copy of longtime WAOD community member, Nichol Bradford’s first book. She has started a wonderful action adventure series entitled “The Sisterhood”. She also has a website called Sisterhood Now. It is a gorgeous book and the hardcover version is exquisite. Here is information from Nichol regarding how you can purchase the book:
Hi Gina,
I just wanted to let you know that my payment gateway/store is now live at
www.mskincorporated.com under the buy books tab.
Moving ON!
Whew! I’m so proud of y’all. 2010 is the year of infrastructure. Its the year of the” unsexy adventure.” By “Unsexy” I mean the hard work that gets done in the shadows that you don’t necessarily get an instant reward for doing. But its necessary. That means this is the year that blogging takes a back seat to other types of creative work that is necessary to build the infrastructure to support the growth and distribution of competing images of Black women.
This is the year that the book that has been running around in your head for a decade, finds a home on paper. This is a year that the screenplay you thought nobody would ever read gets produced. This is the year you figure out how to get it done. By any means necessary.
We are at a historical inflection point. Technology has opened windows and doors and its time for you to walk, crawl or fly through. By the end of this year, I want to have 12 books from WAOD readers not just one. I want to be calling up my local indie theatre demanding that they screen your movies. This is the year you MOVE ON! I stole that from Evia. She’s speaking in terms of marriage, but I think MOVING ON applies to almost every aspect of our lives. MOVE ON. Life’s too short. Stop trying to analyze, explain, account for, understand. MOVE ON!
MOVE ON! Its time to stop walking around in a circle and finally decide to cross the Jordan.
Here’s a preview of my first experiment of 2010 for Michelle Obama Watch. They are not ready 
Onward and upward!
CASTING CALL
We’re also working on another scripted project featuring Black women. We’re now casting for the role of a character that appears “freakishly similar” to the Editor-in Chief of ESSENCE magazine, Angela Burt Murray.
Don’t ask any questions , but we are prepared to make you an ICON OF ALL OF BLACK WOMANITY! Right up there with Ms. Cleo, Bernadine from “Waiting to Exhale”, and the Chi flatiron. Send me a message on the WAOD Network, if you are interested. Please follow instructions. They are oh so necessary.
13 comments ↓
All self help? What about the fiction?
Hey, don’t worry about the marathon; I believe they’re the worst thing in American running culture, where people are taught to fetishize them. A marathon should be a race, something you run, not something you survive.
I was a [not so good] Div 1A runner in school and I find it mindblowing that the older we get, the more responsibilities constraining our time, the worse our joints get at recovering, the LONGER we’re supposed to run? What kind of sense does that make? Have the high school kids run the marathons if they need to be run!
I have a cousin who started running a few years ago in her mid thirties. She got her marathon done. Checked off her “life list.” But she sustained a neck injury and no longer runs today. Obviously I can’t prove it was the marathon training that did it, for sure, but I certainly suspect it. I also know that a lot of the people I ran with back in college who were better than me (with 15 minutes or less 5K times) no longer run either; I don’t do races of any kind anymore myself (I get neurotic just thinking about it), but to not even run for fun?
If you think marathon training is fun, go for it. But if you feel in any way that the gods of running are pressuring you, that it’s an achievement for the sake of achievement, just do what makes you happy. It’s more healthy longterm.
Congrats to all my fellow writers. I am currently editing my first YA book and finishing up the first draft of another. I am glad to see my fellow AA women writers moving forward. Hoping to start on my first screen play this year, too. Just starting sending out query letters.
I plan to make 2010 a propersous one.
Good luck to you all!
Yeah!! I think we’re all coming together at this juncture as our ideas and ideals for empowerment and change are spinning us of into various directions but armed with a purpose. Despite any internal doubts or external obstacles we will succeed in making 2010 a stellar year.
Gina,
THANK YOU for your kind words and ongoing support; I truly appreciate it.
I hope you realize that your steadfast work in resisting the war against Black women and girls is one of the main things that led to the creation of my original blog, and ultimately, this new effort.
Again, THANK YOU so much for all that you’ve done, and all that you continue to do!
___________________________
Blkchik,
You said, “All self help? What about the fiction?”
Here’s my 2 cents about that: It boils down to the main theme of Gina’s essay: building an infrastructure.
If our resistance is going to be sustained and sustainable, (as opposed to one-time events) then we ultimately have to build counter-institutions that can pay for themselves.
As we have seen with various past efforts to produce life-affirming creative works for AAs, the “support this positive creative work as an act of charity” business model does not work. At least a few of us must become serious business people and create viable publishing companies, movie and music production companies, and distribution networks.
In the writing context, this means that at least one of us will have to take on the responsibility of building a publishing company. And strengthening that company to the point that it’s in a position to publish works by authors other than the founder. AND pay advances to these other authors. All of this in adddition to being able to bear the costs of producing and marketing the books.
