Twitter Tuesday: Tina Ansa, Bernadette Davis, and…

It’s Twitter Tuesday! I recommend three people and you recommend three Twitter people to me. Let’s go!

 

1. Tina McElroy Ansa

‎"

I hate to give book, movie any more hype, but am stilled distressed by what "Help" says re black women, our voice, our culture, principles." Tina McElroy Ansahttp://bit.ly/r7HVpP

Follow @TinaMcElroyAnsa. She is the acclaimed author of 5 novels (Baby of the Family, Ugly Ways, The Hand I Fan With, You Know Better, and Taking After Mudear.) She is also the founder of DownSouth Press and Sea Island Writers Retreats. She supports #blacklitchat, replies to tweets and is very generous to her fans (myself included.)

2. Bernadette A. Davis

I I also recommend you follow Bernadette A. Davis @BernadetteDavis. She is the editor of Black Books Blog and co-produces #blacklitchat with me. (FYI: Carleen Brice is our August guest host.) I consider Bernadette an authority on serious African American Fiction. She's also Blogalicious, another bonus. Follow her at www.twitter.com/bernadettedavi​s

 

3. Dee Stewart

: I recommend you follow my handle - @deegospel, because I've been on Twitter for 4 years, since 2007 when it was mostly techies, tech PRs and me. I teach free classes on how to maximize Twitter and I have a list of over 100 bookstores, a list of over 100 libraries, and a three cool Twitter newspapers that are great sources for writers. http://www.twitter.com/deegosp​el Im the owner of DeeGospel PR, I’ also write as Miranda Parker for Kensington Books, so I know a thing or two about Blacks in Publishing.

Now who you got for me?

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Tuesday Book Pick: Kim Cash Tate Cherished

This Tuesday’s Book Pick is Kim Cash Tate’s Cherished(Thomas Nelson, August 2011)
Kelli London once dreamed of being a songwriter. As crazy as it seemed, she hoped that God would use the lyrics that came to her while she slept. She dreamed about Brian too, that the love that they shared would be a forever kind of love. But choices she'll forever regret upended her hope and turned her dreams to dust. When those dreams come knocking once more, she's forced to deal with the pain of the past.
Heather Anderson's life has spun out of control--first an affair with a married man, then a one-night stand with a drummer of a popular Christian band that left her devastated. Broken and alone, she cried out to the only One who can save her. And He did, but that's just the beginning, because now she must leave behind the only life she has ever known.
Two women with shame-filled pasts form an unlikely friendship. What does God's forgiveness look like for them? Will they ever believe that He loves them...and can still offer them a life where they are cherished?

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Monday Moment: Sharon Ewell Foster on Nat Turner

Christian Fiction Online Magazine: Searching for Daylight: Part I

Sharon Ewell Foster is a critically acclaimed, award-winning author, speaker, and teacher. She is the author of Passing by Samaria, the first successful work of Christian fiction by an African American author, and six other works of fiction. Her works regularly receive starred book reviews—which is a rarity among writers—and has won a Christy Award, the Gold Pen Award, Best of Borders, and several reviewers’ choice awards.
Releasing this month is Foster’s highly anticipated new novel, The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 1: The Witnesses (Simon & Schuster), a story how Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, aims to clarify the accepted history of Nat Turner’s prosecution. Turner, the Ethiopian turned American slave, is a well-read patriot in slaves’ eyes, but an ornery slave who needs to be put in his place in his mistress’s eyes.
Foster chats with Christian Fiction Online Magazine about this controversial novel, her questions to God about her writer’s journey, and how her readers were her saving grace.
Sharon Ewell Foster is a critically acclaimed, award-winning author, speaker, and teacher. She is the author of Passing by Samaria, the first successful work of Christian fiction by an African American author, and six other works of fiction. Her works regularly receive starred book reviews—which is a rarity among writers—and has won a Christy Award, the Gold Pen Award, Best of Borders, and several reviewers’ choice awards.
Releasing this month is Foster’s highly anticipated new novel, The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 1: The Witnesses (Simon & Schuster), a story how Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, aims to clarify the accepted history of Nat Turner’s prosecution. Turner, the Ethiopian turned American slave, is a well-read patriot in slaves’ eyes, but an ornery slave who needs to be put in his place in his mistress’s eyes.
Foster chats with Christian Fiction Online Magazine about this controversial novel, her questions to God about her writer’s journey, and how her readers were her saving grace.

