Still Writing After All These Years by Chamein Canton

Although I played with dolls and watched Disney Fairytales like Cinderella and Snow White, I never gave much thought to Prince Charming. In fact, my views on becoming a woman, relationships, and love were shaped by writers such as Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Judy Blume, and many other classic and modern female authors. These women were fearless in the way they sought to define themselves as women, in their own words.

Another aspect of writing has to do with growth. As children, we are sent off to school in pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment through higher education. However, I’ve found that while school taught me how to write, my range has grown and changed as I’ve gotten older. I suppose it can be said it’s the reason I got into publishing as both an author and an agent.

On the author side of life, I got lucky pretty early on. My first major work to be published was nonfiction, Down That Aisle In Style, A Wedding Guide For Full Figured Brides was released in 2006. The book was born out of a love for everything wedding and the notebook of tips from my wedding planning business. I had an independent publisher who was a dream to work with.  I appeared on news segments in New York, and then nationally on Entertainment Tonight. They supported me fully and had big plans. Unfortunately, the Great Recession was beginning, and the funding they secured, disappeared.  Sadly, they had to close their doors.

Fortunately, the fictional side of being an author began to pay off in 2007 with the release of Not His Type. The premise was simple. What would happen if a major baseball superstar fell for a plus-size, forty-something, divorced mother who was for all intents and purposes, Not His Type. Although, I never considered myself to be a romance writer per se. Conversely, chick-lit was fiction that concentrated on the lives of twenty and thirty-something women. Nevertheless, I was honored and humbled when it received the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for best African American Romance in 2007. I went on to publish five more titles, Bliss, The More Things Change, Waiting For Mr. Darcy, Mixed Reality, and I Take This Woman with Genesis Press (now-defunct). North of Forty was released in 2015 with Etopia Press as an e-book. I developed a fanbase that I stay connected with on Facebook, Instagram, and now TikTok.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly seven years since my last book was traditionally published. I’ve stayed busy as both a writer and an agent in the publishing industry. While change is the one constant we can all depend on, not all change is good. Women’s fiction is as popular as ever, but trying to get your foot in the door is very difficult. Competition has always been fierce. However, a good story isn’t enough to push you over the finish line. Authors need a platform that includes social media and a website. Branding wasn’t a thing when my first book was released. Now it’s everything, and it presents a challenge to those of us who aren’t as technically savvy as we’d like to be.

Granted, I’ve always felt that authors should be proactive when it comes to promoting their work and most writers don’t have a problem with it. Unfortunately, it seems like it’s become a case of putting the cart before the horse. Writers have to be ready to promote well before they’re offered a publishing contract, and still, that might not be enough. Add fiction written by Hollywood celebrities, reality television stars, politicians, and talk show hosts who are also north of forty-plus, and it becomes harder for even established north of forty-plus authors to get noticed, even though forty is the age when many of us begin to hit our stride.

As for me, I didn’t have a mid-life crisis. There were no more PTA meetings, orchestra performances, summer camp, school vacations, marching band competitions, extracurricular sports, or the sound of my sons on their PlayStation. My time became my own again, and I reconnected with the woman I was before I became a divorced mother. More importantly, my writing evolved to explore themes such as independence, fidelity, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Then as I closed in on fifty, other issues like, menopause, the otherhood (parenting adults), and aging parents got thrown into the mix. I try not to be heavy-handed with topics. To me, novels can strike an emotional cord and tickle the funny bone, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Then there’s the matter of body positivity. Eating right, exercising, and getting enough rest are important to living a healthy life. However, the main characters in my novels have always been curvy. I want women to love themselves in the skin they’re in. Our emotional health is just as important.

Whether it’s my work or the female writers I represent who are north of forty and fifty-plus, I’m sharing the voices of beautiful, vivacious women who are living their best lives. There’s a level of appreciation for life that comes with age, and they’re crafting great stories centered around characters that are not only relatable, but they’re also inspiring. Referring to this type of fiction as matron-lit or hen-lit doesn’t paint the right picture. There’s a market for funny women’s fiction by the over forty and fifty-plus crowd.  I will keep writing and working to find opportunities to get these works published for chicks who want to read fun, modern-day stories written by women who are fabulous, north of forty-plus, and loving it.

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Chamein Canton is a traditionally published author with nine books, including Not His Type, Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award Winner for Best African American Romance in 2007, and Foreword Book Of the Year Finalist, Down That Aisle In Style, A Wedding Guide For Full Figured Women.   A divorced mother with multiple sclerosis, she raised twin sons Sean and Scott. An MS thriver, Chamein was awarded MS Mother of the Year in 2012. She started her career as a literary agent with the Dreyer Helland Agency in 1999 and now runs the CC Literary Agency, her own boutique literary agency. Chamein’s fiction is size-positive and her characters have the three b’s; boobs, bellies, and butts.  As an African American woman who is north of forty, she gives voice to all women who are also north of forty and fifty-plus.

Currently, Chamein is working on two cookbooks, Cooking With My Nanas, Discovering Family, Tradition, and Love in the Kitchen and Baking With The Beatles, How the Fab Four’s Music Helped Get My Groove Back in the Kitchen. Her senior agent is also shopping two new novels, while she works on her twelfth. You can find more on her website. www.stillachicklit.com

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing