Novelist B. Lynn Carter is here today and we’re chatting about her new women’s fiction (couched in speculation), Jus Breathe.
During her virtual book tour, B. Lynn will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!
Welcome, B. Lynn. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
Born and raised in the Bronx, I earned a BA in creative writing from The City College of New York. My debut novel Jus Breathe launched on October 11, 2022.
I’ve had short stories published in several literary magazines. My short story “One Wild Ride,” published by Aaduna magazine, was nominated for the Pushcart award in 2014. My short story “Las Sinverquenzas” is to be included in Querencia Press’ upcoming 2022 fall anthology. I’m pleased to announce that an excerpt from “The Eyes Have It,” my as yet unpublished novel, has just won the first-place prize in the fiction category of The Black Writers Workshop’s “Chapter One” competition.
Please tell us about your current release.
Their seesaw love affair started when she was five, though they didn’t meet until she was eighteen. It started the day her Daddy slurred, “She Ain’t mine. You dared to name her Dawn. Look at her! You shudda named her Midnight!” Then Daddy left . . . for good. And the loving music that had filled Dawn’s life went silent.
That’s when a “Midnight Black” Duckling appeared in Dawn’s mirror and invaded her chest, controlling her ability to breathe. “Leaving time,’ it was the last lesson that Daddy ever taught Dawn.”
Couched in speculation, “Jus Breathe” is about Dawn’s journey to defy her inner “Duckling” and embrace her true self. Set in New York City during the turbulent sixties, it’s an improbable love story with precarious impulses, secret pasts, and inner demons.
Dawn, a survivor, flees her stepfather’s violent home. Struggling to attend college, she lives like a nomad, sofa-surfing and employing her “superpower,” her uncanny ability to recognize and act upon ‘leaving time’ when it, inevitably, came around.
But in the mist of the uprising that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, serendipity spins Dawn into Danny’s rollercoaster world.
Toxically in love, no longer able to summon her ‘superpower,’ Dawn comes to suspect that Danny has allied with the Duckling. If she is to survive, she must find a way to leave Danny. But that Duckling who threatens to squeeze the life-breath from her if she dares, that ugly, midnight-black Duckling . . . she has to kill.
What inspired you to write this book?
This is the second full length novel that I’ve written. The first was a piece about two women’s struggle with friendship verses the premise that “business is business.” Like this book, there were some paranormal and speculative elements. Not to mention that the characters took off, taking the book into previously unintended directions. Though the book was well received by my writing peers, I felt it had very little to do with me. The old saying ‘write what you know,’ inspired me to write this book.
I decided to write a book set on the CCNY campus, in the late 60’s when I attended college there. I’d intended to write a straight-forward retelling of events that I experienced during that time. There was not to be a girl who was traumatized into a “dark skinned complex” by her father. But when the name ‘Dawn’ popped into my head, the rest went on autopilot. I had found a conflict to drive the story, something for my protagonist to overcome. That’s how the theme of the book emerged.
Dawn needed to find a way to defeat the ugly, black creature that tortured her in the mirror and ruled her by controlling her ability to breathe. She had to kill it before it found a way to kill her. With the clock ticking, this would be the only way that she would be able to exist in the world, comfortable in her own skin.
Excerpt from Jus Breathe:
[Here Dawn is caught in the middle of the uprising that followed the assignation of MLK]
I looked up to see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding large snorting animals, bearing down on me. I swiveled and dodged; everyone swiveled and dodged. Momentarily, I understood they were mounted police, clearing the streets, herding folks like cattle. A collective shriek went up as the horseman headed into the crowd, continuing past me up 125th Street then turning and storming back in my direction. Overhead, the thunder of a helicopter rumbled the air. Its blinding floodlights targeting the, would be, insurrectionists.
Suddenly the police were everywhere, chasing down the panicking mob. I turned to run. Being pulled along with the crowd, I could not muscle my way back to the safety of the building. Clearly unreliable, ‘Outside Me’ didn’t step in to take my hand and show me the way. That’s when I felt the impact. Someone had shoved me from behind and I was falling forward, unbalanced, out of control, arms flailing, grasping as though thin air could somehow support me.
Terrified, I went down hard. Pain shot through my wrists and knees. There was a low ache in my ankle, which had twisted underneath me. People were running past me, jumping over me. I couldn’t get up. I tried to hunker down, covering my head with my arms. I felt kicks and blows as panicking people fled, trying not to trip over me. I heard the sound of hoof beats in the distance, closing in fast. My heart raged into a gallop. My lungs contracted . . . Jus breathe!
