Y'all pray for my daughter, Selah. Girlfriend hasn't bought that child a blessed thing for Christmas. My body and soul has begun to do it's yearly dance. It connects. It fasts, prays, praises, anticipates...Lord, have mercy. There's nothing I can do about it but rejoice and write. Hadn't thought about shopping for her or anyone, but God. What can I get him that no one else can?
There is a time when I'm feeling fine--my hands are warm and don't hurt, and when my back doesn't bother me when I bend over." She [Miss Susie] placed her hands back in the bowl. "But the truth is, I don't kow if I've ever seen that perfect time. Everyday I just show up and make biscuits, Happy or sad hands or back aching, flour or powder ain't right. I still make do and make the biscuits. The same way with life. The same way with love. You go to keep showing up. If you gon' win over the evil that tries to kill you, you got to keep doing it anyway.>
Caressing the dough like a loved one, she formed the mixture into a ball. "If you gone love, you got to love even when it don't make sense... if you want to live, you got to take it by force and you can't wait until the perfect day to bake your biscuits."- Miss Susie's Living your best life now/baking biscuits analogy to Armentia.
My friend, Mary Demuth's second novel Wishing on Dandelions has taking my blogroll by storm. She makes her final pitstop here at Gospel Fiction. I'm honored. We're talking about tolerance, storytelling and the characters that haunt her. Click here to experience the haunting.
There is a Prodigal Diva talking trash in my laptop. But I thought I should take a break from her for a while and relish in my newfound treasures. I love to read more than I love to write. I take my reading seriously. So today I'm opening my treasure box of some good reads that I've read this fall that you need to take note of. All have Christian themes. Click here .
Ginger Garrett's Dark Hour
This summer I highlighted this novel as one of the best summer selections for Christian Readers. God is good. He has blessed me to call the good ones out, because this month the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance has made it our book selection. Remember today is an open track back day, leave your best blog entry in the trackback.
Meet Me at the Altar...I could tell you that my husband loves me and treats me, right...but you read enough fiction. My husband rarely comes home anymore and when he does he sleeps on the couch or complains that I am not the woman he married. He had the nerve to say that marrying me was an experience he would not want to repeat.
No one gets married thinking that one day they are going to fall out of love with their spouse and get a divorce, and no one, I mean no one ever thinks that the man that falls to his knees and plants an engagement ring on your finger, then stands before a room full of people and pronounces his undying love for you will ever sum up your life together as an experience. Judge Mablean where are you when we need you, girlfriend?
Now I know that you are wondering why I on't talk to someone like my pastor or the First Lady of my church...been there and done that so many times.
"Sister, Shana, if you would just submit things would get better." Pastor Hughes said that to me. Told me I have a problem with authority.
"A man likes to know that his wife is going to be home waiting up for him when he gets there , no matter what time he comes in the house." The First Lady told me that.
What I'd like to know is why I have to be the one waiting up until three and four o'clock for him when I am the one working three jobs to pay our bills? Can you answer that, Pastor and First Lady?
© 2006 Tamika Johnson
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This blog tour is sponsored by
The Gospel Fiction Blog Alliance
Last year, I hosted October's Celebration of New Christian Fiction. I thought it would be fun to repost that entry here. Some TMA Members have short stories posted in here. Part of the entries to this celebration came from Dave Long's conversion short story contest. As I read through some of these and cringe at my own entry, I wonder why we don't do this anymore. I also wonder about new ways to showcase our talent. I wonder have my writing improved since last year. Click here and you decide.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."- An excerpt from Marianne Williamsons' A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles
Tiffany Warren has a new book coming out in October. Check it out.
Charmayne Ellis is an established, polished professional. But out of loneliness and under pressure from her family, she allows the drop-dead gorgeous Travis Moon to work his chiseled-to-perfection charm on her.
