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You are here: Home / Books / Season 4, Episode 10: Debut Novelist Ginger McKnight-Chavers, In the Heart of Texas

Season 4, Episode 10: Debut Novelist Ginger McKnight-Chavers, In the Heart of Texas

October 3, 2016 by admin Leave a Comment

RECORDED 10/24/16: I loved talking to Ginger about her debut novel!  I had the pleasure of reading it while it was still in manuscript form.  It’s a fun and engaging read and I know you’ll love it too.  Listen to the interview here or download it from itunes.-Heidi Durrow

ginger-collage

 

This is what I had to say when I finished reading the final draft a few months ago:

“Funny, smart and compulsively readable! Ginger McKnight has a hit on her hands. And Terry McMillan fans can rejoice that they can add a new favorite writer to their list!” —Heidi W. Durrow New York Times best-selling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

I interview Ginger McKnight-Chavers @gingermckchav about her hit debut novel! #intheheartoftexas #GingersTexas #multiracial

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Don’t just listen to me.  Here are more pre-publication reviews:
“Everything is bigger in Texas―the hair, the real estate, and the drama in the pages of In The Heart of Texas. Forty-one-year-old soap star Jo Randolph manages to lose her Hollywood dream and burn all Tinseltown bridges in the span of 24 hours―literally. Caught in a PR nightmare, her agent ships her off to her Texas hometown and she desperately tries to reconnect to life beyond the limelight.”—PopSugar
“Ginger McKnight-Chavers expertly fuses politics, pop culture and hot topics surrounding race to create one of the most rousingly inspiring reads of fall.” —Redbook Magazine

f50a3232Ginger McKnight-Chavers is an author and an attorney with over twenty years of experience in the areas of arts/entertainment, corporate transactions and nonprofit law.  A native of Dallas, Texas, she earned a B.S.F.S in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.  Her first novel, In the Heart of Texas will be released by She Writes Press in Fall, 2016.  She was a recipient of the Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellowship at Sarah Lawrence College and a 2015 resident at Djerassi Resident Artists Program in Woodside, CA.  She has published several essays, short stories and articles, is a consultant/writer for Blue Nation Review and currently blogs for The Huffington Post and The TexPatch.  Prior to embarking on her writing career, she practiced corporate and entertainment/media law at the firms of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City and as an in-house attorney at Black Entertainment Television, Inc., Warner-Lambert Company and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts.  She is a member of the Friends of Education of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, serves on the Board of Summer on the Hill and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Ron Brown Scholars Program and Luminous Visions/Latino Playwrights.  She is a member of the City of New York Bar Association, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the Junior League of New York City, Jack & Jill of America, Westchester County Chapter, The Girl Friends, Inc., Brooklyn Chapter, and the Women’s Leadership Forum of the Democratic National Committee.  Her hobbies include running, tennis, swimming, reading, travel and Soul Cycle.

In the Heart of Texas

By Ginger McKnight-Chavers

heart-front
Pitched as “a poor man’s Halle Berry,” forty-one-year-old soap star Jo Randolph, has successfully avoided waiting tables since she left Midland, Texas at eighteen. But then, in the span of twenty-four hours, Jo manages to lose her job, burn her bridges in Hollywood, and accidentally burn down her lover/director’s beach house—after which she is shipped home to Texas by her agent to stay out of sight while she sorts out her situation.
The more Jo reluctantly reconnects with her Texas “roots” and the family and friends she left behind, the more she regains touch with herself as an artist and with what is meaningful in life beyond the limelight. The summer of 2007 is cathartic for Jo, whose career and lifestyle have allowed her to live like a child for forty years, but who now must transition to making grown-up decisions and taking on adult responsibilities. In the Heart of Texas is a wry, humorous commentary on the complexities of race, class, relationships, politics, popular culture, and celebrity in our current society.
A native of Dallas, Texas, Ginger McKnight-Chavers is a graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and Harvard Law School. She was a Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellow at Sarah Lawrence College and her debut novel, In the Heart of Texas, will be released in Fall 2016 by She Writes Press. McKnight-Chavers currently blogs for the Huffington Post and The TexPatch, and she lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband, daughter, and an overweight West Highland White Terrier.
#intheheartoftexas
#GingersTexas

Filed Under: Books, Episodes

« Season 4, Episode 9: Shine Text Founders & Mixed Chicks Marah Lidey and Naomi Hirabayashi
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Host Heidi Durrow

Host Heidi Durrow

Heidi Durrow is the New York Times best-selling writer of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky and the founder of the original mixed roots film and book festival and now the founder of Mixed Remixed Festival , an annual film, book and performance festival, which will be held next on June 10-11, 2016 at … [Read More]

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