Category Archives: Book Notes

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New York Times Bestselling Author Kimberla Lawson Roby Launches The Woman God Created You to Be Podcast Starting Tomorrow!

Hello World,

In January, fiction dynamo Kimberla Lawson Roby, a New York Times bestselling author known for her Reverend Curtis Black Series, released her very first nonfiction title The Woman God Created You to Be: Finding Success Through Faith — Spiritually, Personally, and Professionally! Now, Kimberla is launching a podcast based on that book entitled The Woman God Created You to Be Podcast, which will start tomorrow!

Below is the description including a trailer:

Are you the real woman God created you to be? Do you want to become her? Join New York Times bestselling author and speaker, Kimberla Lawson Roby, each week, as she inspires and encourages you to become the best you can be in all areas of your life—spiritually, personally, and professionally. In every episode, Kimberla will transparently discuss topics, such as faith, purpose, relationships, self-care, women’s issues, fear, failure, success, and so much more—all of which she has struggled with or experienced herself. Additionally, she will share three things you can do, as well as a scripture to help you. Kimberla is a Christian woman, wife, bonus mom, speaker, and author of 28 books, including, The Woman God Created You to Be: Finding Success Through Faith — Spiritually, Personally, and Professionally.

Each Monday, you’ll be able to listen to a new episode via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, or Amazon Music. Also, so you don’t miss any of the weekly episodes, subscribe to the podcast at no cost to you.

If you haven’t read her book The Woman God Created You to Be: Finding Success Through Faith — Spiritually, Personally, and Professionally , I interviewed her about this book earlier this year. A portion of that interview is below.

1. In your latest title The Woman God Created You to Be, your first nonfiction title, you reveal so much. You reveal that you wrote your last seven fictional stories “in misery,”  that you didn’t meet your biological father until you were an adult, that you were touched inappropriately as a child, that you’ve been married before and more. Why reveal all of this now after cultivating a career in writing in which you have kept your personal life to yourself?
That is a very, very good question, even one that I sort of had for myself, and the only answer that I have is what the truth is: This is not necessarily the book that I wanted to write. But it is a book that God laid on my heart, and one that just wouldn’t go away. First of all, the idea of just writing a nonfiction book, and also the idea of writing a book in which I am so transparent. But as I continued to pray about it and move forward with it, I decided, ‘Okay, yes, Lord, I hear you, and I am going to write this book.’ Especially if it is going to help women. I also had to come to the understanding that the only way I was going to do that was to share my own experiences whether they were the successes and the accomplishments that God has allowed me to have, as well as the fears, the flaws, and the failures.
2. You said you wrote your Rev. Curtis Black Series so that readers would pay close attention to who their church leaders are. Do you feel you accomplished this goal?
I do. From when the very first title in the series ‘Casting the First Stone’ was released in January 2000, I’ve heard many, many stories from readers in cities and states throughout the country. So many people have said to me, ‘It made me take a look at my pastor. It made me take a look at my church leader.’ I heard them say that it wasn’t something they’d thought to do, and that it really made a difference in their lives, so that was my whole point. I also mentioned in the book that I love God too much to have written that particular series to criticize or ridicule the church or pastors. I would never do that, and my hope was that people would come to realize that it’s not about worshiping another human being who is standing in the pulpit, but it is absolutely about making sure your own personal relationship with God is intact.
No one is perfect, but what do you feel that people should look for in a church leader, particularly for those who are sour on church as you mentioned in your Church People chapter?
I think people should certainly look for a leader who is following God and then also one who has great integrity. I speak very highly of my own pastor because those were two of the things that Will [her husband] and I looked for when we began looking for a different church several years ago. And that makes all the difference – looking for a pastor who not only does what he says he is going to do but that you can see that he is doing it. And you can feel that he cares, not just about himself but that he cares about people in general.
3. In your chapter The Comparison Game and Pretending to Be Someone You’re Not, you write about writers who have often said they want to be like you with a wonderfully successful writing career without realizing that if that were true, they would have to be like all of you – which includes still grieving the loss of your mother after she passed away 18 years ago and having anxiety attacks. Why do you feel that this is an important message for writers?
I think that it’s a very important message because especially in this day of social media, so many times, people are scrolling through timelines and they’re looking at the next person, thinking, ‘Wow, I wish I could trade places with them,’ or ‘Wow, there’s no sense in me following through with the purpose that I know God has given me because someone else is already doing it.’ That’s what I believe really gets us in trouble. The best advice I could give to anyone, and this is across the board, is to just be who God created you to be. Focus on what your own passions are. Pray and ask God to show you what your purpose is so that you can begin walking in it. One of my lines that I like to say is, and it’s not brand new, but I really believe in staying in my own lane. I just suggest that everyone do that.
And for some writers, you are a New York Times bestselling author, but for some authors, their writing path may not include that kind of accolade. What do you say to that?
My thoughts have always been to focus on what God created you to do. Maybe He has brought you into this world to bless 20 people versus 20,000 or 20 million. But we have to be okay with that. We have to do what God has assigned to our lives.

