Author Panelists Call

Next year I am convention captain for two inspirational writing workshop panels at the 2007 RT Booklover's Convention. If you are a published inspirational author, and interested in being a panelist on one of these workshops, please goto my site- Gospel Fiction for more information.

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To Be Fabulous

"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

Continue reading "To be Fabulous" »

Puritan Morality in early Pan African Novelist Thought

"As Iola finished, there was a ring of triumph in her voice, as if she were reviewing a path she had trodden with bleeding feet, and seen it change to lines of living light. Her soul seemed to be flashing through the rare loveliness of her face and etherealizing its beauty.

Everyone was spellbound. Dr. Latimer was entranced, and, turning to Hon. Dugdale, said, in a low voice and with deep-drawn breath," She is angelic!...She is strangely beautiful!...The tones of her voice are like benedictions of peace; her words a call to higher service and nobler life."

-Iola Leroy, written by Francis E.W. Harper 1892

When I was thirteen I fell in love with African American Women's Literature. The novel that done me in was Alice Walker's A Color Purple. In under grad I knew There Is a God when Agnes Scott College offered a course called Black Feminist Thought. What I didn't know was that my soul would leap for a stranger kind of fiction- Christian Fiction.

Once believed to be the first novel written by a Black author was Francis E.W. Harper's Iola Leroy. I return to this novel often as I write my own works both as a benchmark and as a warning. This month I want to share this novel with you, as it relates to early Black Christian Thought, sociodynamics between Black Women of the early nineteenth century, and what we can learn about storytelling, theme, and orthodoxy as new, liberated Christian writers.

You can pick up a copy of Iola Leroy at your local library or download the text version for free here. So there's no excuse. Ha. :) If you do, please let me know in the gospel fiction forum.

Other Reading Guides for Iola Leroy:

• Iola Leroy Online
• Iola Leroy Spark Notes
• Iola Leroy Wikipedia
• My Old Spot - African American Women Writer's Finding Voice

Related Articles:

• Let the Lion Eat Straw
• Mom Quotables

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OTA: Happy Birthday, Mair!

Happy Birthday, Claudia Mair Burney

Click the bookcover for my review of her debut novel, Murder, Mayhem & a Fine Man

 

Today is Open Track Back Day, leave me your best blog entry of the week.  Stop by read them and tell me which entry was the best of the week.

 

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Tiffany's October Buzz

Farther than I Meant to Go, Longer Than I Meant to Stay.

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

 

 

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TMA: Relevant Christianese

Join me at The Master's Artist Blog today, I'm asking you what's missing in Christian writing? Is it relevant? Too preachy? Too Racist? Not Godly enough?

Relevant Christianese

"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.

 

Before I could stop myself my chest rose, my fingers balled up. I huffed. "Then what about the 25, 000+ members of Greater St. Stephens Full Gospel Baptist Church? They're NOs. They're Christian? Why weren't they spared? I have to tell you that your statement is dangerous. It is the reason so many negate Christianity?"

 

Click here to join the discussion.

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Dee's ACFW Event

      

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.