A tribute to Harriet Jacobs

March is Women’s History Month. Sandwiched between Black History Month (February) and Sexual Assault Awareness Month (April), March is devoted to recognizing and paying tribute to women who, by their sacrifice and accomplishments, helped to shape our history. With this in mind, I searched for someone who would fit both profiles and came up with Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl.

Introduction to slavery

Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in 1813, but as a young child she was unaware she was a slave because her masters treated her kindly and taught her to read and write. It was only when she was bequeathed to new owners, that Harriet experienced cruelty and sexual exploitation. Her new master Dr. Flint tried to force her into a sexual relationship, but she resisted him and instead consented to a relationship with a white neighbor in the hope of being protected from Dr. Flint. Harriet bore two children and, in order to escape Dr. Flint and protect her children, hid in her grandmother’s cabin. It would be seven years before she escaped to New York where she reunited with her daughter in Brooklyn.

Harriet’s writing journey

Harriet began publishing her book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl in serial form in the New York Tribune, but her accounts of sexual abuse were considered too shocking for readers at that time and so the publication ended. Phillips and Samson, a Boston publishing house, offered to publish the manuscript in book form if Harriet could get either Nathaniel Parker Willis, writer and publisher, or Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist author, to write a preface. This didn’t work out and eventually abolitionist Lydia Maria Child agreed. Child also edited the book. In 1861, Harriet published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl under the pseudonym Linda Brent, using fictitious names in the book to protect herself and her family.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was a groundbreaking work at that time as it highlighted the cruelties of slavery and sexual assault against women. More than a century later, the contents of this book still resonate with women everywhere as we grapple with the increased incidents of sexual assault, separation of families and racial inequality in our society. I recommend this book as a gripping and sobering read for Women’s History Month.

Excerpt:

Sara Vevang, Freedoms’ Dance

Your Love

Your love is like a summer wave
A winter’s cool crisp breeze
It makes me laugh
It makes me cry
It brings me to my knees
Your love amazes me
Drives me to peace
Renews my mind again and again
My worship is extravagant when I look at You
No matter what my life brings
It’s all I live to do

You Take Pleasure in My Every Prayer

We are never separated
You vindicate me as I walk in all integrity
Redeeming me in Your gracious love
Purity is what You seek
Refining fire burns darkness out of me
Your blood You shed on Calvary
Paid the price
Now I’m forever
In communion with
My Jesus Christ

As any writer will tell you, writing can be a lonely business. Most of your days are spent typing away on your keyboard, researching material, editing or talking to clients. Of course, you have your family and the cashier at your neighborhood supermarket-and they are important-but if you are not careful, you will soon lose your social skills and become a hermit altogether. That is why when I received an invitation to a networking event for women business owners, I decided to come out of my shell and see what it was all about.

I was not disappointed. Although it was not a writers’ event, I did meet another blogger with whom I was able to exchange ideas and information. The other ladies came from diverse backgrounds, but were equally pleasant, upbeat and encouraging.

The organizers, Jacqueline Jimenez and Dr. Liana C. Saenz motivated and inspired us to see ourselves as entrepreneurs and to not be afraid to branch out of our circles-my interpretation, our comfort zones.

I was used to attending writers’ conferences- those are great if you only write books– but if you are a freelance writer like myself, business meetings like this one can open you up to a whole lot of possibilities. You can grow your list of contacts, learn about new opportunities and even gain new clients.

Networking opportunities abound, but be careful to select the right ones if you do decide to network. I returned from the meeting feeling uplifted, refreshed and eager to attend more of the same, with these organizers and others.

During a phone conversation with a friend yesterday, I asked as casually as I could, “Did I ever tell you I’m a writer?”

Now, this is a friend, mind you. Someone I’ve known for decades and I’m now telling her that I’m a writer. Better late than never, I guess. Anyway, just as I expected, my friend told me she’s not a reader, but she did ask a few questions, which I was hoping for.

After asking me what my book was about–I told her it was actually a series of three books–and gave her a brief synopsis of the books. Then she wanted to know how I was able to sit down and write three books.

I explained it was not difficult because the first book was based on a true situation I knew of when I was a teacher back in Trinidad. For those of you who never heard the background to Coming Out of Egypt, here it is in brief:

It was rumored that two sisters attending the elementary school where I taught were being abused by their father. Their mother had died, and the girls lived in a secluded home with their father. They appeared very shabby, were isolative and did not do well in school. We, the teachers, had no legal authority to do anything in that society during that time period, and I transferred from that school without knowing what became of those girls.

So much for the background. How did I write the book?