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Man Book Prize Long List Announced

The 13 books on the list include: one former Man Booker Prize winner; two previously shortlisted writers and one longlisted author; four first time novelists and three Canadian writers. The list also includes three new publishers to the prize - Oneworld, Sandstone Press and Seren Books.

The titles were chosen by a panel of five judges chaired by author and former Director-General of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington:

• Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
  Sebastian Barry On Canaan's Side (Faber)
  Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
  Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
  Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
  Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
  Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
  Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
  Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
  A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)
  Alison Pick Far to Go (Headline Review)
  Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
  D.J. Taylor Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

I’m excited that Esi Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues was longlisted. It's the story of AfroGermans presence in the 1930s (Nazi Germany.)

“Berlin, 1939. A young, brilliant trumpet-player, Hieronymus, is arrested in a Paris cafe. The star musician was never heard from again. He was twenty years old. He was a German citizen. And he was black.

Fifty years later, Sidney Griffiths, the only witness that day, still refuses to speak of what he saw. When Chip Jones, his friend and fellow band member, comes to visit, recounting the discovery of a strange letter, Sid begins a slow journey towards redemption.

From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris, Sid leads the reader through a fascinating, little-known world, and into the heart of his own guilty conscience.

Half-Blood Blues is an electric, heart-breaking story about music, race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.”

Read more about it here at http://www.esiedugyan.com/half-blood-blues.html

Save the Date: LitChat Alter Egos & Miranda Parker This Friday

 

Samuel Clemons had Mark Twain. Charles Dodson had Lewis Carroll. The Bronte sisters had the Bells. Pseudonymns. For reasons public and private, long-speculated and tossed glibly in gossip, these and thousands of other authors through the years chose to publish their writing under different names. The reasons they chose pen names are many, varied from author to author and era to era. This week in #litchat we’ll discuss authors writing under pseudonyms.

On Friday, Litchat will chat with me about my choice to use a pen name and if the alter ego is a good excuse to be bad. Click here to get the deets on the chat, so you can join us.

Spring for Susannah Reviewed

Catherine Richmond’s Spring for Susannah

Synopsis:

With no prospects for marriage and her parents recently deceased, Susannah  agrees to go west to the Dakota territory to marry her minister's homesteading brother, Jesse Mason. But Susannah is painfully shy, doesn't see herself as worthy of love from either a husband or from God, and lives in constant fear that Jesse is going to ship her back to Detroit.

In spite of her petite size and the fact that Susannah doesn't look like she could survive on the prairie, Jesse quickly discovers that his new wife is a greater blessing than he even hoped for. The years she spent as her father's veterinary assistant allow her to save Jesse's ox and twin calves and to help neighboring farmers with their animals.

But Susannah's feelings of unworthiness are deeply rooted, and she can't believe that Jesse's praise-or the tenderness and love he shows-could possibly last. The thawing of her heart seems almost as distant as Spring in the midst of the winter blanketing the Dakota prairie.

My Review:

1. Character: Jesse was charming from the first moment he met Susannah. I enjoyed his character a great deal. Susannah, albeit living in this story centuries before me, is very relevant to women like me. Her self condemnation, feelings of inadequacies, not seeing her value… that’s what makes this story compelling for an African American woman living in Atlanta (me.)

2. Plot: This story has a clear beginning, middle, and end. No surprises.

3. Style/Tone: Richmond has an elegance to her storytelling that I admire. It fit very well with a historical romance set in the Dakotas.

4. Setting/Theme: I enjoyed learning about Dakota Territory, particularly Oriska, North Dakota when it was a part of Fourth Siding.  One of my challenges with modern women’s historical fiction is the notion that revising history for the sake of not dealing with the hard stuff works or keeps it pretty for women readers to digest. Revisionist history in works like Cold Mountain, The Help unnecessarily glosses over important issues that would make the story even more compelling. In this case Richmond, did the opposite and I applaud her for that.It was a perfect balance of grounding us into a realist backdrop of the time of Custer, the Maldan Indians, Reconstruction, and the expansion of the western territory.

5. Voice/Orthodoxy: The Christian Worldview doesn’t overwhelm or plod the plot. There is a very good balance of storytelling and spiritual takeaway.

