Author: Donna Drew Sawyer

Choosing to Begin

~ Donna Drew Sawyer ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Jon Tyson (Unsplash)

Each writer becomes an author in their own way. Each route to publication is unique and while you can read about someone else’s experience I doubt you can duplicate it yourself. Writing is a practice—something you work at repeatedly to become proficient. The arts are a prominent theme in my books and writing, like music, visual and performing arts, to do it well you have to practice. You write, edit, and rewrite to hone your craft and simultaneously work on growing courage and conviction—dispelling the internal and external voices that tell you that you can’t and, embracing those that say you can. You’ll also need the wisdom and grace of friends, family, and other writers who are willing to share their wisdom and experience so that you grow through it as you go through it.

Until my debut novel, Provenance, I had never written fiction. I entered the publishing world naked and afraid—with no massive social media platform, celebrity status, or inside access to the publishing world. I also had additional hurdles—I am a woman of color writing about a nuanced black experience (passing) and, I’m over fifty.

Undeterred,  I went to writing conferences to meet agents and queried incessantly hoping to beat the odds. Agents in their 20s and 30s looking for the next young literary breakout talent found it hard to relate to me and my manuscript. Though the odds were against me, I believed in my hard-earned skill and if I am anything, I am determined.

After a couple of years of “I don’t understand how to find an audience for your book,” or “I don’t think I am the right agent for a book like this,” or no response at all, it became clear that landing an agent and a traditional publishing deal was highly unlikely. I may have been beaten but I certainly wasn’t broken.

I wrote Provenance for avid readers like me—anyone who had grown tired of reading fiction about the African American experience that focused only on our history of being enslaved. I craved stories that celebrated what it means to be a person of color – to determine our own destiny and to achieve great things because of and in spite of.  I knew I had written a good book, and I knew there was an audience for it.

Not being able to land an agent could have ended my quest to be a published author but as I said before if I am anything, I am determined. I figured out how to self-publish and promote my debut novel. I worked like hell to reach an audience that I knew was there.  

Provenance took this author on an exhilarating adventure. I am grateful to the readers who helped it reach #1 in African American Fiction on Amazon, to the juries who awarded it prizes for debut and historical fiction, to the book clubs, book fairs, and libraries who invited me and my book to in-person and virtual appearances around the country.  It was a heady adventure—risky and remarkable.

Fast-forward to 2024, Promise, the sequel to Provenance is complete and I am embarking on a new adventure. It is time to begin again. Putting fears of the dreaded sophomore slump aside, I am querying agents hoping that the literary world is more welcoming to authors of color and opportunities for diverse stories have truly grown. Writers and readers of color have always bought and read books. I am hoping that with more expansive thinking comes a myriad of opportunities. This adventure starts with the success of my debut novel and thousands of readers who know my work and are asking for more – now I am neither naked nor afraid.

So, aware of the challenges and the rewards and armed with my hard-earned skills and my hard-headed determination—I am choosing to begin again!

Thank You, Sistas Thrilled About Reading

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Sistas Thrilled About Reading Book Club – Baltimore, MD January 20, 2018

I am still savoring the spectacular Saturday afternoon I spent with Baltimore’s Sistas Thrilled About Reading Book Club. Member, Jean Moore, whom I met at the 2017 Baltimore Book Festival, extended the invitation to surprise the members of the club when they discussed my novel, Provenance.

Jean told them I was a friend of hers just sitting in on the club because I was considering becoming a member. It was a wonderful opportunity to hear the remarkable group of ladies discuss their honest impressions of the book, raise questions about the characters and speculate just what the author was thinking. It was as much fun, after Jean revealed that I was the author, to have the opportunity to answer their questions, explore the character’s motivations and actions and, gain insight into readers’ perceptions.

Thank you, Jean, and the entire book club for a great afternoon of conversation and commandery. I will definitely take you up on your offer to come back when Promise, the sequel to Provenance, is published in the fall of 2018.

Thank You MWA Carroll County Chapter!

~ Donna Drew Sawyer ~ 1 Comment

Maryland Writers’ Association’s Carroll County Chapter – Saturday, October 14, 2017

I spent a wonderful afternoon with members of the Carroll County Chapter of the Maryland Writers’ Association. Hosted by the Finksburg Branch of the Carroll County Public Library, we talked about “Crafting Characters that Take on a Life of Their Own.”  Thank you, Joelle Jarvis, president of the chapter, for the invitation, as well as everyone who came to hear me speak. I so appreciate your time and the warm and attentive reception you gave me.

Gratitude and Go On Girl!

~ Donna Drew Sawyer ~ Leave a comment

To: Donna Drew Sawyer, Author of Provenance: A Novel
Subject: “Provenance” has been selected for the Go On Girl Book Club reading list
It is our pleasure to inform you that your book, “Provenance” has been chosen as our May 2017 reading selection in our Novel category.

That email arrived last November, from the Reading List Chair and the Author Correspondent for the Go On Girl! Book Club. With over 30 chapters in 16 states from California to the Nation’s Capital, Go On Girl (GOG), is one of the largest national organizations dedicated to supporting African-American authors. Every year they choose just 12 authors to read, discuss, review and champion. This year I was honored to be one of them.

