Candid Camera Photo of the Day #23

Donna in the booth at Brilliance Audio in Grand Haven Michigan where we spent a week recording the audio version of What Doesn't Kill You.

Can You Hear Us Now?

For those of you who like to listen--we have a few selections for you. We recently did two Blogtalk Radio shows--one with bestselling author and friend Donna Hill and the other with Tracey Ricks Foster. On both we talk about our process, our friendship, life and of course What Doesn't Kill You. And if you're of the audiobook persuasion, there is an excerpt of WDKY available as well! The listening links are below.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Tracey-Ricks-Foster/2009/01/04/The-African-American-Literary-Review

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Author-Donna-Hill/blog/2008/12/19/Donna-Grant-and-Virginia-Deberry

http://reseller.brillianceaudio.com/product.asp?AuthorId=491&Titleid=15852

How do YOU like it?

Reading your books that is.
Are you a diehard gotta hold the book in your hand reader?
Do you like to listen? If so what are you doing while you listen--driving? Exercising? Relaxing?
If you like to listen--what's your format of choice?
And as fellow blogger K.L. Pinson(myspace.com/klpinson ) asked the other day--what do you think of the new "EReaders" like Kindle?
We're curious--so let us know what you think...

Have you heard?

You can listen to an excerpt from the audio version of What Doesn't Kill You by clicking the link.
http://reseller.brillianceaudio.com/product.asp?AuthorId=491&Titleid=15852&=nl2

We recorded this book at the Brilliance Audio studios in Grand Haven, MI back in October. We alternate chapters, and this bit is Donna reading!

Gotta Keep on Tryin’ now in Paperback

We just got back from Grand Haven, MI where we were recording the audio for What Doesn't Kill You -Jan '09 (more on that to come)--but we wanted to make sure you know that voting isn’t the only thing you can do on Tuesday November 4—that’s the day that the paperback edition of Gotta Keep on Tryin’ hits the shelves of your local bookstore and the catalogs of your favorite online bookseller.

So if you didn’t get your copy last January when the hardcover was released (if you did, we thank you), and you’re looking for something to do while you’re waiting for the returns to come in, we hope you check it out!

Also, keep in mind it’s a great holiday gift for all the readers on your shopping list—especially if you know they read Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made and haven’t read the sequel yet. If you have friends, sisters, mamas, cousins or aunties who haven’t read that one either—you can make it a “twofer” since they’re both in paperback. And if you’ve already read Gotta, then you know all about the infamous Tiffani Alexander and her stylish, elegant TiffiBags, which are available at http://deberryandgrant.com —they’re perfect holiday gifts –especially with a book inside.

When you get a minute, check out the website (http://deberryandgrant.com) for a peek at the cover of What Doesn’t Kill You (January ’09). Look for lots more from us about What Doesn’t Kill You (including a contest), as well as the latest movie news (we’ve got things to tell you, but we have to keep our lips sealed, for now), in the next few weeks.

Vote as if your life depended on it—‘cause it does.

V&D

Interview--Gritsncheese.com

This is an audio interview we did with Monica from GritsnCheese.com. There are also interviews on her webiste with film director Bill Duke and former San Francisco Mayor, Willie Brown--along with many others!

Click here: Monica Medina w/ Virginia Deberry and Donna Grant

NYC Book Party at B. Smith's Restaurant

Guess what? --We're facing yet another deadline. Our review of the copyedited manuscript for What Doesn't Kill You (Jan. 2009) is due Monday--quiet as kept it was due today--but you know how that goes. And we won't have tomorrow because we're doing a book event at the Phillipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow, NY. So, instead of going out and enjoying the lovely springish day, we are pouring over the copyeditors notes. Is a comma better than a dash here? Do we mean Froot Loops Marshmallow or Froot Loops Marshmallow Blast? How do we feel about a semi colon after_____ --you get the picture. But we were really happy to find several places where she wrote "ha ha!" because it's hard to make a copyeditor laugh! We'll get a chance for another look at the manuscript in another month or so, but the more we deal with now, the better. All of which means that we're kinda blog deficient this week. Although our little riff on Spitzer-gate did spark some interesting comments both here, on MySpace and in emails we've received.

So what we have today is a few pictures from the 2/19 Book Party at B.Smith's in New York.

V&D Signing early in the evening

Laughing and talking with our friend and party host, Ed DeVeaux. Our co-producer Tracey Kemble is to DG's left.

Nobi and Tuesday, Editors of Jersey Woman Magazine.http://jerseywomanmag.com/ We have an interview coming soon!

