Vixen Chronicles

     Last week, I spent the day at a high school, talking about writing and books. when I showed up, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to talk about, or if I was going to read from any of my books. On the way there, I received a Facebook notification that someone had mentioned me and made a comment about A Letter for My Mother- -the book I'd edited--creative non-fiction, and since it was close to Mother's Day, I decided to spotlight this book.      If you follow me, you know the story of how this book started. The MIL whom I'd believed to share a mutual feeling of dislike with was dying, and the thought of her leaving this plane was very painful to me.  I was bewildered by these feelings and being that I was across the country, could not go to her. So I wrote her a letter, and filed it. Later, on reading the letter, I thought it should be published somewhere and the book was born.       The task was not as simple as it s...

     Momma: Gone is fiction, but yes,it is based on my life. It is fiction because I changed the names of everyone in the book, even combining characters around a single issue. I did that to make the book read more like fiction, to give the main character more of an arc.I also changed the way the large problem was resolved in the story to make it more "fiction"-like. Without giving it away, Sweetie, eventually finds a way to fix her problem (and her brother's problem) herself. She stops watching her life and acts in it, instead. That is not what happened. I will let you wonder about that.      I also combined some of my memories and some of my brothers to show a more complete picture of the settings where the story takes place. I do not remember the KKK rally, but my brother does. That is because when my grandmother told me to come inside because the Klan was having a rally, I did. My brother on the other hand, was curious, so he didn't. While I ...