Throughout May and into June, I was lucky enough to sit in on GOG book club meetings with chapters from across the country, from California to Maryland/DC right in my backyard. College-educated African American women buy and read more books than any other demographic group and the women in GOG epitomize this audience of engaged and impressive women readers. It was such a joy to talk with them—as an author I gained insight into my writing and got to see firsthand how the characters and story I created resonates with readers. They all hated Charlotte, loved Hank and worried about Lance. They embraced the historical figures that I intertwined with my fictional characters and I was thrilled when several GOG readers told me they did additional research on Belle da Costa Greene and Eugene Bullard.

Me in my Go On Girl hat!

I thank all of the Go On Girl chapters across the country for reading my book and especially the chapters I was fortunate to talk with for sharing their enthusiasm about Provenance. A special thank you to everyone who wrote reviews on Amazon and Goodreads—those reviews are manna for an author.

My time as the Go On Girl Book Club reading selection has been an honor. Thank You!

FIVE WOMEN—Provocateurs and Touchstones

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Five Flowers by Mike Gabelman via Flickr

I started out to write a book about a man. By the time I finished my novel, Provenance, it had become the story of five women—distinctly different in age, outlook, and objective—and how they uniquely shaped their lives as they changed the life of one man. Mother, Grandmother, Caretaker, Counselor, Lover—these women became provocateurs and touchstones in the life my primary character, Lance Henry Withers. They also shaped me as a writer as I came to understand the complexity of each character and the role they played in the arc of Lance’s life. Several factors informed the actions of each woman in Provenance—when and where they lived, marital status, social restrictions, age and most importantly, aspirations. These were key in how each woman acted and reacted in a story that surprisingly – even to the author—gave them equal footing with the primary character.

I begin Provenance in the early 20th century and followed my characters through five decades—a period of remarkable change in the lives of the women in the book as well as women in the real world. My character, Charlotte, was born in 1881 with a burning ambition to change her circumstances and, the sobering fact that she needed the complicity of men to make her dreams reality. Maggie, Charlotte’s daughter and Lance’s mother, was the opposite of her mother. She sought dependence—first on her husband and then her son—suffering betrayal and loss that she was not equipped to deal with without a man. Del, who managed the Whitaker household, became a study in wisdom, determination, and dignity during a time and place, the 1930s in the segregated south, when these were attributes not afforded people of color. Belle, was a woman before her time. During the 1930’s to 50’s, she was as sexually and socially unconventional as she was independent, intelligent, and beautiful teaching Lance how to live fully and successfully. And Emma, who embraced the emerging independence of women in the 60s and 70s, taught Lance about true love, and how it thrives when a man and a woman are equals.

Five women—provocateurs and touchstones—who changed a life as they, and the world around them, changed.

What Happens to History When African American History Month is Over?

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Detail of Unsung Founders Memorial by Melinda Stuart via Flickr

I have very mixed feelings about National African American History Month, also called Black History Month, which is why I haven’t added posts to my blog during the month of February. Historian Carter G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History suggested the week that became the month of February’s annual observance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. Since the history of African-Americans has been the hidden and marginalized history of the United States of America, I believe there should be full integration of African-Americans in American history. I wonder if giving the history of African-Americans one month on the calendar and “American History” all year all the time, further marginalizes the important people, events, contributions and sacrifices February is supposed to celebrate.

Some say take the month and really celebrate; others say you can’t, in just a month’s time, celebrate or even tell how America became America on the backs of people who still struggle for respect and a fair share of her riches.  I raise these issues though I don’t pretend to have the definitive answer to this historical equity dilemma. What I choose to do is share what I know and what I find out about Black History in America—my history—throughout the year.

Belle da Costa Greene by Paul Cesar Helleu c. 1913

There is so much we don’t know about ourselves that even with one daily revelation, I doubt we’d ever run out of people, events, contributions and sacrifices to share. In just this past year, I wrote about Eugene Jacque Bullard, Maggie Lena Walker, Belle da Costa Greene and important places like Richmond’s Jackson Ward and Evergreen Cemetery, just from the research I uncovered while writing my novel, Provenance.

Detail of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial in Boston.

For Veterans Day I wrote about the military prowess of African-Americans in America’s fight for freedom—from the Revolutionary War to today. I rejoiced when Provenance was a finalist for the 2016 Phillis Wheatley Award because it was an honor to place in a competition that bears the name of the first published African American female writer.  I said goodbye to Barack Obama, a Black man and one of the greatest Presidents the United States has ever had.

All of these people, places, events, contributions, and sacrifices are too much history for a mere month, so I will continue to write about American history in all of its colorful glory when the spirit and history move me, be it February or any other month of the year.

Just Facts – Not the Alternative

~ Donna Drew Sawyer ~ 3 Comments

I am planning a series of posts for Black History Month but when I saw this and it had to take precedent. Thank you, Eunique Jones Gibson of Because of Them We Can for this gem. Who better to call out all of our adult nonsense than our children. Jones Gibson is a Bowie State University alum; my husband Dr. Granville Sawyer is a professor there. So proud of the vision and talent HBCU’s give to our country!