1. The idea. It was easy for me to get started because I had the basic idea – the above synopsis – but the ending would be different. Instead of transferring from that school to another, the teacher would stay there and try to help those girls out.

2. The characters. I already had the protagonist – the older sister. Her younger sister June would be the second most important character. Then I added another character– the teacher–and I gave her a name. If there’s a protagonist there would be an antagonist. Guess what? The teacher’s boyfriend, a detective,  became the antagonist.

3. The setting. I already had that too. A rural village in Trinidad.

4. The plot. That is what happens in the story. How do these characters act on this idea in this setting? The pieces began to fall into place. The girls would go to school, the teacher would teach, and the detective would … He would have to find something to detect. Right? More ideas.

In order to make the book interesting, I had to throw in a few more elements. So I threw in some romance–the teacher and the detective, Marva and her boyfriend and even June has a boyfriend or rather, boyfriends. Then I included some police work –our detective is a hard-working guy–so we give him a crime to solve.

By this time I had an idea what I wanted the title to be. The real village where the girls lived is called Egypt Village. Egypt in the Bible represents a place of bondage. Since the book was being written from a Christian perspective, I used the story of the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt as a metaphor for the story of these girls’ journey out of their bondage, and thus came the title Coming Out of Egypt.

This whole process may sound easy or complicated depending on how you look at it. However, if you are going to write a book, I would suggest you become familiar with the craft by doing the foll.:
1)Begin reading, if you are like my friend –not a reader.
2)Take a few courses–online or at a community college or some such place
3) Join a writer’s group and
4) Start writing

If you enjoyed this blog post, I will suggest two things:
1. Buy the Book
2. Sign up to join my mailing list. You will be the first to know about my giveaways, special offers from time to time and updates from other authors.

In the spotlight today is An Open Window, a debut novel by P. B. Harrison. Enjoy!

I do hope you are in some warm, cozy spot as you read this. It’s the perfect weekend for reading, isn’t it? I had no idea this kind of weather would coincide with my birthday, but I’m thankful it did. So, to add to your reading pleasure this weekend, I’ve discounted my latest release, In the Promised Land from $3.99 to $1.99. Now that’s a real gift. But regardless of how much you pay for this book, there are many benefits to be gained by reading it:

1. The characters are memorable
2. The plot is based on a true event
3. The message is timely and
4. The setting is exotic

Here’s the blurb:

This third book in the Egypt trilogy wraps up the lives of the characters in a neat and satisfying way, according to some readers. Like the rest of the series, the story is set in the beautiful twin- island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. The two main characters, Marva and June, have come out of an abusive childhood (Egypt) and are now adults. Marva is a nun at a home for delinquent girls. Marva is known for being strict and well disciplined, but when her adoptive father is killed in a Muslim coup, the family relies on her levelheaded calm to help them get through their crisis. But little do they know that Marva has a crisis of her own, one that her discipline and her faith seem inadequate to handle.

If that is not enough to whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt:

Excerpt

Coming Out of Egypt, my debut novel and the first book in the Egypt series is at 99c. Maybe you should read this and the second one before you read the third book to get a sense of the progression of the story.

For those of you who prefer paperback you can get it here

While I appreciate you buying my books, may I ask you to go a step further and leave an honest review on Amazon? Authors depend on reviews as they help to guide readers in making their buying choices. Thank you, and stay warm!

