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September/October 2002

A Chat With Author Tracy Price-Thompson (cont'd)

TPT: Tons of feedback from military readers. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines have written to me to express their pleasure with Black Coffee. They are ecstatic that there is finally a novel out there dedicated to them that tells their stories and pays homage to their sacrifices. I am currently touring many military bases in the United States and being received and welcomed with open, grateful arms.

AR: A few things I quickly marveled at about the book were the emphasis you placed on the intimacy of family, and the importance of making good choices in life for maximal effect. Would you care to talk more on this? Was it coincidental or was it part of message you wanted to impart?

TPT: The intimacy of family is something very important to me, and yes, this was one of the messages I intended to impart in Black Coffee. However, the message was embedded in this military framework because I wanted my reader to understand how tough it can be living and working in a military environment where your blood family is often hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. The average civilian cannot even fathom what it feels like to pack up and move every other year to a different part of the country, or worse yet, what it feels like to be given a 72-hour notice to leave your children and pack up and deploy to far corners of the globe. To military members, family connections are critical and they often rely on family members to care for their children during times of deployment. I wanted the mothers and fathers out there to briefly feel the confliction that military parents experience on an ongoing basis.

AR: You know, I spent quite a few years in myself and as I read the book it dawned on me how much I missed or identified myself with the characters Sanderella and Rom. How were you able to give each of them their flavor? Do you use a certain criterion to create your characters?

TPT: I am one of those writers who simply allows the characters to speak through me. Quite often they do or say things that I would never even imagine myself doing or saying, but as their medium, or their vehicle, I attempt to stay true to their flavor. Sandie’s character spoke to me loud and clear. She was a sister who needed to be heard. Rom was a man I actually felt in my bones. Although I didn’t agree with many of his actions, I certainly felt his pain. Felt both of their pain. Writing Black Coffee made me experience a gauntlet of emotions and I almost feel as though the characters created themselves and simply spoke through me.

AR: Your military career must have been an exciting time for you, especially having experienced being an enlistee and transitioning over as an officer, but how did you find the time to write?

TPT: Barely! I really began writing in earnest at about the time I decided to retire. After serving in ranks from private to staff sergeant promotable and then in the Officer Corp where I made the captain’s list, I had a wealth of experiences to choose from. Because I was in a down-shift short-timer mode when I began my writing career, I was able to find pockets of time, mostly late at night, where I’d write for hours on end.

TPT: I don’t believe in writer’s block. It doesn’t exist, as far as I am concerned. That is just a negative term that folks throw around to stunt your growth. If you let that concept into your psyche you will be vulnerable to all kinds of stagnation in your work. I can always find something to write. It may not always be good writing, but my creativity does not get tapped out like that. My muse is strong and powerful and can slay and defeat any creeping doubts that might try to shut out my writer’s voice.

AR: Who is Melody Guy and what role has she played in your short publishing life?

TPT: Melody Guy is my editor at Random House imprint Strivers Row, and from day one she believed in my work and supported my efforts. Melody is one of those rare editors who allows her writers a great deal of creative freedom, probably because she is able to recognize and understand that each of us are writing on different levels, according to our own abilities. She has the knack of keeping herself out of the story and being there as a guide and a mentor with a style likened to that of a velvet whip: gentle and soothing, but highly effective.

AR: In my opinion your writing style borders on the fine edges of colloquialism and the good usage of metaphor. Did you, or do you pattern yourself after someone you admired? I guess I'm trying to ascertain are there any thing you want to share that has enhanced how you write?

TPT: I believe we are all products of our experiences, and I’m sure I have soaked in and retained some of the flavor of great writers I respect and admire. I don’t think I have tried to emulate any particular writer, but when writing Black Coffee I was highly inspired by Terry McMillan’s Disappearing Acts, as well as Lolita Files’s Scenes From a Sistah. These days I am having this sort of spiritual muse-like connection in my writing with Gloria Naylor and Sandra Jackson Opoku. My greatest asset, however, has been my willingness to study writing in all forms and to apply what I learn to my own work.

TPT: Yes, I like to think so. I have been truly blessed with great writing friends and mentors who have been selfless and kind beyond comparison. Here lately, though, I have felt a few knives sliding in my back, but only by writers, or wanna be writers, who have failed to develop their own work and reach their own potential. The real writing pros understand that by raising the bar on writing it ultimately helps all of us. Readers don’t read just one book a year. There is always room at the table for another good writer, and it is up to us to scoot our chairs over and set out another placemat for those who are emerging on the literary scene.

TPT: In addition to being an awesome writer, Timm had been an ever-present mentor and true friend. Never will you find a more selfless and giving writer. 90% of all doors that were opened to me were opened by the efforts and steam of Timmothy McCann. I have heard several other authors speak of him in similar terms. Timm makes it his business to assist new authors in any way possible, and I owe him so much. As such, I follow his positive example and do my best to mentor and assist other writers in a similar fashion.

AR: How were you able to use Djana Pearson Morris as your agent?

TPT: Djana actually found me. A mutual friend told her about my self-publishing successes with Black Coffee and she solicited me. I have the very best agent in the world in that she believes in my writing and has firm future goals for my career. She is experienced, responsive, and very well connected in literary circles. I couldn’t be happier with my representation

Interview Continued