Sunday’s book club chat with Maya and Zora Smart was all the motivation I needed to write my first blog post in years.
Talk about full circle moments.
Zora, 9, had no idea how much she inspired me to finish my debut novel, Malcolm and Me, which was released Nov. 17. I tried to tell her through tears that would not stop during a Zoom discussion where she and her mom took turns asking questions about the novel, my writing process and some of the book’s themes that we are dealing with today.
Here’s why I lost it: Maya was my business coach for a year after I was laid off from my newspaper job. We talked about much more than ways to create a living as a freelance writer. She knew my dreams, especially my desire to publish a novel about a strong Catholic girl pursuing truth at a time when the most important adults in her life have trouble telling it.
We worked together until Maya, now pregnant, decided to stop coaching. At that time she knew she was having a daughter, whom she’d name after the iconic African-American author, Zora Neale Hurston. Maya mailed me a beautiful note that ended with these words: “I am saving space on my daughter’s book shelf for your novel.”
Few words have affected me like those. But then, Maya is a wordsmith and a brilliant woman. What better inspirational message to give me than a reminder that I am not only writing for today’s readers, but for generations to come? What better validation that I had something worthwhile to say than Maya’s desire to someday share it with her daughter? Zora had not even made her own debut in the world when she started pushing me toward the finish line of my manuscript.
Over the years, Maya shared Zora’s birthday photos with me and I would promise that I’d finish my novel before Zora could read. As the years passed, I started panicking and vowed to finish the novel before Zora drove. It took so long because I didn’t outline it; I just wrote it from the heart. Also, I couldn’t find an agent or publisher.
That changed in 2019, when I won the She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing Contest. So it is with great relief Malcolm and Me is out now and Zora is 9, not 16! I am beyond elated that alongside Maya, Zora asked me questions and heard about her role in inspiring me to finish the book. Well, I hope she understood what I said in my trembly voice as I wept.
I was still trying to regain my composure when her father, Shaka, asked an excellent question. Life-affirming moments can so throw me off my game. But the very best moment? As we wrapped up the interview, a smiling Zora cradled my book to her cheek and I thought to myself: this long, winding journey — often delayed by doubt, procrastination and rejection –was so worth it.
Soon Maya’s book will be on my bookshelf. And I got a feeling, one day, Zora’s will be, too.
