Meet BEVERLY JENKINS! - Laurel McHargue - Author/Podcaster/Public Speaker

Bestselling and Highly Acclaimed Author of Romance and Women’s Fiction!

Beverly Jenkins was a keynote speaker at the 2024 RMFW Colorado Gold Writers Conference! Visit with us here on YouTube.

Podcast (audio only) version

Show Notes with Links:

Chosen USA TODAY’s best-selling author of Romance and Women’s Fiction, today’s guest is the highly acclaimed author Beverly Jenkins.
We met at this year’s RMFW Colorado Gold Writers Conference, where Beverly was the keynote speaker. I brag about her accomplishments and kudos.
She was one of the Black Readers Conference’s keynote speakers in 2021at which time she was THE most read author in the Canon with 6 books, followed by Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, and Tiffany D. Jackson, with 4 books each.

Beverly’s RMFW Keynote speech was inspiring and–like her–funny!

She talks about being the editor of her elementary school’s newspaper in the 4th grade – The Myra Jones Elementary School COMET – but had no dreams of being a writer. Her dream job was to work in a library, which she eventually did. I ask how her library work inspired her storytelling, and she talks about her family of readers…and how her parents weren’t even allowed to check out books from their segregated library.
I ask when she first developed confidence in her ability to tell a story.
Avon Books called in June 1993 to say they wanted to buy her first book—Night Song. After it was published in the summer of 1994, Avon kept sending her contracts and she kept sending back books.
Al Roker says Beverly’s storytelling is “uplifting and engaging and proves it really does take a village.” Beverly discusses adopted and foster children (she adopted her son when he was five).
In a Goodreads interview December 2020, she talked about her author platform and said, “there’s enough light for everybody, and if I can shine my light on somebody who’s just coming out, or somebody who’s struggling, or somebody who just needs a little slight push to the center of the stage, why wouldn’t I do that? It doesn’t take anything away from me. I still got the light, I’ve still got my platform, so it’s much better to be kind than be a bitch.”
Speaking of being a bitch, I ask her to tell the story about the “Literary Fiction” author on the bus.
Many of her books are about African-American life in the 19^th Century.
We talk about To Catch a Raven: Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Romance! With historical details, espionage, a heist, suspense, a prophetic child, multiple cons, fabulous characters, FUN, a strong, smart woman lead and the steamy Braxton Steele . . . OOOOH!

It’s 3^rd in the Women Who Dare series, and each book is a stand-alone read.
p. 271: Raven wonders “if the country would ever value the men of the race the way their loved ones did.” We discuss this, and Beverly talks about how her writing is also a tribute to Black men.
What’s in the works? Beverly is a fantasy reader and plans to write a story with a black woman riding a dragon!