• blogs,  guests,  my view,  Through The Lens

    Good Girls Bite

    Happy Monday. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Thank you for the well wishes on Through The lens becoming available in print now as well as digital. It really is a dream come true and I can’t wait to hold my copy in my hot little hands. I’ve got mine on order and my fingers are itching with anticipation.

    Today I’m over that the wonderful Angela Kay Austin’s Romancing the Pen talking about one of my favorite subjects, Romance heroines with a bit of a strong edge in Good Girls Bite.

    Please come on over to Angela’s place and chime in with your opinion and one lucky person will win a digital copy of Through The Lens!

    Have a great one.

     

    All the best,

    Kwana

     

    image from here

  • Books,  interviews,  my view,  Through The Lens

    Local Author-lebrity

    So it seems I’m local famous (ok maybe in my own head but let’s go with it for this here post). You see my town’s local paper did a piece on me and Through The Lens and it came out today with a photo and everything! Once I got over the shock of that and my huge head (man it’s large and in color) I conceded that it was pretty cool. I love the headline and the fact the owner of the town’s hardware store ran over to me right away when I was picking up leaf bags to give a nice congrats and say, “hey I know you!” That was really sweet. ‘D’ list here I come!

    All the best,

    KMJ

  • Books,  my view,  Through The Lens

    It’s Coming!

    It’s Coming !

     

    Did you hear me? Get to moving because it’s coming!!

     

    So it seems everyone on the east coast, including alarmist me, are all up in arms over the impending Frankenstorm coming just in time to ruin Halloween for children everywhere. I’m preparing by taking care of the essentials like: extra batteries, extra cookies, full charge on my cell and of course a full charge on my e-reader and making sure I have enough books downloaded to get me though any weather.

    If you are looking for a good read to take you away from the frightful weather might I suggest my own island getaway Through The Lens. Just look to your right and click on over on your favorite platform.

    Have a great  weekend and please share what you will be doing to prepare for the week ahead in the comments.

     

    All the best,

    K.M.J

     

    images thanks to the classic Young Frankenstein

  • my view,  Through The Lens,  writing life

    Bursting Through!

    I wanted to give a cheer and a big thank you to all my friends and supporters today. See I’m bursting with excitement because this week I’ve made the Crimson Romance Top 5 Best Sellers List with Through the Lens.  Oh to the Ye-ah!!

     You can check the list here to see TTL and while you’re there please check out the other wonderful Crimson titles. You won’t be disappointed.

     

     

    Check out the Top Crimson Romance eBook titles! Get your copy today!

    1st. Prelude to a Seduction (Lotchie Burton, Spicy)

    2nd. Falling for You (Heather Thurmeier, Contemporary)

    Tied for 3rd:

    Love, Eternally (Morgan O’Neill, Paranormal)

    Through the Lens (K.M. Jackson, Contemporary)

    Tied for 5th:

    Love Grows in Winter (Stephanie James, Historical)

    Forgotten Dreams (Alexia Banks, Paranormal)

    Thank you all once again. Please continue to pass the word on and let’s take TTL to the TOP!

     

    All the best,

    Me

     

    image fm here

  • Through The Lens,  writing life

    Hey Boy, Hey…

     

    Thanks Ryan. Here’s the link.

     

    Loves,

    Me

     

    Happy Friday and Thanks to Maureen McGowan  and the fab women of Drunk Writer Talk for reminding me that Ryan has our back.

     

    P to the S!

    I had to add this bit of joy that I was alerted to this morning. Please head on over to the fab Scandalicious Book Reviews and check out what she has to say about Through The Lens. 4 Stars! Full of Swoon. Oh yeah!! What a way to start out the weekend.

     

  • my view,  Through The Lens,  writing life

    Keeping the Faith

    Happy Friday! Congrats, you’ve made it through another week. This weekend I’ll be attending the New Jersey Romance Writer’s Put Your Heart In a Book Conference. I’m so excited. It’s a wonderful conference that I’ve attended before but this will be my first time going a as published author myself with my own book to talk about Through The Lens so I’m a little nervous. It’s also my high school’s 25th, that’s right I said it, 25th reunion! I’m sorry to be missing it but wishing everyone all the best.  To that end I’m sending this hit from 1987 from the always well coiffed George Michel. So glad we held onto the Faith.

     

    All the best,

    K.M.J.

