Pamela Mshana is making her inaugural visit at the Christian Book Lover’s Retreat this year. We’re excited to talk to her about her novel, girls in search of cover.
Tell me about your latest book.
girls in search of cover is part one in a series of novels set against the backdrop of three generations of Black women living with family secrets and how their unresolved trauma leads to addiction and sexual abuse. The young heroine, Carmia, finds herself battling not only her mother’s hidden addiction, but antagonism and religious hypocrisy from a corrupt church mother. Carmia looks for love in all the wrong places, which leads her down a dark path of seduction and betrayal. It dramatizes a girl’s journey through the belly of the beast and her triumph above the brutal legacy of her matriarchs. Carmia is a troubled young African-American girl whose drug-addicted mother relocates Carmia and her brother to Bovina, Mississippi—a deeply religious backwater where they all move in with Carmia’s grandmother, Ma Evans. Carmia grows up an outsider in Bovina. Mother Johns, a conniving church leader with a dark hatred for Ma Evans, convinces the community that Ma Evans’ entire bloodline, including Carmia, is cursed. After a series of tragic deaths, Carmia begins to think so too. As a teenager faced with a life of violence, church hurt and sexual trauma, will her hope of a better life be enough for her to overcome? Will the voices of her ancestors (spiritual cloud of witnesses), give her strength enough to escape the abuse her matriarchs suffered?
Why did you decide to write it?
I started writing poems as a child to give gifts to my parents for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. This was my earliest memory of writing. I believe it was just an innate thing for me, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t show some evidence of being a writer. It was a natural process but when teachers paid attention to my gift, my writing became more intentional.
What do you want readers to learn from the story?
It‘s my hope that readers who may have been sexually violated will see themselves in the characters, feel less alone and see that achieving wholeness is possible for them too. I hope that others who may know someone who’s been abused will be better equipped with greater understanding and possibly support by sharing this story. Lastly, I hope people will simply be entertained by these complicated, unpredictable characters who are both funny and sometimes harsh.
What do you want readers to learn from your life?
Like my character, Carmia, I am a survivor who is reaching out to help others on life’s journey. My life’s passion and purpose is to do everything I can to help myself and others constantly go to our next level of best in life. Together, we’re stronger, and we can help each other by pooling knowledge and resources such as social and human capital. I want my life’s legacy to be that I helped communities of struggling and/or already achieving people reach higher levels of success and happiness.
What can readers expect from you if they attend CBLR?
I will be at CBLR for the first time this year, and I’m excited to learn, contribute and have fun! I’m leading a workshop called, God Is In the Room. Please join me for an interactive session on recognizing and setting expectation for the ways God will show up in the room when we write and/or read Christian books.
What’s something readers would be surprised to know about you?
Readers might be surprised to know that my play Ebony was produced off-Broadway at Playwright’s Horizons when I was seventeen years old and produced at the Sydney Oprah House when I was eighteen.
What books have you read lately and loved?
My favorite book right now is a collection of short stories called Light Skin Gone to Waste by Toni Ann Johnson.
What books are you excited to read?
I’ve started reading this book and am excited to be able to finish. It’s called Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.
What’s next for you?
Girls in search of cover, part 2 will be released during Spring of 2023! YAY! I’m also working on a rom-com called Never Let You Go.
Do you have anything you would like to add?
I love when readers contact me and let me know his/her reflections after reading my book. It even influences future books that will be a part of the girls in search of cover series.
Use the Black Fiction Addiction affiliate link to purchase your copy of girls in search of cover.