So Excited!

On Friday, January 26, I submitted three chapters and a synopsis of my first category romance, The Lights of Home, to my agent. Wish me luck, people. I hope and pray that I will soon join the ranks of the "published author." Keep watching this space for new developments...

Hello, World!

Let me introduce myself.

I'm Cleya Thoms, writer of contemporary romance and chic lit for and about African Americans. Yes, Black folks. I'm so leery of that descriptor of ethnicity -- African American. There are so many people of African descent living in this country who are not, in the truest sense of the word "American" (i.e., they don't have an eagle on their passport). Such as the arrogance of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Though born here (and yes, I have an eagle on my passport), I am of West Indian descent. My parents are Bahamian. Many of my friends come from the West Indies but live in the quote-unquote "First World." Many of them feel the fallout of the unfortunate riff between Black Americans and West Indian immigrants left over from the days when our parents came here by boat and by plane. Such is the delicate balance. Like Caron Wheeler, and the sentiments she described in her sensational CD, UK Blak. People like us also inhabit my fiction.

So, hello. Nice to meet ya! And keep watching this space...