With Monique DuBosz--our new friend from France

With our host!
Virginia with good friends Gus (right) and Walter
And who's hand is that?


Virginia and our friend Bernard Donna in the foreground with good friend Dorian Swain (in pink) the best party helper in the world! Two for two!! Thanks Dorian. And on the right, our friend and fellow author, (Crystelle Mourning) Eisa Ulen
Was it really that funny?
Virginia far left and Donna far right flank Donna's friends from FIRST GRADE!!!!
Donna with her high school friends Scott Edelman, Editor of SciFi Magazine and Lorraine

Donna and her Mom Gloria
Virginia, author Gigi James, Donna
Us with Madaline Sparks--who was one of the very first plus size models in the industry. She was already there when we showed up! Now she does the gardening column at Real Simple Magazine
Us
Us with our friend plus super model, Emme

With our co-producers from 4 Colored Girls Productions:Tyrha Lindsey & Tracey Kemble
Posing with fellow author (Playing by the Rules) and good friend Elaine Meryl Brown Having a good giggle with our buddy, actress Suzzanne Douglas--boy have we had some crazy, fun times together!
Fellow author Karen Siplin (His Insignificant Other, Whiskey Road -May 2008) and her husband Harris. A toast with our host!

Book Tour Part 2: Scenes from Southern California

At Eso Won Books in LA

Tabahani Book Circle Brunch at The Grand in Long Beach

More at Eso Won

At Borders in Torrance

At Eso Won

Signing and talking after our reading at Eso Won

Answering two questions at the same time at Borders!

Making their very own Ell Crawford dolls at the Tabahani Book Circle Brunch


With the members of Tabahani Book Circle--now these women put on a GREAT event!

Showing off their Ell creations
Virginia got in the act with her own Ell (Donna took the pic)
More dollmakers!

Book Tour Oakland-San Francisco Style!

We're cheating today and posting pictures from the Oakland-San Francisco leg of our book tour. We'll post more photos tomorrow! And remember to check us out on YOUTUBE.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=W7zB01MdqEE

Our quirky hotel room in San Francisco. We loved it!!!!








Young readers hanging out at the historic Marcus Books in Oakland.


Donna doing email in our hotel while we were in San Francisco


We honored to be the special guests for the 10th anniversary the Marcus Book Club.

Showing TiffiBags which will be available on our website February 15. (If you read Gotta Keep on Tryin', you know what a TiffiBag is!!)


V&D with Blanche Richardson owner of Marcus Books Oakland, a family business for 48 years. (There's a store in San Francisco too.)

BOOK TOUR DIARY JANUARY 24, 2008

Day one—5AM—nothing like leaving for book tour by starlight—it was clear and beautiful. We are grateful that our travels went smoothly. We left on time and arrived in San Francisco, not too much the worse for wear—well, Virginia needs Advil. Short seats, long legs and the guy in the seat in front of you leaning back like he’s at home in his La Z-Boy, are not a good match for six hours.

Our sad news—upon landing we found out that Karibu Books is closing.( Click here: Black Readers Are Jolted by a Chain's Demise - washingtonpost.com )We are STUNNED. We have always enjoyed visiting the stores in the DC-Maryland chain—their variety of books was impressive as was the knowledge of their staff—can’t believe we just used the past tense to describe them. We were looking forward to visiting with readers at their Bowie, MD store later in the book tour. This is quite a blow.

Meanwhile, back at San Francisco International Airport—we collected our luggage and went off to the rental car counter. Touchstone/Simon and Schuster rented us a car with GPS for our travels to Oakland (last night), then on to Sacramento (later today.) Well, they didn’t have a car with GPS so they gave us an SUV. Writers on the road in a truck—sounds like a comedy series. Virginia had the aching leg so Donna drove—she has never driven an SUV and neither of us ever used GPS. The car is talking to us, “Your turn is coming in .01 miles.” Could you tell us a little sooner!!! “You have missed your turn.” No kidding! After a few missteps we found our way out of the airport and into town.

And we had a great time at the Oakland branch of Marcus Books, with co-owner Blanche Richardson (her sister Karen is at the San Francisco store). Marcus Books is in it’s 48th year as a community fixture and is looking toward 50 years and beyond. We were honored to have been invited to be part of the 10th anniversary celebration for the Marcus Book Club. They originally formed around the publication of Tananarive Due’s My Soul to Keep, and they are still reading, opinionating and going strong. The When Sunday Comes Book Club from San Jose, CA and Turning Pages Book Club were also in the house. We had a great time—and we’ll post pics soon.

Day 2 begins!