Spring of Susannah was pitch perfect and hit every point I look for in a novel. Kudos! 5 Stars

2011 ACFW Carol Awards Finalists Announced

 

 

Last week at ICRS the ACFW held a press conference to announce the  2011 Carol Awards Finalists:

Debut Novel:
The Preacher’s Bride by Jody Hedlund (Bethany House - Dave Long/Sharon Asmus, Editors)
Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes (Tyndale Publishers - Kathryn Olson, Editor)
Rooms by James L. Rubart (B&H Publishing - Julee Schwarzburg, Editor)

Long Contemporary:
The Choice by Suzanne Woods Fisher (Revell - Andrea Doering, Editor)
Red Ink by Kathi Macias (New Hope Publishers - Randy Bishop, Editor)
Never Say Never by Lisa Wingate (Bethany House - Dave Long, Editor)

Long Contemporary Romance:
Plain Jayne by Hillary Manton Lodge (Harvest House - Kim Moore, Editor)
Anna’s Return by Marta Perry (Berkley - Ellen Edwards, Editor)
Plain Paradise by Beth Wiseman (Thomas Nelson - Natalie Hanemann, Editor)

Long Historical:
Here Burns My Candle by Liz Curtis Higgs (Waterbrook Press - Laura Barker, Editor)
Petra: City in Stone by T.L. Higley (B&H Publishing - Karen Ball, Editor)
Sons of Thunder by Susan May Warren (Summerside Press – Susan Downs, Editor)

Long Historical Romance:
The Husband Tree by Mary Connealy (Barbour - Rebecca Germany, Editor)
Love Finds You In Homestead, Iowa by Melanie Dobson (Summerside - Rachel Meisel/Connie Troyer, Editors)
Courting Morrow Little by Laura Frantz (Revell - Andrea Doering, Editor)

Mystery:
Mirrored Image by Alice K. Arenz (Sheaf House - Joan M. Shoup, Editor)
Muslin Mystery by Vera Dodge (Guideposts - Beth Adams, Editor)
The Camera Never Lies by Elizabeth Goddard (Barbour – Rebecca Germany, Editor)

Novellas:
The Prodigal Groom by Vickie McDonough (Barbour – Rebecca Germany, Editor)
Ride With Me Into Christmas by Rachael Phillips (Barbour – Rebecca Germany, Editor)
A Trusting Heart by Carrie Turansky (Barbour – Rebecca Germany, Editor)

Romantic Suspense:
The Silent Order by Melanie Dobson (Summerside Press - Rachel Meisel/Susan Downs, Editors)
Don’t Look Back by Lynette Eason (Revell - Andrea Doering, Editor)
Pursuit of Justice by DiAnn Mills (Tyndale Publishers - Karen Watson, Editor)

Short Contemporary:
The Wedding Garden by Linda Goodnight (Love Inspired - Allison Lyons)
A Father for Zach by Irene Hannon (Love Inspired - Melissa Endlich, Editor)
Winter’s End by Ruth Logan Herne (Love Inspired - Melissa Endlich, Editor)

Short Contemporary Suspense:
Night Prey by Sharon Dunn (Love Inspired Suspense - Emily Rodmell, Editor)
Legacy of Lies by Jill Elizabeth Nelson (Love Inspired Suspense - Emily Rodmell, Editor)
Firestorm by Kelly Ann Riley (Love Inspired Suspense - Tina James, Editor)

Short Historical:
Her Healing Ways by Lyn Cote (Love Inspired Historical - Tina James, Editor)
Promise of Tomorrow by S. Dionne Moore (Barbour - JoAnne Simmons, Editor)
The Columns of Cottonwood by Sandra Robbins (Barbour - JoAnne Simmons, Editor)

Speculative Fiction:
The Wolf of Tebron by C. S. Lakin (AMG Publishers - Rick Steele, Editor)
Rooms by James L. Rubart (B&H Publishing - Julee Schwarzburg, Editor)
König’s Fire by Marc Schooley (Marcher Lord Press – Jeff Gerke, Editor)

Suspense/Thriller:
Predator by Terri Blackstock (Zondervan - Sue Brower/Dave Lambert, Editors)
Fear No Evil by Robin Caroll (B&H Publishing – Karen Ball, Editor)
Medical Error by Richard L. Mabry (Abingdon Press – Barbara Scott, Editor)

Women’s Fiction:
Beaded Hope by Cathy Liggett (Tyndale Publishers - Jan Stob/Lorie Popp, Editors)
They Almost Always Come Home by Cynthia Ruchti (Abingdon – Barbara Scott, Editor)
Beyond Summer by Lisa Wingate (NAL - Ellen Edwards, Editor)

Young Adult:
Anything But Normal by Melody Carlson (Revell - Lonnie Hull Dupont, Editor)
The Healer’s Apprentice by Melanie Dickerson (Zonderkidz - Jacque Alberta, Editor)
Katy’s New World by Kim Vogel Sawyer (Zonderkidz - Jacque Alberta, Editor)

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