  • my view,  Through The Lens,  writing,  writing life

    Reading a Multi-Cultural Life

    Happy Wednesday! Today’s post comes from a piece I recently shared with my New York romance writers chapter and wanted to share with you all my ye old blog friends…

    I once received what I considered one of the biggest compliments I could ever have about my writing. It came from a friend of mine who was a fairly new friend at the time but I had already felt that sister from another mother type of kinship. We chatted easily, finished each other’s sentences and had the same taste in love/ hate of certain “not so real housewives” thing going on.  It didn’t matter that I am Black and Methodist from Harlem and that she is Jewish and from the Bronx. That is not our world. Our world in that moment was the chatter across the table in our little knit, stitch and yes, sometimes bitch group, surrounded by the other diverse friends we have from many different cultures and ethnicities.

                Well, I had given this friend a small sample of my writing (something I rarely do, but she asked and I was weak and there was some wild, rare trust thing going on), a budding, buddy detective story with two best friends as the leads. In the story one main character is Caucasian and the other is African-American. They both flowed in and out of the story (along with some pretty hot guys) as my mind took me and that was that. My friend read the excerpt and her comment was, “I loved it. And what I really loved was that you had so many diverse characters but they were just real and not made up characters. Just women not Black women and then White women. You know women– like us.”

    To me this was such a high compliment as a contemporary writer.  You see I never want to make my characters caricatures. I want to portray women as real feeling people with heart, like the women I see and meet every day. Even the villains are real to me and not some superficial portrait of what past media history they should be.

    I once had an agent (that I think I rightly parted ways with) give me the critique that my characters were too tame. I was asked to make my stories less diverse and to amp up the “Blackness”,  whatever the heck that means (and I think I know what it meant to him) of the African American characters, so that when they were submitted to publishing houses, the houses would know where to put them and how to market them.

    I, of course, saw red and then became incredibly sad and then I left that agent and kept on writing. My way. I had spent all my life living in the world I lived in, not compromising who I was, there was no way I was going to start now. That being said, many years and a few manuscripts later, I have found a publisher that has embraced my book with it’s truly multi-cultural cast and I could not be happier. Crimson Romance is not shelving THROUGH THE LENS in its multi-cultural section. No, it’s sitting right there with the rest of the contemporary romances as I feel it should. I’m happy to say they believe in the idea of story first and the color of the characters— and the writer for that matter —does not come into play. I hope that there will be a time when all publishers follow this route and more people can read the way we live, in a truly multi-cultural way.

     

    All the best,

    K.M.

    aka

    Me

     

    P.S.

    Note to self: Get back to that buddy book. It’s a good story!

     

    Image from here

     

  • blogs,  my view,  Through The Lens

    Time to Get Lost in the Season…

    Happy Friday and Welcome this weekend to Autumn! This is my favorite time of year. I can officially slip on boots and pull out my collection of black turtlenecks without fear of looking like one of those overdressed, “are-those-long -sleeves-you’re-wearing?!”  overly cold women. And I can sneer (not really , ok maybe) at all of the die-hard breezy top and denim short hangers on-ers like the summer dreamers that they really are. Time to get with the program and bundle up ladies, grab your nearest hot beverage and get with the chronic chillsters like me. Come on take a seat and relax!

    And speaking of chilling, I’m chilling today with my buddy Maureen McGowan and the ladies over at Get Lost in Story where I’m answering a few questions and giving away a copy of THROUGH THE LENS! Stop on by and check it out if you have a chill moment. Thanks.

     

    So tell me what do you love about the Fall season?

     

    Best,

    Kwana

     

    image from here

     

  • book launch,  contests,  Through The Lens

    And the winner is….

    Thank you so much to all my lovelies who have shared the love and entered my Tell 2 Friends contest! Your kind words and generosity meant so much to me. And thanks to the Random Number Generator the winner is the super fab Laurie!

    True Random Number Generator Min:
    Max:
    Result:15Powered by RANDOM.ORG

    Laurie please email me at: kwanawrites (at) yahoo (dot) com with your mailing info and if you would like an Amazon or a B & N gift card so that I can get your prizes out to you!

    Thanks once again to all who entered and for making this a fantastic launch for me with Through The Lens. If you have not downloaded it yet please look to your right and click on one of the links on the sidebar. I think you may enjoy it but of course that’s just the author talking.

    Wishing you a wonderful Monday! Congrats again Laurie!

     

    All the best,

    Kwana

     

    Image from here