Meet author Lisa Braxton, who is visiting us on her WOW! Women on Writing virtual book tour. Lisa’s lyrical memoir about grief – Dancing Between the Raindrops – will make you want to hold on to your loved ones and protect their memories for your lifetime. She also assures you, you are not alone.
Lisa has also written an essay for Choices about how a writing group saved her manuscript. We all need to listen to that.
Here’s Lisa:
My Writing Group Saved My Manuscript
by Lisa Braxton
Since childhood I knew I wanted to write a novel. I’d curl up with my copy of Little Women or Charlotte’s Web and dream of creating stories of my own. But I wasn’t able to begin the work of fulfilling my dream until many decades later. My career in journalism helped me learn the fundamentals of writing a story, how writing doesn’t really begin until rewriting, and the importance of a good editor making a story even better.
But journalism was all consuming. As a reporter covering stories about missing children, murders, tragic accidents and severe weather events, I had little time or mental energy left for creative writing.
All that changed once I concluded my journalism career. I enrolled in a low residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University and wrote my novel within the two years required to get my degree, then sent out sample pages to agents. The rejections rolled in. I did revisions. The rejections continued to roll in. Seven years after completing my manuscript I made my pitch to a literary agent I met at a Women’s National Book Association Boston gathering. She was encouraging. I was jubilant. I thought I had crossed the threshold from an aspiring novelist to a soon-to-be published novelist.
The agent spent months working with me on revisions. But ultimately, she turned it down, stating that it needed more work. I was devastated. I told my husband, who is also a writer, that I would toss my manuscript out, start over with a new story with different characters and themes. He advised me to his “pause.” He suggested that I look for a writing group. He thought I should get support and feedback from my peers before looking at next steps. He thought I should get out of my own head and find out what a sizable group of literary types thought.
I went to Meetup.com and found the South Shore Scribes, a group of writers who met weekly at the local library. They included playwrights, horror writers, poets, short story writers and novelists.
Each week I presented seven to 10 pages of my manuscript. I got excellent feedback. The group reassured me that my story was compelling. They looked forward to each week’s sample pages. They thought my story had narrative drive. They felt invested in my characters. They also gave detailed suggestions for revisions.
Their feedback convinced me to keep at it, which led me to eventually getting my novel, The Talking Drum, published by Inanna Publications, a women’s press, in Toronto.
I’ve since moved on from the group but hear from the members every so often on social media. I’ve also seen some of them at literary events. They congratulate me on getting published and tell me how proud they are of me. I’m glad I didn’t give up.
***
Book Summary
Dancing Between the Raindrops: A Daughter’s Reflections on Love and Loss, is a powerful meditation on grief, a deeply personal mosaic of a daughter’s remembrances of beautiful, challenging and heartbreaking moments of life with her family. It speaks to anyone who has lost a loved one and is trying to navigate the world without them while coming to terms with complicated emotions.
Lisa Braxton’s parents died within two years of each other—her mother from ovarian cancer, her father from prostate cancer. While caring for her mother she was stunned to find out that she, herself, had a life-threatening illness—breast cancer.
In this intimate, lyrical memoir-in-essays, Lisa Braxton takes us to the core of her loss and extends a lifeline of comfort to anyone who needs to be reminded that in their grief they are not alone.
Publisher: Sea Crow Press
Print length: 158 pages
Purchase a copy of Dancing Between the Raindrops on
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Between-Raindrops-Daughters-Reflections/dp/1961864088/
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dancing-between-the-raindrops-lisa-braxton/1144935014?ean=9781961864085
You can also add this to your GoodReads reading list:
About the Author
Lisa Braxton is the author of the novel, The Talking Drum, winner of a 2021 Independent Publisher (IPPY) Book Awards Gold Medal, overall winner of Shelf Unbound book review magazine’s 2020 Independently Published Book Award, and winner of a 2020 Outstanding Literary Award from the National Association of Black Journalists and a Finalist for the International Book Awards. She is also an Emmy-nominated former television journalist, an essayist, and short story writer.
She is on the executive board of the Writers Room of Boston and a writing instructor at Grub Street Boston, and currently serves as President of the Greater Boston Section of the National Council of Negro Women and is a member of the Psi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
You can follow the author at:
Website: https://lisabraxton.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.a.braxton/
Twitter: @Lisaannbraxton OR @LisaReidbraxton
Instagram: @lisabraxton6186
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisabraxton/
Speak Your Mind