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I’m so excited that Chimamanda Adichie is reading as part of the annual Winter with the Writersat Rollins College.

We’re fortunate to have this literary series here in Central Florida. I’ve seen Nikki Giovanni and David Henry Hwang (actually had dinner with DHH!) in previous years at Winter with the Writers.

I’m reading The Thing Around Your Neck, her collection of stories, before the reading. (I may only finish a few stories before Thursday, but what I’ve read so far is marvelous.) And Half of a Yellow Sun is now on my to-be-read list.

Not sure if you want to go? Then listen/see Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk about The danger of a single story.

Details about the reading from the Winter with the Writers web site:

Free and open to the public, no tickets necessary. Parking is located in the SunTrust Plaza, off Park Avenue. Master Class begins at 4 p.m. in the Bush Auditorium (Moscaluic at 2 p.m. in the Woolson House). Readings take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Bush Auditorium.

Of course I love a great story and this is a wonderful story set in France, a place I longed to visit as a girl that didn’t fail to amaze me when I finally went there as an adult.

Literature et Paris? C’est magnifique.

I hope you’ll join us for a discussion with Jacqueline Sunday, Feb. 26 at 9 p.m. We welcome questions from our readers; put yours in the comments and we’ll put it in the queue for our chat that night. Questions about the book, writing and France are all fair game.

A few links to help you get ready for our chat:

An excerpt from Passing Love, including quotes from a couple of our #blacklitchat authors

About the book

It isn’t the whole truth, though. I think of romance and romantics as being enamored of sappy love songs and unrealistic notions of love and partnering.

And I don’t listen to love songs much. For years I would tell people my favorite ‘love’ song is Anita Baker’s “Fairy Tales.”

Cover of I'm Your Baby Tonight

This past weekend when we all (or at least the we I think of as part of my tribe) were listening to Whitney Houston’s music and mourning her, I remembered when I was a more of a dreamer and fan of certain love songs, including many of Whitney’s songs.

I remember talking to a boy (an older boy!) at a skating rink and hearing a Whitney Houston song play during couples skate. It was the mid-1980s and she was brand new, but I remembered her from one of my teen girl magazines.

There were Whitney songs in high school and through my college years. And I saw her in concert on a date with my future husband in Nashville, Tennessee.

Every song she made wasn’t a favorite of mine, but many were just the pop romantic tunes I needed. I heard “I Will Always Love You” a lot this weekend, but I really loved “So Emotional”, “I’m Your Baby Tonight”, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and “How Will I Know.”

If I feel happy, I am likely to dance at least a little. So a true expression of giddy feelings is a little more upbeat than a ballad for me.

Whitney’s pop love songs captured that bubbly almost silly feeling of young love without the sadness I hear in so many ballads. Her voice in those songs is full of the bright colors that surrounded me in the 80s and the music brings back sweet memories of when I was a little bit of a romantic.

I decided to try it, not realizing how far the small group, there were 3 of us the first time I joined them, would run. we covered nearly 4 miles that first day. And I ran most of the way, because I wanted to keep up and not hold them back.

They convinced me that I should register for a race and do it. I had no aspirations of becoming a runner or entering even a small race, but I did. It was summer in Orlando and hot, hot, hot. But I trained and ran one 5K. I was so proud of myself.

I would not have done it without the group.

It’s 11 years later and I am trying again to work on being more fit. I decided last week that I would try to do a little running and see if I could do a 5K again. It feels like such a minor goal when I see that people are doing half and full marathons. And I can hear my inner critic saying that “you probably won’t even make it to two miles, don’t even bother trying.“

I am so sick of her voice, though.

This week I looked up the Orlando Black Girls Run! group again and actually joined the FB page this time (I’d looked before). Inner critic: “Why are you even looking at that? You can’t even do that.”

The first group run event notice I received was for a run really near my home just two days away on Saturday. Inner critic: “Girl, you just barely ran / walked 20 minutes today and you gone try to run with them? Puhlease.”

I decided Friday night that I had stayed up too late and I was too far out of shape to go to the early run on Saturday. I would wait until I got into better shape and try again another time. Meanwhile, I’m peeking at the FB page and seeing women respond to my post about just being a run/walker and saying that all paces were welcome and that some of them were running and walking, too.

Still, I didn’t set my alarm clock for Saturday. But someone sent me an email just after 6 a.m. and I heard my device buzz. I was up. And in time to make the run. I started to dress and my inner critic was with me all the way: “Bet you can’t even find something to wear; you tying your hair up in a bandana – girl, that is so whack; what you gonna do when you sprain your ankle again, huh?”

I checked FB again and one of the women had said she would bring up the rear with me and see me in the morning.

I would just go check it out and try something new. I had heard about Black Girls Run from posts on social media and a woman I went to college with mentioned running with the Nashville group. This was something women like me would do.

When I got to the meeting spot, there was a good sized and friendly group.