To read the entire interview, click HERE. 

I will definitely be listening tomorrow! How about you?

Any thoughts?

 

 

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Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage — My Review

Hello World,

Today marks a year that my debut novel Destination Wedding was released into the world! And God has been so good throughout this year in helping me to get the word out about my book to the world. Just this week, I discovered that the Detroit Public Library  chose my debut novel as one of the best works of fiction for 2019-2020!!! It was mentioned in its 2020 AFRICAN AMERICAN BOOKLIST!!! I’m on the list with the likes of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Victoria Christopher Murray, ReShonda Tate Billingsley, Jacqueline Woodson & More!!! (Crazy, right?)

Below is the cover of the booklist, which has been published for 52 years, along with my book cover. According to the Detroit Public Library website,  “this bibliography provides a selected list of books by and/or about African Americans. The works of fiction and nonfiction for adults, children and young adults were reviewed and recommended by librarians of the Detroit Public Library.” Click HERE if you want to see the entire list.

Along with celebrating my book release anniversary, I also wanted to help spread the word about another important book that validates why I wrote Destination Wedding in the first place. Destination Wedding is my response to a real ABC News Nightline piece “Single, Black, Female and — Plenty of Company” in which it was reported that 42 percent of black women have never been married, which is double the amount of white women who find themselves in that dire predicament.

Obviously, as my book is a novel, the women in my book are fictional; however, this statistic illustrates a very real dilemma. Dr. Dianne M. Stewart, an associate professor of religion and African American studies at Emory University here in Atlanta, writes about this dilemma in her sweeping treatise Black Women, Black Love America’s War on African American Marriage, which was recently released. Dr. Stewart actually interviewed me about my novel last year at my book launch at Auburn Avenue Research Library in downtown Atlanta. Through our discussion, we were able to identify how our works intersect. While I address personal solutions to this dilemma through the lives of my main characters in my novel, Dr. Stewart identifies systemic solutions for what she refers to as “our nation’s most unrecognized civil rights issue” in her nonfiction book.

Similarly, as the ABC News Nightline report was broadcast in December 2009, Dr. Stewart cites that in 2009, 71 percent of Black women in America were unmarried, according to the 2010 US Census. As the ABC News Nightline report was broadcast in 2009, that time period was explored in my novel, but Dr. Stewart starts at slavery. She writes that “endless studies examine racial slavery in America as a reverberating assault upon Black people’s historic and contemporary liberties in perhaps every arena of life but one: romantic love and marriage.” Further down, she writes, “yet from its very beginnings, the transatlantic trade in human cargo, which set the American institution of African bondage in motion, required the disruption of intimate relationships and marriages.”

In Chapter 1 “Jumping the Broom: Racial Slavery and America’s Roots of Forbidden Black Love,” Dr. Stewart writes about a 19-year-old slave Celia who was hanged to death after killing her owner, who repeatedly raped her. Her true love was her boyfriend George, but she was unable to “freely choose a Black man as her lover and life partner.” Additionally, she writes that “less than 1 percent of slaveholders in the South held more than 100 persons in bondage, and by 1860 enslaved persons in the South, on average, lived in groups of 10. For this reason, enslaved women such as Celia were fortunate if they found romantic partners residing on the same properties with them.”

In the next chapter “Slow Violence and White America’s Reign of Terror,” Dr. Stewart writes about how Black love continued to be under assault even after slavery ended. Although they had been married for 22 years,  Atlanta, Georgia resident Carolyn Gilbert’s husband, 42-year-old Henry, was lynched in 1947. Through sharecropping, the  couple had saved enough to buy a 111-acre farm. But reportedly, he was shot and killed for allowing a “young black troublemaker” to hide on their farm. Additionally, a police officer shot Henry claiming the “deacon and treasurer at his small Baptist church ‘drew a chair on me.'”

In the third chapter, “Love and Welfare: Johnnie Tillmon and the Struggle to Preserve Poor Black Families,” Dr. Stewart interweaves pop culture examples in addition to more poignant real life cases of how Black love has been disrupted throughout the decades. I loved the 1974 movie Claudine. Dr. Stewart wrote that the movie “depicted the structural obstacles welfare posed to Black love and marriage and the stark reality that for millions of Black women in America at the time, choosing marital fulfillment (as the main character Claudine eventually does) meant loosing welfare benefits.”

Due to my age, I’m most familiar with the examples presented in the next chapter “Black Love in Captivity: Mass Incarceration and the Depletion of the African American Marriage Market.” And the first sentence in this chapter is particularly arresting. Pun intended. “No other institution has perfected America’s project of forbidding black love better than the contemporary prison industrial complex.” Further down, she writes, “Black men are incarcerated at much higher rates than any other group in the United States, even when convicted for the same crimes.” Did you know that former President Obama was the “first sitting president to actually tour a federal prison in 2015?” Additionally, former President Obama, “actually commuted the sentences of more inmates than his twelve predecessors combined.”

Speaking of Obama, Dr. Stewart writes about the former First Lady Michelle Obama in the chapter “Will Black Women Ever Have it All? Michelle Obama, Kheris Rogers and African Americans’ Shifting Landscapes of Love.” Dr. Stewart cites an article “Dark and Lovely, Michelle” by Vanessa Williams. Williams wrote, “A lot of Black women fell for Barack Obama the moment they saw his wife.” Let me raise my hand because that is true for me as well. While Dr. Stewart provides example after example of how Black love has been under assault by exterior forces, in this chapter, she presents an interior force that has its beginnings in slavery. In slavery, lighter-skinned Black people were treated better than their brothers and sisters of darker hues. And unfortunately, due to colorism, light-skinned Black women have more of a chance of getting married than medium-skinned and dark-skinned Black women, according to Dr. Stewart. Within this chapter, Dr. Stewart presents many solutions that I won’t reveal here because you have to read the book. However, one solution that I will share from her book is addressing colorism in the Black community.

Recently, actress Gabourey Sidibe shared that she got engaged to Brandon Frankel, who also works in entertainment. Sidibe, who is a dark-skinned black woman, has apparently received some criticism from Black men for being engaged to a White man. One YouTube blogger points out that in the past, many Black men have criticized Sidibe for her complexion and deemed her as undesirable and therefore have no standing to critique her coupling choice now. See the commentary HERE. Dr. Stewart writes that “Black women not only confront a shortage of Black men but also wrestle with internalized and interpersonal color consciousness.”

You have to read the book to experience the full breadth of Dr. Stewart’s exhaustive examination of this dilemma, but I hope I’ve provided enough information to make you buy your own copy of Black Women, Black Love America’s War on African American Marriage. It is a must-have resource if you care about Black love. I think employing personal solutions while addressing systemic solutions is the most comprehensive way to win the war on African American marriage.

What say you?

For more information about Dr. Stewart, see her website: DianneMStewart.com.

Any thoughts?

 

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Seven Reasons I’m Thankful in 2020…My Pandemic Praise!!!

 

Hello World,

With Thanksgiving coming up this week, this post is inspired by a post I saw on Facebook some weeks ago when the person who posted wrote that despite all that has unfolded in this devastating year, there are still some things to be thankful for in 2020. And the person encouraged everyone to comment on how they’ve still been blessed despite it all. I was among those who posted. I only shared one thing on that post, but I have seven to share with you, my dear readers.

