Simone just wanted love but at what cost? Marrying the son of the man who raped her or sleeping with her best friend’s man??? Read Simone’s story and see if her actions are justified in “And Even If Did” by Kisha Green. Get your autographed copy with FREE shipping for $8.75 at www.divabooksinconline.com

You can order the hardcover version from Black Expressions Book Club by choosing Item # 27-6627.

Hailey Barnes is a popular LA talk show host who can have anything she wants, but is constantly haunted by a man she can’t…Trevon “Tre” Swint. And she’s also now being harassed by a deranged fan. Tre runs a security company so Hailey decides to hire him for protection—in the hopes of winning him over. But Tre sends his partner, Garrett, instead. Who, in a crazy twist, has been sleeping with Tre’s fiancée. Hailey still wants Tre, and she tries to enlist Garrett to help her get him back. But as Garrett and Hailey get closer, they start to see each other through new eyes. But how will this burgeoning romance be affected when the stalker is revealed—and whose identity hits closer to home than anyone could ever have imagined?

CLICK HERE to go to Black Expressions Book Club site.

To those that didn’t win, there’s one more chance, but you have to be my friend on twitter and forward the message to your friends on twitter. Here’s the link for more information: http://sheliagoss.com/books/womeninhollywoodseries/hollywood-deception/retweet-and-win/

In the meantime, you can pre-order Hollywood Deception in paperback or hardcover.

Hardcover version from Black Expressions (Item # 27-6627)

Hailey Barnes is a popular LA talk show host who can have anything she wants, but is constantly haunted by a man she can’t…Trevon “Tre” Swint. And she’s also now being harassed by a deranged fan. Tre runs a security company so Hailey decides to hire him for protection—in the hopes of winning him over. But Tre sends his partner, Garrett, instead. Who, in a crazy twist, has been sleeping with Tre’s fiancée. Hailey still wants Tre, and she tries to enlist Garrett to help her get him back. But as Garrett and Hailey get closer, they start to see each other through new eyes. But how will this burgeoning romance be affected when the stalker is revealed—and whose identity hits closer to home than anyone could ever have imagined?

The paperback version can be pre-ordered from kensingtonbooks.com or from any one of the following retailers:

I’m highlighting Mary Eliza Mahoney today for two reasons. #1 She was the first African-American registered nurse and #2 Our past might be entwined as her name comes up when I trace my family history on my Dad’s side.

Her exact date of birth is questionable. Some sources say she was born in April and others May of 1845.

According to various sources, including ASU, Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American registered nurse in the U.S.A. She was born free on April 7 or May 7, 1845 in Dorchester, Massachusetts and became interested in nursing when she was a teenager. She worked for fifteen years at the New England Hospital for Women and Children (now Dimock Community Health Center) in Roxbury, Massachusetts as a cook, janitor, washerwoman and an unofficial nurse’s assistant. In 1878, at the age of thirty-three, she was admitted as a student into the hospital’s nursing program established by Dr. Marie Zakrzewska. Sixteen months later, she was one of four who completed the rigorous course (of forty-two who started with her). After graduation she worked primarily as a private duty nurse for the next thirty years all over the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. She ended her nursing career as director of an orphanage in Long Island, New York, the position she had held for a decade. She never married.In 1896, Mahoney became one of the original members of a predominately white Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (later known as the American Nurses Association or ANA). In 1908 she was cofounder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). Mahoney gave the welcoming address at the first convention of the NACGN and served as the association’s national chaplain. Mary Eliza Mahoney died January 4, 1926. She is buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts.

In 1936, the NACGN created an award in honor of Mahoney for women who contributed to racial integration in nursing. This award was then continued by the ANA after the NACGN was dissolved in 1951. In 1976, fifty years after her death, Mary Eliza Mahoney was inducted into the Nursing Hall of Fame.

To read more about Mary Eliza Mahoney, click here.

If you know someone interested in nursing, there’s a Mary Mahoney scholarship given out to minority nursing students. There’s a site dedicated to Mary Mahoney. Please visit: http://www.marymahoney.org
Win a copy of Martin Luther King: The Essential Box Set:

The Landmark Speeches and Sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. By Clayborne Carson, Kris Shepard, Peter Holloran

What do you have to do to enter? Leave a comment on this blog post. This is the last opportunity to enter. You can check archives to enter on previous blog posts. (Sign up to mailing list so you’ll be alerted of the March contests–2 books and 1 DVD). The more you comment, the more chances you have to win. Contest ends on February 28, 2010. U.S. & Canada residents only. Avoid where prohibited by law.

