by Naleighna Kai
LCM Spotlight on
Cerece Rennie Murphy
The event I attended in Atlanta last year would prove to be a life-changing moment . The red carpet was nice . Spending time with my son was awesome . The woman I met for the first time was . . . inspiring . One thing I could say was that Cerece Rennie Murphy came prepared to seduce a crowd of readers who don ’ t normally embrace the genre that she writes . Fortunately , that didn ’ t stop her from doing well in terms of networking or sales . She did one thing that made her stand out more than the nearly twenty-five other authors in attendance . She listened . Truly listened . Left her table for a few moments , had pen and pad , and was like a sponge soaking up any information that I imparted about two events that I thought would impact her career — RT Book Lovers Convention and the Cavalcade of Authors . As a gift , she presented me with the first book in her series and a sample of a literary / historical fiction that would release a few months later . The prose was nothing short of beautiful . You see , there are people who put words on paper , stringing sentences along in a sequential order and hoping that it ’ s engaging enough that readers will love it . Then there are writers who put a song on the page . They weave a story in such a way it pulls you into a web and you ’ re determined to hold on to it forever .
Later , she would send me the advanced copy of the book and I fell in love . So many of our great storytellers are no longer with us . Octavia Butler and L . A . Banks both top my list , but there are many others . Lamenting the fact that I