October’s event features the following dynamic authors:

J. D. Mason

“I’ve always been a student, whether intentionally or not, of the human condition. What makes people tick? What motivates us? What are our fears and desires? And what I’ve discovered is that we’re not all that different from each other.

We’re not all right or all wrong. We’re just people, hoping that our mistakes don’t haunt us for a lifetime, and just people, trying to make it through a tough world. My characters are the stories in all my books, not their situations or circumstances. But rather, I focus on the individual and on their perspective and strive to show how much one story can change, depending on whose point of view it’s being told from.”

JD Mason has written several books, “Don’t Want No Sugar”, “One Day I Saw a Black King”, and “And on the Eighth Day She Rested”. Critics have described her writing as…addictive…powerful…and absorbing. Ms. Mason has also won several awards for her novels, including The Atlanta Choice Award in 2004.

“I have a love-hate relationship with writing,” explains the author. “I love the feeling of holding the completed manuscript in my hands, but I don’t care much for the process of getting it there. Writing is hard work, tedious, and I’ve learned how important it is to love what you do in a business like this. But I do love it, and I’ll keep writing for as long as I can, and for as long as there are people out there who are interested in what I have to say.”

Ms. Mason lives in Denver, Colorado with her two children, and is currently hard at work on her fourth novel, “Confessions of the Other Woman”, scheduled for release by St. Martin’s Press in Fall 2005.

Camika Spencer

A self-proclaimed Southern girl with universal vision, Dallas native, Camika Spencer was born an
?expressionist.? She came of age in the Highland Hills and Singing Hills sections of Oakcliff, and
matriculated as a young in Hagerstown, Maryland.

From 1994 to 1996, Camika worked as a desktop specialist for Apple Computer and eventually settled at
EDS where she worked for the next three years. Finding the corporate world monotonous and at
times, boring, Camika set out to write a book, inspired by her own innate creative foundation.

This work, When All Hell Breaks Loose, the story of a young man trying to juggle manhood as a brother, fiancée and son, eventually consumed Camika and she set out to self-publish. At the same time, she?d become heavily involved in the poetry community, calling herself Emotion Brown. In April of 1998, When All Hell Breaks Loose hit the shelves, Camika juggled work, entrepreneurship, and performance. Now, an Essence Bestseller?s list regular, Blackboard Bestseller, and slowly making herself known as a credible writer, Camika focused her energies on higher goals.

By October of the same year, Manie Barron, at the time editor at Random House, called Camika and made her an offer in the form of a book deal. By the end of 2001, Camika had completed her second book, Cubicles (Random House/Villard), traveled extensively as Emotion Brown across the southwest, and had just been named Employee of the Month before resigning from EDS to pursue writing full-time. Cubicles has been optioned by Susanne De Passe of De Passe Entertainment. Her first play, Blind Seven, was part of Soul Rep Theatre?s 7th Annual New Play Festival and in 2003, she co-wrote, Hostile the Crocodile and Agitator Alligator with director/actress Guinea Bennett-Price. Her third book, He Had It Coming (St. Martin?s Press) released in 2004 and her fourth novel, The Divorce Party is slated for 2005 release. Her fifth book, The Plantation, a racy tale that seeks to examine what would happen if people signed up to have a slave experience for money is currently in wrap up.

Lisa Teasley

Lisa Teasley?s first book, GLOW IN THE DARK, is winner of the 2002 Gold Pen Award for Best Short
Story Collection, and the Pacificus Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in Short Fiction. Her
past awards include the May Merrill Miller Award; the National Society of Arts & Letters Short Story Award; and the Amaranth Review Award for Fiction.
Lisa Teasley?s debut novel DIVE has been praised in the New York Times Book Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, Essence and W magazines,
among many other publications.

She has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Glamour magazine?s "hot author spread," Village Voice, and the Anchorage Daily News, to name a few, as well as appeared on the cover of Los Angeles? largest alternative newspaper, the LA Weekly, where she was profiled in their literary issue. Lisa Teasley?s essays have appeared in Real Simple magazine (August 2005), Los Angeles Times Magazine (June 12, 2005), Essence magazine (April 2005), Christian Science Monitor (March 2005), and the Salon.com anthology BECAUSE I SAID SO, which is currently featured on Oprah.com, where Lisa Teasley?s name is highlighted. Forthcoming is her third book, the novel HEAT SIGNATURE, June 2006, when DIVE and GLOW IN THE DARK will be also released in paperback on Bloomsbury.

For ticket information contact Mary Walker @ 599-8073 or Sharon Haynes @ 299-5987. Tickets are $25.00; pre-sale only. Proceeds will benefit a Hurricane Katrina family that has relocated to Tulsa, Little Sisters Sippin’ Tea and other community outreach.