1. Although I still wear contacts during the day and glasses at night, as of this year, I have been restored to 20/20 vision! In fact, I wrote a post about it earlier this year. Below is an excerpt of Seven Scriptures to Provide Insight to the Coronavirus Crisis (ODE to 20/20 Vision)

By now you must know that any vision board someone created for 2020 has been totally wrecked. I haven’t had 20/20 vision since before I was in the third grade when I started wearing glasses, but I was among those who decreed and declared that 2020 would be my Year of Perfect Vision. When this Coronavirus Crisis started a month ago or so, I thought my resolution to have 20/20 vision was misguided. But a month later, I see the Good Shepherd is faithful and guiding me (and all y’all)  into perfect vision after all — even if it wasn’t what I thought I saw at the dawn of this New Year. As my hubby shared with me, I do believe individually we will have personal insights, and that there are some collective insights that all of us will share. Read the rest HERE. 

2. Precious family members have been spared of the worst of COVID-19!!! Although I’ve had family members who have suffered from COVID-19 with one even being hospitalized for several days, no family members that I’m aware of, even my elders, have been casualties of coronavirus. This is a sickness you don’t want to experience even if death is not the end result, but I thank God He has seen fit to spare the lives of my family as of now.

3. My hubby and I have continued to work. Many people have lost their jobs due to COVID-19, but thankfully, my husband and I still have the financial resources to take care of our two-person household. My husband works in healthcare so you would automatically think that designation translates into job security, but many people in healthcare have seen their income adversely affected. For example, I only recently saw the dentist a few weeks ago after having rescheduled an earlier appointment. From what I’ve read, many are still putting off seeing doctors for appointments unrelated to coronavirus for fear they will be exposed while at the doctor’s office.

4. Although I have lost a vital-in-more-way-than-one income opportunity, I have pivoted. Y’all Jamaicans have more than job and I’m no exception. I’ve been teaching group fitness classes twice a week at L.A. Fitness for more than a decade. It was one of my side hustles. But that ended in March. Although I can go back if I like, I don’t feel comfortable at a gym right now. I don’t know about you, but I’m huffing and puffing at the gym as a rule. There is no way that I see avoiding an airborne illness at the gym. That being said, although I miss my class, I’ve been able to keep up my workouts at home and in a nearby park. It’s not the same, but it will do. Most of all, I thank God for the continued health and strength that I enjoy that enables me to workout!

5. I’ve been able to continue to promote the release of my debut novel  Destination Wedding.  I was just getting into the groove of promoting Destination Wedding when the world shut down. (Have you bought your copy?) Thankfully, as my novel was released in December 2019, I was able to have a book release party at Auburn Avenue Research Library, host a book signing at a local bookstore (Nubian Bookstore) and attend a book club meeting where Destination Wedding was featured before the pandemic was announced. But with the pandemic announcement, many of the events that I was planning had to be reworked or cancelled altogether so I was worried about how I would promote Destination Wedding going forward. Although I still believe that the pandemic had a negative impact on some of my promotion efforts, one benefit of the pandemic was that I was able to meet with several book clubs via Zoom. I’m not sure if I would have been able to do so otherwise. Additionally, I was able to participate in other online events that I may have not have had access to otherwise.

6. I sold my first home during a pandemic! Y’all, when I was 28 years old and a brand new reporter for a small newspaper, God blessed me to buy a townhome although I was making practically $10 a paycheck! I experienced many single girl shenanigans and grew up as a grown woman there. But as I haven’t lived there in a few years now as a married woman, I was grateful to God to be able to pay the mortgage month after month while no longer wanting that debt. At the beginning of the year, I met a realtor Dionne Sanford,  of EXP Realty, who also renovates properties. She told me that if I spent money on renovation, I would get that money back and more in sales. I didn’t want to spend the money and when the pandemic hit, I wondered how I would recoup it since real estate agents including my agent weren’t showing properties in person. But God did as He always does: Showed Up and Showed Out. I sold the property to a young lady who reminded me of myself when I first received the keys to my first adult home. See my pictures from that day above!

7. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have stopped coming by. I apologize to anyone who may be offended, but hubby and I will never be Jehovah’s Witnesses. And even though we have told them this in so many words and have not answered the door sometimes, they have continued to come by our house for some reason. But since this pandemic hit, we haven’t seen them at all…LOL…But I have received two letters from them I must say. I will give them this: they are persistent…

And I have other reasons to be thankful in 2020, but I will stop now to ask you:

What are you thankful for in 2020? Leave a comment and let me know!!!

Any thoughts?