It was so great to be with a group to run (think safety!) and to hear people talking about how long they’ve been running, or if they are starting out with walking. I need the group for motivation, structure and perspective. I, as you might have guessed from my strong inner critic, would not easily cheer myself along. And knowing there’s a regular run coming up is great. The perspective comes from seeing that there’s a range of people who are and can be runners. And I am one. It is not too late for me to do it again.

And the BGR group run was a wonderful experience. In fact, I’m writing this now before I can feel the soreness tomorrow, which might cloud the experience. (In fact, I will be pulling out the tiger balm once I post this.)

Why was the run wonderful?

1) I was grateful to have a group to join and know that the route was planned and I wouldn’t be on my own.

2) Everyone was friendly and open to new folks. I didn’t feel left out because I’m just getting started.

3) I work out better and push myself more in a group. I was careful not to be too competitive or prideful so I stuck to running and walking, but pushed myself to run a little more because I could see folks around me doing it. I would have given up in less than our hour if I’d been alone.

4) I shattered my iPhone face earlier in the week and ran without headphones and music. But there were BGR women behind and in front of me and we would chat a little as we caught up to each other, which helped break up the time. The lack of music isn’t a BGR thing, but I wouldn’t have thought I could excercise for an hour without music. Having company helped.

5) While having company helped, everyone is flexible and going it alone was fine, too. And I need that kind of flexibility.

6) Everyone is encouraging and talks about upcoming races, training, the next run, and more. I spent much of the rest of Saturday thinking about the next run, gear I would reward myself with for each milestone, and signing up for a race.

7) The whole group waits for the last runners and walkers to come in at the end. And you run a gauntlet of cheering women giving you high fives (and for us this morning, one guy). Cheering, y’all – cheering. A morning that begins with cheering has to be wonderful.

This won’t really be a “thing” until I am consistently running. But it felt possible today and the idea of running hasn’t felt that way in a long while. It felt like something I would do.

And one more thing – my inner critic was really quiet once I completed a little over three miles this morning.

Gathering of Waters, her latest book, imagines the spiritual and human backstory to the lynching of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi. It is a rich story and I was thoroughly engaged by the characters whose lives intersect, collide and lead to that infamous murder.

If you missed the chat, please check out the Chirpstory (a type of transcript for Twitter) here.

Gathering of Waters is published by Akashic Books and they also are re-releasing Bernice McFadden’s The Warmest December this year. So if you haven’t read her work, you have plenty to dive into this year.

Below is an incomplete list of titles coming up this winter and spring. I’ll add to it. If you know of a title or have a book out, please add your title in the comments.

Also, there are a couple of celebrity titles included, which I don’t usually do. But these two celebrities have such amazing stories, I’m considering reading both their books. (Pics of just a few of the books – longer list below).

Jan. 10 – I Got This: How I Changed My Ways and Lost What Weighed Me Down by Jennifer Hudson

Jan. 24 – All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley

Jan. 25 – Passing Love, Jacqueline E. Luckett (our February #blacklitchat guest author)

Feb – Gathering of Waters, by Bernice L. McFadden (our #blacklitchat guest author for Jan. 22, 2012!)

Feb. 1 – America the Beautiful by Ben Carson with Candy Carson

Feb. 7 (paperback) – If Sons, Then Heirs by Lorene Cary

Feb. 21 – Deceit and Devotion by R.M. Johnson

Feb. 27 – Space Chronicles by Neil deGrasse Tyson, edited by Avis Lang

March 1 – Inspiration by Crystal McCrary

April 17 – An Accidental Affair: A Novel by Eric Jerome Dickey

April 17 – You Have No Idea: A Famous Daughter, Her No-Nonsense Mother, and How They Survived Pageants, Hollywood, Love, Loss (and Each Other) by Vanessa and Helen Williams

I so appreciate everyone who has joined one of our chats, shared it with followers and helped spread the word about contemporary black literature. I am very thankful for the authors who agree to join us each month and answer as many questions as possible in our one hour.

And #blacklitchat would not have made it into its second year without the enthusiasm, professionalism and partnership of Dee Stewart (@deegospel).

This year we also took #blacklitchat back to Blogalicious. We announced our first chat with Ernessa T. Carter (32 CANDLES) in 2010 after her book was included in the Blogalicious conference (swag) bag. This year we reached out to Algonquin and they graciously added both SILVER SPARROW, by Tayari Jones and A TASTE OF SALT, by Martha Southgate to the bags for all Blogalicious attendees.

Also, we had a few “global” chats with me joining from Asia for 3 months. One of the reasons I wanted to do a literary chat on Twitter is that I knew I couldn’t consistently make it to a face-to-face book club – never imagined how important that would be.

For every #blacklitchat discussion we choose books we recommend, so at the end of the year it’s very hard for me to choose one “best” book. But I always look at best of lists and see if any of the black authors I read made the list. This year, I asked folks on Twitter to share with #blacklitchat their favorite book by a black author. Many people said SILVER SPARROW, by Tayari Jones was their favorite. If you’ve followed me or read this blog for any length of time you know I think she is one of the finest contemporary [no other adjective needed] writers today. And we had a marvelous one-year anniversary #blacklitchat discussion with her in October.

