I came across these books in my messy basement. They’re old Heartsong Presents titles that I read years ago, back when I was still in the Heartsong Presents book club. Although these books have African-American characters, the authors are Caucasian. I recall I enjoyed them back when I read them, and I thought the authors did a great job of portraying the African-American characters.
The reason I’m blogging about this is because I’m just expanding on what I blogged about a few days (or was it a week?) ago about Marilynn Griffith (an African-American Christian fiction author) writing a novel with Asian characters.
I feel it takes a fair amount of talent to write a novel having main characters of another race.
I’m planning on reading through my contract over the next day or so and get that in the mail to my publisher. Only reason I haven’t gotten to it yet is because of the line edits I had to do for my manuscript. I’ve sent that in. Hopefully I won’t have to read the book again, but we’ll see.
***Update added March 20, 2009. I don’t have this novel in my possession, but an email from a reader prompted me to update this post. Heartsong Presents also published a novel called Soft Beats My Heart by Aleesha Carter – this is a pen name for multi-published inspirational White romance author Loree Lough. Loree’s great! She helped me out with my writing when I submitted my novel to Steeple Hill Love Inspired years ago! I even mentioned her in the dedication!
Hi, I pray things go well with your writing. You’re right that there are some authors who can portray other races very well. I think it shows how much progress is being made. Thanks for this post. It reminds me of something my father used to say. “There won’t be a black heaven and a white heaven.” God bless you.
I read all 3 of those years ago… I wonder if writers who are able to create characters from another ethniticity have been able to see past our differences and see just how alike we all are? Barb C