It’s easier to sell non-fiction than fiction. It’s easier to sell self-help books (and make even more money by selling related, tie-in products) than other forms of non-fiction.
As I see things, an insurgent African-American publisher will probably need to have a foundation of steady, relatively-dependable “bread and butter” non-fiction sales (self-help books in particular and their related tie-in products) in order to initially subsidize the production of fiction books.
This is similar to how a number of small law firms often use the fees from “bread and butter” cases (defending DUIs and other traffic cases, etc.) to subsidize activist types of pro bono work (such as civil rights class actions).
Peace, blessings and solidarity.
@blkchik Um and how many fiction manuscripts did you turn in to your publisher?
Nichol’s book IS fiction. You should go to the site and read more about it.
You should check out Get Togetha’s E-Book “Blog Your Passion” I bought it and I must say that it’s help me tremendously in my blogging journey. And it’s only a 5 dollar download! She’s positive, funny, and a breath of fresh air in the negative nasty blogosphere…especially when it comes to women of color….
Congrats on training for your 5K.
Well excuse me, I am not a writer, I was asking as a possible consumer.
Gina! Thank you so much for writing about my book. I wrote the book I wanted to read – one where black women were not side-kicks or jump-offs, where they we’re not obsessed with getting a man (some have them, some don’t – but it isn’t the central theme of their existence), and they all have a wider vision of their lives and what their contribution is. They’ve moved on from “superwoman” to “hero” and moguls.
The website is designed to be the website of the company that the women in the book built. The corporate giving project, their businesses, are all pulled from the pages of the novel.
The book is also “applied” fiction – a la the Fountainhead or the Goal. It is a blueprint and a philosophy. MSK Incorporated can be built, the Sisterhood can be real. There is a tie to a real non-profit CDC based in New Orleans, and in 2010, we will begin a real-world Sisterhood project in NOLA.
I’ve learned allot about printing, printing in China, fulfillment houses, book marketing, professional editors, the creative process from this and am happy to share with anyone in WOAD who is starting or working on a novel. YOU CAN DO IT.
It is time to create the images of ourselves that reflect who we are.
Happy 2010
This is the author’s note I wrote right after I finished the revised draft in 2005. Five years later, still the same.
____________
My Sister’s Keeper came about because I wrote the book I wanted to read.
I wanted to read about strong yet vulnerable and intelligent women committed to a great and grand goal.
I wanted well-developed female characters that were healthy but plagued at times by guilt and self-doubt even as they put on a strong face to the world – just like many of us.
I wanted some to be happily married, and some single, but most of all I wanted their focus to be not on their men (or lack thereof) but on their friendship and their common goals.
On the surface, My Sister’s Keeper is an epic action-thriller set in the context of a vast business empire. There are conspiracies, car chases, secret societies, technology, high finance, martial arts and double agents. Deeper, the book is about friendships between women as they fight to protect a dream larger than the individual.
Action-thriller’s tend to address some transformation of the world while much literary fiction addresses the transformation of the individual. I was intrigued by the degree to which the transformation of the individual transforms the world. So I explored how these women evolve as the pressure mounts and how that danger affects their self-images, and tests their friendships, marriages, and principles.
Oprah once asked Bishop Desmond Tutu what was required for peace in the world. He answered in a single sentence… “It is time for the women to revolt.” The women in My Sister’s Keeper challenge the status quoi by doing just that. They are physical and comfortable with their bodies. They are businesswoman, leaders and mothers. Smart, professional, and talented, their educations range from none to some to PhD’s. Like any sane person, each is scared by the enormity of the danger she must face…but her bravery and commitment outstrips fear and she rises to the task.
Matching today’s reader and modern society, the cast of My Sister’s Keeper is diverse and global. Several of the lead characters are African-American women representing the Diaspora – from the Afro-Spanish mix of Dominicans to U.K. reared Jamaicans to American-black and Dalit/Indian blends. Some have classic African-American bloodlines while others are more recently born from love between Lithuanians, Africans, English and more.
There hasn’t been a book with so many women like this before…where a black female reader has several choices in which to find herself, her friends and her courage to accomplish the best.
My greatest wish is that My Sister’s Keeper captures your imagination.
With deep sincerity,
Nichol Bradford
Oh, I changed the title from MY SISTERS KEEPER to THE SISTERHOOD last year after the Jodi Piccoult movie came out with the same title. Books can share titles, but not films. Though I was out 1st, I registered my book with the Library of Congress in 2002 and she didn’t register hers until 2006.
I just completed the preliminary info to order “The Sisterhood”. The site for MSK Incorporated, that published the book, is very impressive.
“We’re also working on another scripted project featuring Black women. We’re now casting for the role of a character that appears “freakishly similar” to the Editor-in Chief of ESSENCE magazine, Angela Burt Murray.”
This sounds like it’s going to be something funny. LOL
I look forward to seeing whatever you have up your sleeve.