Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond's Blog, page 75

Bringing Powder Necklace Home

I just completed a 10-day tour in Ghana promoting Powder Necklace! It was a
truly amazing experience. I was on radio, morning television, evening
entertainment segments all leading up to the book launch at Silverbird Lifestyle
Bookstore in Accra and for each event my mom & I gently discussed what I would
wear.

For my first appearance on eTV's "Awake", I wore a Ghanaian print dress with
flirty ruffle action on top. That got a nod of approval. But I got a partial side
eye when I wore my cigarette...

Powder Necklace Pierced Amazon's Bestseller List!

For a hot minute, thanks to you, Powder Necklace was on Amazon's Top 100 Bestseller list!! Thanks to every single one of you who Facebooked it, bought it, tweeted it, reviewed it, and recommended it. Please help me keep the momentum going and tell your friends to put it on their summer reading and book club lists, pick it up as a gift, and otherwise support. I'm happy to call or Skype into book club meetings, answer any questions you have about the book/my writing & publishing process, or t...

Read Bernice L. McFadden's "Black Writers in a Ghetto of the Publishing Industry's Making"

A few quotes to chew on from Bernice L. McFadden's Washington Post op-ed "Black Writers in a Ghetto of the Publishing Industry's Making":

"the work of many African American authors... has been lumped into one heap known as 'African American literature.' This suggests that our literature is singular and anomalous, not universal. It is as if we American authors who happen to be of African descent are not a people but a genre much like mystery, romance or thriller."

"Walk through your local c...

Leave That 9-5 Up on the Shelf

...And just enjoy yourself!

It's been a CRAZY coupla weeks and I have so much to report! Come out to the Kente Cloth Festival party hosted by KenCar Fashion Magazine tonight and I'll fill you in on all the deets. If you can't make it out, they'll be streaming it live on the internet, so check it out and watch me do my very bad rendition of the adowa.

My sister-scribe, the genius Ayesha Harruna Attah will be in the house autographing her brilliant novel Harmattan Rain which was shortlisted for ...

My Mother Just Set Up a Reading For Me!

My mother was at the Borders Express in Green Acres Mall yesterday afternoon and asked for a copy of Powder Necklace. When the manager led her to the book, Mommy proceeded to let her know she didn't like where it was placed in the bookstore; then she suggested I do a reading. Then my mom called me at work and put the manager on the phone with me to firm up the logistics!

I'll be reading on July 10th at 2pm. If you're in the Queens, NY/Valley Stream, Long Island area that day, come through!

Readings as Networking Events

So another thing about readings: they're awesome networking events. Where else can a writer meet and exchange info with authors she admires, meet these authors' friends (who are usually in the biz), meet the bookstore owner, share info about her own book, and wrangle an invitation for a post-reading dinner?

l to r: Kwame Alexander, Victoria Christopher Murray & AALBC.com's Troy Johnson

Readings as Performance Art

(l to r) authors Victoria Christopher Murray, Tinesha Davis & Kwame Alexander


I've been going to a ton of readings lately to support friends and also to study "reading performance" technique since as I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm still trying to get the hang of this reading/interviewing thing. Last month I went to Isabel Allende's reading at Barnes & Noble and I definitely filed that in my "when I'm a rockstar" folder. Ms. Allende took the stage--after a Barnes & Noble rep gave the pac...

My First Out-of-State Trip for the Book!

I felt very author-ish this weekend, y'all. I did my first out-of-state trip for the book to the Afr'Am Festival in Norfolk, VA. I hadn't heard of this fest before but apparently it's been going on for 27 years. It's super-fun.

There were food trucks selling seafood, funnel cakes and smoothies; there was a bazaar of arts, crafts, and clothing tents; and there were two performance stages set up across Town Point Park. Less than 30 feet from the Literary Cafe tent where I spent the bulk of my t...

This Writing Thing Is All About Sharing

Prior to getting the good news that the book was being published, I'd focused all my energies on finishing the book, finding an agent, and praying for a publisher so when Powder Necklace came out I have to 'fess up to a "now what?" moment. What happens after/alongside the readings, the launch party and the press? I can't thank enough the peeps that stepped up to help me answer this question with advice, contacts, and information. These extremely generous souls emailed friends and colleagues...

My Mother, Myself

Yesterday, Harmattan Rain author Ayesha Harruna Attah and I did a joint reading at Bluestockings Books as both our novels explore the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship. Against a backdrop of Bluestockings' intellectual candy store of tomes we each read excerpts that revealed our characters' complicated relationships with their moms, and in the process hinted at our own relationships with our mothers.

My mother and I are incredibly close and my relationship with her is much diffe...