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EXCERPT 1

TRIS LOST ALL visibility as the airplane pierced a thick slab of fog. She slid her focus from the miasma outside the cockpit window to the flight instruments in front of her. They were her eyesight now. She trusted them. They told the truth.
She scanned the gauges and smiled. Tris heard their silent language; woman and machine entwined in the exceptional conversation of flight.
“Clear Sky Two-Five-One, cleared for the approach,” the Columbus, Ohio approach controller announced over a scratchy connection. Tris nodded to Captain Danny Terry, sitting two feet away in the left seat. His jaw clenched as he worked the radios on their last flight of the day.
“Gear down,” Tris commanded.
The landing gear groaned and clicked as they lowered into position. Locked on final approach, the turboprop glided toward the runway, a concrete slab somewhere below them. Its twin engines spun in sync on the airplane’s wings. Tris monitored every bump and twitch of the plane. She answered each with a tap of the controls.
Flying is a series of small corrections Tris nudged the yoke to bank the airplane left, the plastic coated steering column cool beneath her hands. She thought of all the ways pilots measure movement: degrees of heading, feet of altitude, ticks of the clock. Always counting up, down, until the next critical moment. As Clear Sky 251 slid toward the ground, Tris counted down.
Then she saw the flash. Just for a second, an amber warning light flickered.
“Danny, check the gauges. We had a caution.”
“Five hundred,” the airplane’s synthesized altitude alert announced. Tris checked the altimeter. So close to the ground and they still had zero visibility through the late-summer glare.
“I don’t know,” Danny said as he scanned the gauges. “Wait. It’s the oil pressure on number one. The needle’s going crazy. It could be nothing, just a blip.”
Or the number one engine could be about to fail.
“Ok.” She’d need full power on both engines to climb if they couldn’t land—and she might not have it.
“Nothing in sight.” Danny squirmed forward in his seat to catch the first glimpse of runway lights. His breath grew more labored with every foot of altitude they lost. He wouldn’t see the runway until the very last second, if at all—right when Tris would decide to land the plane or thrust it back up into the soup.
“Roger.” Tris stayed focused and in control. As seconds passed, the plane slid lower, lower, in a stable descent. The only sounds were the whir of spinning dials, the click of needles, the white noise of flight. Tris eyed the altimeter, her hands soft but firm on the power levers.
Danny’s hand twitched behind hers; a backup. He strained to see the runway. Decision time loomed a few feet away.
The caution light blinked again. Tris had to keep her eyes on the navigation gauges. The closer the airplane got to the ground, the more sensitive those indicators became. If she strayed off course, even a little, she’d lose all guidance and have to climb, or else there was no telling where they’d hit the ground.
She felt Danny’s hands move closer to the controls, protecting them in case she faltered.
She didn’t. Tris saw the runway, dead ahead.
“I’ve got it,” Danny said quickly as he
keyed the mike. “Columbus Tower, Clear Sky
Two-Five-One, runway in sight.”
“Roger, Clear Sky Two-Five-One, Runway Two-Four, cleared to land, wind two-five-zero at three knots.”
“Landing,” Tris said. She looked outside, blinked to focus, and kept the plane moving straight along the runway centerline, edging toward the earth. The altimeter registered field elevation just as the plane’s rear wheels softly touched the ground.

How is the new year treating you so far? Are you taking things in stride? Or are you still wondering where 2018 went? As for me, I’m trying to cope with the chaos 2019 has brought into my life. My fridge is in the living-room, my microwave is on the TV stand and plugged in next to the fridge. My stove and dishwasher are squeezed somewhere near my dining-table, and boxes are piled almost to the ceiling.

No, it’s not a scene from my current work-in-progress, neither am I moving. It’s just a matter of taking care of some water damage in my kitchen, which has left me feeling sick and disoriented, to say the least. But in spite of eating out of paper plates, and eating things I don’t normally eat, life goes on. Right? Right. So, I just finished typing The End to my latest book and uploaded the final chapter to my critique group. Yay!!!

I began working on this manuscript twelve years ago and had to set it aside time and again for various reasons and was only able to work on it consistently this past year. Shows what you can do if you just stick with it. I feel great about myself because I accomplished this under very trying circumstances. So, want to know what my latest masterpiece is about? Remember the Golden Girls sitcom? The four middle-aged women who sat around eating ice-cream and sharing secrets? Well, my new novel is something like that, except that there are three of them and they are too figure-conscious to eat ice-cream very often. And that’s all I’ll say about them for now.

Remember to grab a copy of each book in my Egypt series or whichever one you haven’t read yet and tell your friends about them. And when you have read them, please leave a review on Amazon. You can find them on my my Amazon author page here.

Thank you and happy reading!

I hope you enjoyed reading how my characters celebrate Christmas on the island of Trinidad. If you haven’t read the post yet, you can get it here.

Today’s post is a short one to inform you that In the Promised Land, book 3 of the Egypt trilogy goes on sale from tomorrow. This book, which I like to call a modern-day Sound of Music, will make a perfect gift for yourself or someone this Christmas.

Here’s a short description:

Marva and June are two sisters who have come out of an abusive childhood and are now on the way to achieving their dreams. Marva is a nun at a school for delinquent girls; June is a law student. All seems to be going well for them, until their adoptive father is killed in a Muslim coup. Marva, always the strong, dependable one struggles to help the family cope with this and other unexpected crises. But she finds herself weakening. When her childhood friend, who has always had a romantic interest in her, reaches out to her, Marva finds herself torn between her love for him and her commitment to God. Romance, faith and intrigue are all intertwined in this gripping novel.

If you love nun’s stories, you would want to get your copy of In the Promised Land now while it’s on sale.

You can also read In the Promised Land free on Kindle Unlimited. Whatever medium you choose, I, and other readers, would appreciate it if you would leave a review on Amazon. Thank you and Merry Christmas!