I will highlight from several sources information about this dynamic painter. She not only painted, she made dolls, quilts, baskets, lace curtains, etc.  She reminds me of a very creative friend of mine–Peggy Eldridge Love.

One thing I learned about Clementine Hunter’s  story is that you’re never too old to pursue your dreams.

Hunter was born on Hidden Hill Plantation near Cloutierville, Louisiana; a place so isolated and harsh that local legend claimed it was the real-life inspiration for Uncle Tom’s Cabin. her family moved north to the Cane River area when she was a child, and eventually they moved to Melrose Plantation near Natchitoches, where Hunter spent a lot of her life picking cotton. She attended school for just 10 days and never learned to read or write.

But in the late 1940s, one of the many artists who visited the plantation left behind some tubes of paint. Plantation curator Francois Mignon encouraged Hunter to try her own hand at painting. During the next four decades, she created thousands of paintings.

It was often midnight before she was free to ”mark some pictures,” as she once said of her painting; using cardboard, paper bags, lumber scraps, milk jugs, the insides of soap boxes, and other throw-outs. Almost all of her works were ”memory paintings,” showing plantation life as she remembered it: picking cotton, gathering figs, threshing pecans; the weddings, baptisms, funerals, and other scenes of everyday life. Her titles were often intriguing, too.

A June 1953 article in Look magazine brought her to national attention. In 1957, some critics dubbed her “’the Black Grandma Moses.” And, in 1979, Robert Bishop, director of The Museum of American Folk Art in Washington, called the artist, then in her 90s, ”the most celebrated of all Southern contemporary painters.” By the 1970s, there were large public and private collections of Hunter’s work, and by the 1980s, several important traveling exhibitions featured her paintings. The prices for her work had risen from 25 cents to several thousand dollars.

In the last years of her life, Hunter left her rented cabin and moved upriver, living in a trailer she bought with money from selling her paintings. She painted until the last few months of her life, dying at the age of 100 on January 1, 1988. Hunter was more modest about her abilities. “God puts those pictures in my head and I just puts them on the canvas, like He wants me to,” the artist said.

Reference:
Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia
Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine
Copyright 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York
ISBN 0-926019-61-9

Click to see original Look and Saturday Evening Post articles

If you’ve never been to Natchitoches, LA, please make plans to visit. It is rich in African-American history.  If you do decide to come, I’m only an hour and some minutes away so shoot me an email offloop and I’ll even meet you there.

The answer to yesterday’s quiz question was Harriett Tubman.

Today’s Black History question is What state was the first to have more blacks than whites?

Missouri
Florida
South Carolina
Tennessee

P.S. – If you’re an aspiring writer or want to learn about self-publishing, check out today’s post on Blogging in Black: http://blogginginblack.com/?p=1169

I’m honored to be participating in the 7th Annual Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge, LA at the State Capitol.  The event is Sat., Oct. 17th.

Panel Discussion
4 PM – 5 PM
Senate Committee Room E
Keeping Romance Hot in a Cold Market

Book Signing immediately folowing the panel discussion
5:15 PM – 6 PM

October 20, 2009
Mooretown Library
1:00 p.m.

October 21, 2009
Atkins Library
1:00 p.m.

October 22, 2009
Cedar Grove Library
4:00 p.m

BOOK SIGNING

October 24, 2009
Barnes and Noble
Shreveport, LA
3:00 – 5:00 p.m.

If you happen to spot His Invisible Wife at a store, feel free to email me your pictures.

Also, last week I got the new issue of Essence Magazine in the mail.   With Idris Elba on the cover, it should fly off the shelves.

 The Invisible Love virtual tour takes me to The Maxine Thompson Radio Show tonight. Listen and email in your questions while I’m live on the air:

When: Monday, February 9th

Time: 8:00 p.m. central/ 9:00 p.m. eastern on  ArtistFirst.com. 

 I’ll be watching the festivities from the comfort of my room.  I’ll be logged on later. Stop by and let me know how you’re spending your Inauguration Day. What thoughts went through your mind when Pres. Obama took the oath of office? If you’re in D.C., please email me some pictures and I’ll post them to the blog: sheliagoss@aol.com.

For those of you who like my image that I created above, I’ve included a blank one for your use. Happy Inauguration Day.