Taking time to give back…

To those of you who know me personally, know I think nothing when it comes to giving back to my community.

To those of you who do not know me, I own and operate a company called Seattle Crystal Concierge and thru my company I donate heavily to The Girl Scouts, The Susan G. Komen for the cure, Girls Inc, UNIFEM, local domestic violence shelters in the Seattle area and Operation Homefront.

I just got home and recv’d an email from a client telling me about an organization called “Girls Right Now” she was explaining in her email that because I tend to help organizations geared towards girls and women thru Seattle Crystal Concierge that now I might be able help girls as a writer.

This is kinda big deal. From the very beginning I’ve always, always, always written about and will continue to write within the horror and sci-fi genres. When I was just a little girl everything I read was written by a white male, before I started my business and I was working on ships and as a diesel mechanic I was surrounded by white males…I really didn’t know anything else.

The book that had the most profound effect on me was a little book called Fledgling written by an author you may have heard of named Octavia E. Butler and I didn’t read that book until I was in my late 20’s. It was the 1st time I’d ever read a story where the main character looked like me, who talked like me and the author looked like me and the 1st female writer that wrote like me. (Calm down, my delusions of grandeur is not so far off the Richter scale that I believe that I’m as a phenomenal writer as Octavia Butler. My point is we both write in the same genre)

Before I read Fledgling I was always editing The Darkness to what I thought would be a good fit for “the mainstream readership” i.e. white male readership, but when I was finished I found other writers like me authors like Tananarive Due, L.A. Banks, and and then I found a copy of Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora on a Seattle Public Metro Bus and nearly lost my mind…it was like finding the Holy Grail!

I undid the edits I had made. It was no secret that both my main characters in The Darkness are women…what I was editing was that both of them are black. I wrote The Dakness they way I wanted to with characters who look like me...and now I'm being published.

Do I still read books from white males...Heck yeah I do! Stephen King, and Dean Koontz are still the love of my reading life, but I have to admit I've been flirting with the books by Scott Sigler and one way or another I'm getting Patricia Briggs' autograph...but being true to myself and my writing was the best thing I've ever done.

I’m going to do what ever I can to support and bring awareness to Girls Wright Now, I have a photo shoot and an interview that will be taped schl’d for next month, and I’ll be wearing a Girls Write Now t-shirt for both events, there is a link to their site from my blog…and I’ll be donating $1.00 from my 1st 100 book sales to Girls Write Now.