Post Traumatic Deadline Stress Disorder

So the next book is done! Woohoo!! And in spite of the way we felt for the last couple of months, finishing What Doesn’t Kill You (which will be out in January ‘09) did not kill us!! It was, however, like having that G Force they talk about during space launches and insane rollercoaster rides, slam you to the wall. We are just five days past “The End” and still in the PTDSD (Post Traumatic Deadline Stress Disorder) phase—to which we have added, PTPSD (Post Traumatic Party Stress Disorder) because we didn’t have sense enough not to have a huge, blowout, Gotta Keep on Tryin’ Launch Party and book signing at one of our favorite restaurants on Monday—the same day we turned in the manuscript for the next book.

Which though not the way we planned it, is how it turned out. Originally we scheduled a week between ending one book and celebrating the other’s debut. But you may remember that we haven’t been doing so good with the planning thing lately. We worked on Thanksgiving because we PLANNED to take off Christmas. Ha! Then we worked on CHRISTMAS because we PLANNED to take off New Years Ha! And we worked New Years because we PLANNED to be done the next day. Ha! But the one thing you can’t plan is when the words come--even with a mean ol’ deadline cracking the whip. So we ended up a week late with the manuscript—and that’s how the two books collided.

Now this may not have been as stressful, anxiety-producing, nerve-wracking, inconvenient and insane-- if we were not also having a guy coming to make a web video of us on the very same day. “We want to do a video of you,” our publisher says several weeks ago. “Great!” we say. “It’ll be on simonsays.com (on Jan 23) and YouTube!” our publisher says. “Amazing!” we say. “We’d like to shoot the book signing, the party and we’d also like to get footage of you in your regular work environment,” the publisher says. “Perfect!” we say. BECAUSE we thought we’d have a week to clean up the office. In the last stages of the writing process it starts to resemble a landfill—the cumulative effect of months of “what lands on the floor stays on the floor” have become impossible to ignore and by the very end it’s pretty close to a toxic dump. We had no intentions of making it look “picture perfect” because as we’ve said before, when you see pictures of writers in pristine offices it’s gotta be fiction. But we didn’t want it to be a hazard either. So we end up with less than 24 hours to clean up 6 months worth of writing by-products and get ourselves spiffed up too. And while we might not have been in quite as bad a shape as the office—we still had a long, long road from flat to fluffy. Not only did we have to be clean—there was hair, nails, make up, two outfits each—well you know we couldn’t possibly wear the same thing for the “at work” segment as we did for the party. OK, well Donna could. Virginia could change clothes four times a day if allowed.

It was touch and go, but we made both the office and ourselves presentable. We had a great time with the videographer and a fantastic, stupendous signing and party (we’ll post pics in a few days—if our friends remember to send them to us—at the very least they’ll end up on the video and you know we’ll tell you when that’s up.) The show of support and love was genuinely overwhelming. A friend of Virginia’s said, “A person who receives so many hugs should live forever.”

But the next day, Tuesday, we were toast—soup—zombie-like. First challenge—remembering what day it was. Sounds easy? Not when your circuits are overloaded. Somehow we managed to get through the day without setting anything on fire, but speaking in complete sentences was a huge challenge –mainly because it’s hard to talk when you 1) can’t remember any words—what they mean or how to use them, and, 2) you can’t remember what you were going to say anyway. We tried to avoid all activities where we might inadvertently cause harm to others—like driving. “What does the red light stand for again?” Bad idea. Sleep is no refuge. There are psychedelic dreams—not entirely unpleasant, but really weird.

So we survived the day, and Tuesday night, retired to our separate rooms only to get up the next day and realize we’d left the patio slider open, (not unlocked—WIDE OPEN). Granted, it had no business being 66 degrees in New Jersey in January, but still, how did whichever one of us did it (because we don’t know) manage to close the drapes while ignoring the open door? Donna has recurring concerns about “the bad man” coming in. Virginia worries about skunks.

Luckily neither were interested in two brain-dead writers. Whew!

2008!!!! REALLY?

Weren’t we just partying like it’s 1999? How can it be 2008?!

Time can slip by so fast, it’s easy to let it slip through our fingers. For us, this last year has been so packed with great highs and tremendous challenges, it’s hard to believe it all happened in 365 days!

Well, we’re ready for the new year and excited about all of the possibilities. We’re eager to hear what readers think about Gotta Keep on Tryin’. We’re excited about working to get Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made, the Movie into production. We’ll also have more movie news—about another book to film project—for you in the coming year. And we’re both looking forward to some time to kick back—haven’t had any of that in quite a while.