I hope you’ll join us in 2012 for more great reading and discussions. Let us know what you’d like to read this year in the comments.

Here are the titles we discussed and read this year.

And if you aren’t already reading these authors, here are their web sites or Twitter handles so you can get started (and hopefully buy their books).

www.dolenperkinsvaldez.com (@dolen) – WENCH

www.aminattaforna.com (@aminattaforna) – THE MEMORY OF LOVE

www.heididurrow.com (@heididurrow) – THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY

www.lorenecary.org (@lorenecary) – IF SONS THEN HEIRS

www.victorlavalle.com (@victorlavalle) – BIG MACHINE

Jabari Asim (@jabariasim) – A TASTE OF HONEY

www.tayarijones.com (@tayari) – SILVER SPARROW

www.mirandaparker.com (@mirandaparker, @deegospel – my co-moderator for #blacklitchat!) – A GOOD EXCUSE TO BE BAD

TananariveDue.com (@tananarivedue) – MY SOUL TO TAKE

(@ConnieBriscoe) – MONEY CAN’T BUY LOVE

Carleen Brice (@carleenbrice) – IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SPRING, joined by multiple authors from www.achapteramonth.com!

I’m not a gourmet cook, but I used to enjoy baking and gotten good reviews for my baking skills.

But it’s been a long time since I’ve baked regularly. More than a year.

In spite of everything that I’m juggling now, I decided to do a little baking over the holidays. I really wanted red velvet cake and decided to bake it for a gathering last week. Actually I baked cupcakes so my daughter could decorate them.

I used a wonderful recipe that I’ve used before with great results (the recipe is from Tayari Jones and you should try it, minus my mistakes below).

Here’s what I knew:

I didn’t have white all purpose flour in the house, just whole wheat flour. But why not try it.

There was no white sugar in our house. Just the organic sugar that is brown, but not brown sugar.

I had bought, on purpose, dark chocolate cocoa powder instead of traditional cocoa powder.

Here’s what I didn’t know until i was almost finished with the recipe:

There was no white vinegar inside these walls. just apple cider vinegar. But at 6:30 a.m. and several steps into the recipe I decided to substitute.

Instead of the lovely red velvet I wanted, the cupcakes came out dense and not nearly sweet enough. As my daughter said later in the day, they were red velvet muffins. Even re-labelling them as muffins wasn’t enough; they just weren’t good.

Once upon a time I baked enough to have most of the ingredients on hand to make some kind of cake. And I was “practicing” enough to make a substitution here and there and make it all work.

But the RVC muffin incident proved that I was way off track.

I tried again two days later (after buying white flour, sugar and regular vinegar) and the cupcakes were great. But I didn’t bake them in time to put icing on them and on the post-Christmas Eve service table at church they sat looking a little pitiful.

My husband gently reminded me that cooking takes practice. And I surely have not been practicing. Nor do I really want to. I don’t have the emotional energy or actual time to do it.

So for now my red velvet will be from bakeries and I’ll give myself a pass until I have time to shop properly and truly “be” in the kitchen.

My last 3 visits this year, I did something different. I went to a locally owned coffee shop on West Main Street. It’s next to the Hub City Bookshop (books + coffee!).

The first time I went to the The Coffee Bar
I ordered a peppermint mocha (yum) and the guy who took  my order offered their loyalty card. And I took it, even though it seemed a little ridiculous. There was no way I’d get 10 cups of coffee over just a few days.

There’s a bakery, Cakehead Bakeshop, in the back of the shop and many pastries to choose from. I tried the pimento cheese biscuit – so, so, Southern. And on a later visit I saw the most beautiful red velvet cake, but didn’t have a slice. (I’m really proud of my self-restraint).

The Coffee Bar is really a lovely place and I spent about two hours there one morning and saw the rush. It was busy and so good to see many folks stopping in for a meeting or on their way to work.

My preference is to have coffee at local shops when I can. I hope that The Coffee Bar continues to be successful so I have a place to be when I go home. It really is great to see downtown Spartanburg shops thrive.

For the 2nd year, we stayed home for Christmas rather than going back to my hometown (which I still call home most days). I miss being with my extended family and I want our nuclear family to have holiday time in our own home.

So this is where we are for now.

One of the things that helps me miss home a little less (or maybe it just helps me bring the Christmas of my childhood to mind) is music.

I love holiday music and made sure this year to listen to plenty traditional R&B holiday songs. Hearing The Temptations’ “Silent Night” as well as “What Do The Lonely Do At Christmas” and other classics brings those holiday memories back. And I do want my children to love the songs, too.

Today I finally seeded my Pandora station just right and heard Otis Redding, Darlene Love, The Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder and so many other soul superstars as we played with toys, made dinner and enjoyed the day.

I know we’re done with Christmas, but this year it’s hard for me to let the songs and the memories go. I need to hear these songs for a little while longer, so I will probably be playing them in the car until the end of the year.

May your days be merry and bright …