
Hear the show:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/chocolatepage... With five novels to their credit, Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant, best friends for 25 years, have turned a friendship into the most successful and enduring writing collaboration in African American fiction.
Donna and Virginia first met as plus size models vying for the same assignments. They were both featured in catalogs, ads, magazines and made national television appearances. Their modeling careers led to the opportunity to launch Maxima, a fashion and lifestyle magazine for plus-size women, where Virginia was editor-in-chief and Donna the managing editor. When publication of Maxima ceased, Virginia and Donna decided to try writing a book together.
The result, Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made, was a critical success, an Essence Bestseller, as are all three of their books, and won the Merit Award for Fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, as well as the 1998 Book of the Year Award from the Blackboard Bestseller List/African American Booksellers Conference-Book Expo America. More than that, it hit an emotional nerve with tens of thousands of readers from all over the world who continue to write to Virginia and Donna nine years after the book's publication.
Far From the Tree became a New York Times Bestseller, and Better Than I Know Myself received two Open Book Awards, and been included on the Best African American Fiction of 2004 lists of both Borders and WaldenBooks.
See the video:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m3M... Visit Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant at
http://www.deberryandgrant.com http://twitter.com/deberryandgrant http://myspace.com/twomindsfull http://twomindsfull.blogspot.com
Posted By: Pam Perry
Thursday, June 18th 2009 at 7:27PM
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