Lisa Braxton: My Publication Journey
July 2017
Congratulations, Lisa! We’d like to publish The Talking Drum. I shared your manuscript with our board of directors and they thought it was fabulous. And I do too. Let me know if this lovely story is still available. If so, I’ll send you a contract and marketing questionnaire. We’ll schedule your book for our fall 2019 launch.
Very truly yours,
Editor in Chief
Inanna Publication
My husband was driving us back to Massachusetts from the Montreal Jazz Festival when I received that email on my iPhone. I read it over and repeatedly. When I was fairly sure I wasn’t imagining it, I shared it with him. We were elated.
I had spent four years crafting my first novel, another seven revising it as I tried to get it published. I pitched it to literary agents, cornered small press publishers at conference panel discussions with my elevator speech, entered debut novel contests, enrolled in an all-day workshop on crafting an effective query letter, and spent weeks afterward honing it. I got rejections, a few nibbles of interest and more rejections. I shed a lot of tears and took a break.
Once I felt I’d recovered enough to continue my effort, I registered for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference held in Washington D.C. in early 2017 to meet with more small press publishers to “talk up” The Talking Drum. I’m glad I did. That’s where I met the editor from Inanna Publications.
It wasn’t long after that car ride back from Montreal that I laid out my pre-publication plan. I secured a publicist to coordinate publicity with the marketing director at Inanna. Between the two of them, they scheduled in-person events from me at three bookstores. I hired a co-worker who was a professional photographer to take my headshots, created a countdown to publication series of blog posts on my website, made a copy of the mock-up of the book’s cover, framed it, and brought it to work. My boss was so excited for me that she displayed it in our office in a highly trafficked common area near where co-workers took coffee breaks.
I got so many questions about my book that I decided to meet with one of the staff conference planners to organize a company-wide event for the 300-plus employees.
I’d finally made it. The dream I’d had since childhood to become a novelist, which I had shared with my parents since I learned how to read, was becoming a reality.
I saw myself crossing the threshold into a different life, one that was carefree, filled with book signings and author events, unfettered from everyday challenges. But reality disabused me of those notions. In the years since I received that email, I learned that life doesn’t take a vacation just because your book is being published.
In late 2018 I got the dreaded letter in the mail requesting that I re-take my mammogram. Irregularities were seen on the films. Months later and after many more tests, I was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. Among other concerns, I wondered if I’d live long enough to see The Talking Drum published.
Within weeks of my diagnosis my 82-year-old mother collapsed at home and was rushed to the hospital. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Stage 3C. Mom and I had our surgeries within weeks of each other. While continuing to work at my job and recovering from surgery, I would drive the two states away to see mom through rehab, additional surgery, and chemo treatments, while running errands for dad, age 87, who we’d had to hide the car keys from. He was becoming more difficult because of his Parkinson’s disease and dementia.
With a dizzying array of matters to manage, I hadn’t been in contact with the editor at Inanna as much as I would have liked. When I reached her, she told me that my book had been delayed because of budgeting issues. Some book contracts had been canceled as a result. Mine was still on track, she said, moved from fall 2019 to a spring 2020 launch. I said a prayer and crossed my fingers that The Talking Drum would still be published.
Then one day at work in February 2020, my boss scheduled a meeting with me. I thought it odd that she invited me into the conference room—normally we met in her office—but brushed off my concern. In a shaky voice she said she had to eliminate my position because of budget cuts. She assured me that I wasn’t the only person being laid off, there were at least 10 others. She told me that I had done a stellar job and she was sorry to see me go.
I was stunned. I had worked for that nonprofit for 16 years. Over the next several days I packed my belongings, including the framed book cover that had been on display for months. I canceled plans to meet with the event planner and passed out post cards with information about The Talking Drum to my co-workers, hoping they’d find their way to my website once the book was published and purchase a copy.
Weeks later came the COVID shutdown. When I got the notices that my events at the three bookstores were canceled, I was disappointed but understood the importance of social isolating.
The rescheduled date for The Talking Drum held. The book was published in May of 2020. Mom passed away five months later. My sister and I tried to convince our father to move into a facility with 24-hour care, but he refused. Since we lived too far away to check on him on a regular basis, we arranged for neighbors to look in on him. He caught COVID, we’re pretty sure, from one of the neighbors. He was hospitalized for weeks, and, thank goodness, recovered.
Looking back on my publication journey, I feel battle weary. But I find joy in remembering the small but special moments: my mother getting on the phone while in her sick bed, convincing her club sisters and fellow church members to buy a copy of The Talking Drum; my father proudly telling me he had read to page 36, which I felt was quite an accomplishment considering his dementia; suspense novelist Hallie Ephron hosting me for my virtual book launch sponsored by a local bookstore; my hometown newspaper writing a half-page feature article on me; and my 5th grade teacher walking into a Barnes & Noble to order a copy of The Talking Drum.
The day I received that email from the editor at Inanna Publications was the beginning of one of the most challenging periods of my life. The love that my family, friends, and community surrounded me with kept me going through the joy and heartbreak.
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Lisa Braxton bio
Lisa Braxton is the author of the novel, The Talking Drum, winner of a 2021 Independent Publisher (IPPY) Book Awards Gold Medal, overall winner of Shelf Unbound book review magazine’s 2020 Independently Published Book Award, winner of a 2020 Outstanding Literary Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, and a Finalist for the International Book Awards. She is an Emmy-nominated former television journalist, an essayist and short story writer.
THE TALKING DRUM
Displacement/gentrification has been going on for generations, yet few novels have been written with the themes of gentrification, which makes this book unusual
Sydney Stallworth steps away from her fellowship and law studies at an elite university to support husband Malachi’s dream of opening a business in the heart of the black community of his hometown, Bellport.
For Omar Bassari, an immigrant from Senegal, Bellport is where he will establish his drumming career and the launching pad from which he will spread African culture across the world, while trying to hold onto his marriage.
Della Tolliver has built a fragile sanctuary in Bellport for herself, boyfriend Kwamé Rodriguez, and daughter Jasmine, a troubled child prone to nightmares and outbursts.
Tensions rise as the demolition date moves closer, plans for gentrification are laid out, and the pace of suspicious fires picks up. The residents find themselves at odds with a political system manipulating their lives and question the future of their relationships.
The Talking Drum explores intra-racial, class, and cross-cultural tensions, along with the meaning of community and belonging.
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing
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