I always say, we don't do anything - NOT ONE THING - in this life alone and so having said that I would like to take the next few weeks to thank those people who contributed to the success of Glorious.
Advanced praise from a fellow author is something we as published and soon to be published authors, always seek. It's not always an easy venture, but we try anyway.
I myself have only blurbed two or three titles during my entire professional writing career. And not because the books that were sent to me didn't warrant a comment - but mostly because I did not have the time to read them. Time they truly deserved.
It's a slippery slope - this author thing!
In any case, I've already privately thanked the authors who took the time to read, review and offer sainted words for Glorious - but I also wanted to thank them publicly with the hopes that you - dear readers - will support these extraordinary female authors - because black, white, green or turquoise - we are artist and for the most part - we are struggling!
Binnie Kirshenbaum
Binnie Kirshenbaum is the author of two short story collections and six novels. She is a professor of fiction writing at the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts and lives with her husband in New York City.
"Binnie Kirshenbaum is a rare and remarkable writer." — Michael Cunningham
"...the younger sister of Philip Roth...." — Carlin Romano
"A tremendous talent. Her novels are sexy, intelligent, complex, and provocative; they press against your heart the way old lovers do." — Junot Diaz
"...Kirshenbaum, the prolific writer of novels and stories written with wit and serious moral concern...is a presence to be reckoned with. One of her charms is that vestigial ladylike manner of a young woman who deports herself properly, aims for grace....(A) novelist of enormous cultural reach....the voice of a writer, known, or on the endless journey to knowing herself." — Maureen Howard
"Not many young female novelists can deal with sex, the appetite for it, and the loss of such appetite, with such candor, lack of self-protection, and humor as Binnie Kirshenbaum." — Norman Mailer
"Just when you think it is safe to laugh, she turns the tables on you. The funnier her books get, the more poignant they are." — Tova Mirvis
"This author (Kirshenbaum) is indeed a humorist, even a comedian, a sort of stand-up tragic." — Richard Howard
"For years, Binnie Kirshenbaum has quietly been one of the funniest and smartest writers we have in the U.S.... her books have razor sharp teeth and surprising depths." — Jessa Crispin
"....a novelist who gracefully defies classification" — Richard Ford
Jill Nelson
Jill Nelson was born and raised in Harlem and has been a working journalist for over twenty years. She is a graduate of the City College of New York and the Columbia School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Essence, The Washington Post, The Nation, Ms., The Chicago Tribune and the Village Voice. Jill was a staff writer for the Washington Post Magazine during its first years of existence, and was named Washington D.C. Journalist of the Year for her work there. She freelances and lectures widely, and writes a twice-monthly column, “On the Verge,” for NiaOnline.com and is a monthly contributor to the Op Ed page of USA Today. She was a professor of Journalism at the City College of New York from 1998 to 2003. Jill wrote the best-selling memoir, Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience (Noble Press, hardcover, 1993 and Penguin, paperback, 1994) which won an American Book Award. She is the author of Straight, No Chaser: How I Became A Grown-Up Black Woman (Putnam, Fall 1997, Penguin, Winter 1999) and edited Police Brutality: An Anthology, for WW Norton, published in April 2000. Her first novel, Sexual Healing, was released in June 2003. Her latest book, the non-fiction Finding Martha’s Vineyard: African Americans at Home on an Island, was published in May 2005 by Random House.
Jill lectures widely on race, gender, politics, media, writing and other topics. In 2006 she hosted a writer’s workshop in her house on Martha’s Vineyard and a series of one day writing workshops at her home in New York City.
The mother of an adult daughter, and a grandmother, she lives in Harlem.
Susan Straight
Susan Straight has published six novels, a novel for young readers and a children's book. She has also written essays and articles for numerous national publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Nation and Harper's Magazine, and is a frequent contributor to NPR and Salon.com. Her story "Mines," first published in Zoetrope All Story, was included in Best American Short Stories 2003. She won a Lannan Literary Award in 2007. She won a 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award for her short story "The Golden Gopher."[1] She is a Professor at the University of California, Riverside and lives in Riverside, California with two of her three daughters, her oldest now attending Oberlin College.
As a student at Riverside Community College, Straight received encouragement to pursue her writing. She went on to earn a scholarship to the University of Southern California and, in 1984, earned her M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's MFA Program for Poets & Writers. She co-founded the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts program at University of California, Riverside, where she is currently teaching.
Thank you ladies............
Bernice L. McFadden
