Bernice McFadden: People I Know

Tweet

It's not all about me, even in this strange pocket I'm creating in cyberspace. It's 4 o'clock in the morning and I'm suffering from insomnia. When it was cold, my wife was upset for various legitimate reasons. Now that it's hot, she's upset...again. And I'm wide awake, annoyed by this and other predicaments revolving around her. Why I was surprised by this particular predictable probability is beyond me, but c'est la vie. It is what it is.

I have a friend who is a very accomplished and successful novelist. Her name is Bernice McFadden and she hails from Brooklyn. Like me, she has her own blog. And like me, we're both born in September, one day apart from each other. Like my wife, she's of Bajan decent. And like my wife (before she met me), she is a single mother. Her daughter is a beautiful young woman who was beginning to tower over me a few years back when she was barely into high school and I'm not short (all of my tall friends, male and female, disagree with me on this point). She's also the author-friend I reference any and every time I tell the story of how I met my wife --- the woman currently in the back room of my house sprawled out across my bed, who in her outrage threw all the sheets to the floor and has our room looking like a crime scene.

I first met Bernice via email. I was promoting my little book of poetry and short stories and somehow she caught wind of me on the Internet. The proactive woman that she is, she reached out to me to congratulate me on my success, wish me well and let me know she had a book coming out herself.

Sure she did, I thought. I didn't trust the net and I dismissed her as a crackpot until a few weeks later when she sent me an evite for her first booksigning at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Her email opened and displayed beautiful cover art for her book. It was then that I realized she was a real author and I made sure I attended her first signing. We've been friends ever since.

Bernice's first book was the Sugar, a literary masterpiece that read like a good piece of sheet music. She followed this work up with a series of novels that thrust her onto the literary stage, releasing her forever from the prison of 9-to-5 work life and allowing her to travel everywhere for good reason and no reason at all. In an effort to repackage herself and hit the market from both sides, she donned the pen name Geneva Holliday and began writing...ahem...Urban Fiction (normally I choke when I say "Urban Fiction", but the gag reflex apparently doesn't exist when typing). Her latest book as Geneva Holliday is entitled Seduction. It's on display and on sale in the right hand column of this page, as are some of her other books.

Bernice has been an inspiration to me over the years. She simply got sick and tired of being sick and tired of work and put her talent to work for her. Now she's all deep with sexy pictures and candles on her website and rockin' locks (she's always had them) looking like she's getting ready to pull a guitar off her back and start strumming slowly. And to top it off she's got a "I don't give a..." disposition a weak man might find disarming. But she's absolutely pleasant.

Congrats, Bernice. Much continued success to you.

I'm still waiting for dinner in your gourmet kitchen.