We wish you a New Year that fulfills and inspires you, the good health and well being to enjoy it, and great friends and family to share it with! Bring on 2008!

LOOK & LISTEN

OK we went to a big fancy publishing industry cocktail party (hosted by Bertelsman--Literary Guild, Black Expressions, Book of the Month, Doubleday, etc.) in New York last night, then out to dinner with an old friend. We didn’t get in until the wee hours—on a WEDNESDAY night no less!! We acted like we were still young enough to stay out until 2 o’clock in the morning and be functional the next day. On top of that, Donna, who has been walking around (and partying) with a fishbone (from salmon steak on Tuesday) caught in her throat, needed a bit of emergency medical assistance this morning (the fishbone was successfully removed—think I’ll be eating soup for a little while). Needless to say, we’re a bit off schedule today and were scrambling to come up with a blog when our “inbox” brought great news we can share with you. A few weeks ago we blogged about our experience in the sound booth at Brilliance Audio in Michigan, recording the audio version of Gotta Keep on Tryin’. Well, they also did an interview which you can now listen to on their website: http://www.brillianceaudio.com/podcasts/ So today we have an audio blog---take a listen—let us know what you think!



In the soundbooth at Brilliance Audio

Halloween-Turning Pages Style

While we’re really different in a lot of ways, one common denominator—neither of us cares much for dressing up on Halloween (Virginia is fond of dressing up, pretty much every day, but she likes to go as herself). We didn’t let that stand in the way of our fun this past weekend when we attended Oakland, CA book club Turning Pages’ Halloween shindig.

The theme was “Dynamic Duos” and we were their guests, along with buddies and first time writer pairing Candice Dow and Daaimah Poole (who just turned in their manuscript for We Take This Man). Oaklander Mary B. Morrison ably represented the tandem of Morrison and Weber, who brought you She Ain’t the One (we hear He Ain’t the One is on the way) since New Yorker Carl Weber observes his own personal no-fly zone and California was a little far to drive over the weekend. Michelle McGriff was also solo, since sadly, her writing partner on The Legend of Morning, T.L. Gardner, had a death in the family.

The Turning Pages members were definitely in the spirit, and showed lots of creativity in dressing as their favorite duos. The Green Hornet and Kato, Nelson and Winnie Mandela (these members met at the book club and later married. Who said reading isn’t romantic?), and Count Blacula and his Mistress of Darkness among others (we’ve got lots of photos below). The big winners for the night were a round, brown Austin Powers and his very own Foxy Cleopatra. And we give props to book club co-founder Deborah Burton Johnson’s husband, who went along gamely as a last minute Fred Flintstone, big feet and all, after their Hugh Hefner and Playboy Bunny costumes got lost in the mail.

Daaimah and Candice were our very own Salt n Peppa. And after much consideration, we decided to come as each other. So, we started the evening with matching dresses and our own hair. Later, we snuck off for a ladies room break where we switched jewelry and donned wigs making Donna an instant blonde and giving Virginia a brown-haired flashback. Either our costumes were unsuccessful or too successful. It took people a while to figure out anything was different!

Even with all the fun, we had a chance to talk books. Each pair described how they write together, and no two were alike. The book conversation continued on Sunday when Candice and Daaimah met with We Turn Pages Too, the book club for 20 somethings. There is also Teens Turning Pages, Children Turning Pages, and Babies Turning Pages, because as the club motto states, Reading is For Everyone!

We have a great time when we get to meet with book clubs. We love to hear what you think and what you’re reading, and share what goes into our books, so we hope to see lots of book club members on our tour for Gotta Keep on Tryin’ (our schedule so far is posted on our October 18th blog and check our website at deberryandgrant.com for updates). We look forward to our brunch with Tabahani Book Club in Long Beach, CA. And please let us where you and your book club members are going to join us!

Turning Pages Dynamic Duos Halloween Party Pics

Fred Flintstone with his arms full of Salt 'n Peppa AKA Daaimah Poole and Candice Dow

The inimitable Mary Morrison came as...Mary Morrison with spider!




Stolen from the Las Vegas TV ad where the women switch wigs in the ladies' room--we came as each other!!

Wicked Witch of the West--don't you just love those stockings?!

Rockin' Royals--Cleo and Julius!!

Foxy and Austin at it again--you should have seen his teeth!

Raggedy Ann and Andy posing for the paparazzi--in their prize winning duds!




Marilyn and Wilma? No! It's Turning Pages Founders Taynay Matsumoto and Deborah Burton-Johnson lookin' fine!