What exciting story are you working on next?
With regard to a new project, I’m in thinking mode. I have two competing ideas in my head, but I can’t get a firm grasp on either one at the moment. What I need is the first sentence. Once I have the first sentence, I’m on my way. That first sentence will be the forerunner to a series of ‘shitty first drafts’ that will need to be rethought and redone and figured out. Actually, that is the fun part.
For now, I’m planning to put my efforts into getting “The Eyes Have It,” the last , as yet unpublished, book that I’ve written. The first twenty pages of “The Eyes Have It” just won first place for fiction in “Chapter One,” The Black Writer’s Workshop’s, writing competition. So, I’m feeling encouraged.
Here’s the synopsis:
Eighteen-year-old Ari Dejerian, who grew up in a South Bronx ‘hood,’ is trapped in his comatose body and time’s running out. With the help of Zula, a gypsy occultist, he time-travels back through his life. As a ’virtual entity,’ he connects with, and actually becomes the narrator for, his younger self in order to recover memories that have been lost in his comatose haze. Ari must alter the events that put him in that hospital bed. He must set things right. Failing this, he knows, he’ll never wake up. But his world is turned inside out when he is stunned to find himself embroiled in red flaring wrath and embracing white supremacy.
Seventeen-year-old Grace Foster who, since the age of five, has lived a privileged life as the adopted daughter of an affluent Black family, is left with no choice but to return to the ‘hood,’ and live with her birthmother, a recovering addict. There, in the viscous silence that gels between she and her mother, Grace has the gnawing feeling that something is missing, that someone is gone, is gone for good, and somehow she is to blame.
Ari is white. Grace is Black. Even before they meet in the hood, they have things in common. Aside from, the coincidence of unique, identical ‘multicolored’ eyes, they both have deeply suppressed memories, and secrets. Acknowledging their respective secrets is inevitable, sharing them, may be perilous.
The serendipity that brings them together could prove fatal . . . for both of them.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I’ve always written. At the age of five I’d write stories for my mother, starting from the bottom right side of the page and progressing to the upper left side of the page. So yes, I was writing stories even before I knew how it was done. In middle and high school, I belonged to the creative writers clubs. In college I majored in creative writing. I got a degree in 1972 but didn’t begin writing in earnest until 2010 when I retired from being a special education teacher, in Fannie Lou Hamer High School, a small school that my husband and I and six other people co-founded in 1994. I’m pleased to say that the school is still going strong, there in the South Bronx, where I grew-up.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I am able to write full time, if I’m so inspired, because I’m retired. When I’m working on a new writing project, it’s not unusual for me to devote eight to ten hours a day.
Now however, I’m in ‘thinking mode,’ waiting for inspiration. I need that elusive first sentence to strike me before I can start. It’s coming soon. I can feel it.
In the meantime, I’m spending a lot of time answering questionnaires for blog tours, figuring out websites and author’s pages and what-all I need to do to promote Jus Breathe. Also, I need to figure-out what I should do with my other two books.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
The idea that I can’t get going on a project until the first sentence comes to me, may be considered a writing quirk… maybe. But I think my most interesting writing quirk is the fact that I’ll start writing with one idea in mind but my characters may have another idea and I’ve learned that I do well when I let them have their way . . . There, I said it!
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a teacher. And I became a teacher, no small feat for a little girl from the Bronx. I always liked writing. The ability to use words to project the thoughts and images in my head, straight into someone else’s head, struck me as a superpower, akin to mental telepathy. One that came easily for me. Still I never considered writing would be something that would earn me a living, never thought I was that good. I think so now. Just goes to show, if you keep plugging away at that impossible dream, no matter how long it takes, it could happen.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
For a long time I carefully hid my age from potential agents and publishers. But now I think that young people can look at me and know it is never too late to go after their dreams.
This, and I’d also like to reveal a little fear that lives in the back of my mind, (because it’s so easy to express it on the page.) I worry that ageism might taint readers opinion of my work. So, there’s that.
Links:
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Thanks for hosting!
Sounds like a good book.
I want to thank Lisa Haselton for hosting this tour.
Sherry, judging by recents accounts, I can humbly say that, it is a good book. I’m thrilled by the positive reception that the book is getting. I hope you decide to check it out.