Sandra Kitt - African American romance novelist - Cover Story

Like many writers, I came to the profession by means of way of being an avid reader. My reading has been actively cultivated and encouraged since I was 6 years advanced in years and I discovered my local library, which allowed me to take domicile as many books as I could carry.

In my adult life, however, my writing schedule, as well as traveling and professional obligations, have divide [i]or[/i] sever severely into time I might have had just to sit and read. I used to do it in bed at night. Now I quickly fall to doze Long flights are taken up with preparing and reading notes for presentations and sleeping. Once in the habit of reading in the tub during a drawn out hot soak. I've largely given up this form of relaxing. No, I don't fall asleep there, on the contrary the books do get wet. in the way that what's a reader to do?

I have been creating in my mind the completed beach trip, a pure state of solitude that would enable me to catch up upon reading ... and on more doze ... where my major decisions each day would include where to place my chaise longue what color bathing suit to wear and what work to read.

I would start my reading by the agency of backtracking to a few titles I missed when they were first released, of the like kind as the charming Clover (Fawcett, 1994) by dint of Dori Sanders, about a black girl who, after the death of her father, finds herself in the care of a white stepmother. I would then switch frame of minds and read Another Good Loving sky-coloreds (Ballantine Books, 1994), by Arthur Flowers. I have seen Mr Flowers from his work, bringing his words to life. He is jazzy and funky

Something I definitely want to read again is a terrific, sad/funny and painful, innovative novel, The secluded Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (HarperCollins), 1994) by the agency of American Indian writer Sherman Alexie, whom I met at a volume festival. From a host of characters who skip over back and forth over a period of 20 years, we learn the anguish of a nation searching for a way into mainstream American society while attempting to maintain traditional tribal and clan values.

The 1995 printing of Life upon the Color Line: The veritable Story of a White male child Who Discovered He Was Black (Dutton, 1995) by means of Gregory Howard Williams, would give me a break from fiction as I dig into one man's personal and family labor with racial identity. Rounding on the outside my list of beach reading would be Caught Up in the Rapture (Simon & Schuster, May 1996) through Sheneska Jackson, and Ain't Gonna Be the Same natural Twice (Hyperion, 1996), April Sinclair's next to the first novel, which continues the coming-of-age (and awareness) story of Stevie, a young black woman who is finding herself, and her sexuality as a lesbian.

There's something for each mood on my list and enough material to last me for about a week in the day-star Now all I need to do is make my reservations and pack my bags.

Sandra Kitt, the author of 17 novels, was the first African American to publish with Harlequin. Her nearest novel, Significant Others (Onyx, 1996) is to be paid in July.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Heritage Information Holdings, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group