Choosing to dismiss a gnawing feeling that he's not the man God intended for her, she ignores her pastor's advice and gets married. But Travis has only devastating secrets in exchange. Sure, Charmayne knew about his felony record before they got married - but when she faces his bisexual behavior and porn addiction it empties her bank account and costs her the career she loves.
Now, with the help of a Christian therapist, Charmayne will learn that her real problem was never her weight or her marital status. It was her own inability to trust God enough to wait on His best for her.
Click HERE to read the first chapter of Farther than I Meant to Go, Longer than I Meant to Stay
"Perhaps the reason why Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit New Orleans was because it is a den of sin down there. Ernesto is coming back to finish it off." My Sunday School classmate *Jack Turner, said to our group. 
I'm at The Master's Artist today sharing a fun quiz I created regarding the ACFW quiz. Stop by this week here and at Gospel Fiction for a week long blogging event about the ACFW conference.
Starting this fall Christan Fiction Blog will present book reviews in a different format than before. We will post a summary and description of the book, and at least two takes on the book from different reviewers and myself. If you are a book reviewer and would like to participate, please leave a comment. If you have a book, you want discussed, please contact me off loop. The next books for discussion are Tamika Johnson's Meet me at the Altar and Karen Kingsbury's Like Dandelion Dust.
Summary
Summer Ledoux returns to her family’s New Orleans estate-the Ledoux Mansion for her wedding. While there she finds that her prestigious and well-guarded family name is steeped in dark secrets and a legacy curse that haunts both her and her sister Misa, a former supermodel. Harlem Moon, June, 256 pp, $16.95)
Take One: Shawneda Marks
Norma Jarrett offers readers a phenomenal read. The characters are believable and real. It delves into a much ignored topic in the black community that calls us to the carpet and shows the true effect of this bone in the african american communities closet. Setting the story between New Orleans and Houston brings the reader into the surroundings and settings with every turn of the page. For some the details would be too much but the intricate way this story unfolds is deserving of nothing less than a four star rating. Run to the nearest store and get yours today. 
Jarrett writes beautiful prose. Her close attention to detail, t romantic scenes, and New Orleans cultural references create an sweet, southern genteel mood for this story. Yet, the constant flashbacks and episodic chapters slow the story’s pace. Too many surprises and secrets add so much drama that it clouds the central themes of redemption and family responsibility from greater view. In less than six weeks this gospel diva will take a huge step at fulfilling a lifelong dream, and flying a commercial airline for the first time, to boot. Think I'm game for the adventure? Let me tell you. I'm hyper ventilating over here. But not for what you think.
Most days I document and share new projects that today's rising Gospel ministers and artists are involved in. From the Megafest to a small Lake Park, GA churche's prison ministry to Pastor Della Reese to an eleven year old Holy Hip Hop Artist my email and phone fight for my attention. Most days I try to accomodate both, while trying to read and review books, parent my daughter, Selah and write my own novel. And then there's the real story...
Last week I asked y'all for a Gospel Push. Well, you people delivered. I got pushed around, prayed on and told off all week. Sherri and Tia called me and made ultimatums. Shoot, one of my alumni buddies from Chucky P's writing workshop sent me a line asking me about my writing and that crazy story I workshopped. Made new friends and got my old ones sending me Amen Corner Eblasts. My Ace BC, Claudia Mair Burney shoved me so hard she knocked me out my comfort zone. Had me up until 3 am churning out a plot, character sketch and a first chapter Saturday night when I should have been at the MegaFest. She's feening for another excerpt of said short story that I am now fleshing into a novel and hot dog I'm gon' deliver. So I'm passing on her letter to you. If it could light a fire under my belly, it'll probably knock you out of your desk chair.
My write-or-die chick, Sherri just received a publishing deal for a novel we critiqued in our writing group two years ago. Two months before she received the good news she wanted to pack it all in and give up on the writing thing. Rejections for her other manuscript cut her deeper than the sand between my sandaled toes in summer. Of course, we prayed her through her dissappointment, and we sighed relief when our prayers were answered.
