Hello, and welcome to my blog! I am urban fiction author Fatima Munroe, and as of this writing, I have five and a half books (I co-authored a book with a few AMAZING authors), available for purchase on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites.
I started writing last year (2014), mainly random notes to myself. At the beginning of this year, I experienced a tragic personal loss that left me devastated. At that moment I realized life was too short to not act on my dreams. Grabbing my laptop one weekend, I sat down and wrote a short story about a young woman who grew up too fast on the west side of Chicago. Didn't think anything of it, initially. Sent the story out to my family members and got their thoughts on it, and got a lot of positive feedback.
At this point, I stopped and prayed. I looked for a sign from the Creator as to whether this was the road that I needed to travel. Did I want to pursue a career as an author? What if I failed? What if my books didn't sell? What if I got no response? I felt the answer once I looked inside of myself, when I removed the doubt. I took that answer and sent my short story out to a couple of boutique publishing houses and I waited. Waited for a yes, waited for a no, waited for anything. The next day, I received a response from one, and a contract from the second. Talk about divine intervention! I called everyone I knew and gave them the good news. Later on that day, I received a second contract via email.
I sat down at my desk and scrutinized both. Closing my eyes and giving thought to the possibility of being a published author, I signed with the company that I felt in my heart would grow my career. Not to say the second wouldn't, I still follow their work and they're doing exceptionally well. What about the third, you ask? The third is making great strides in the literary world, and I am still one of their biggest fans.
There's a lot more to our genre, Urban Literature/African-American Fiction/Women's Literature/Street Literature, than the literary world knows. On one hand, the average consumer sees our covers, reads our synopsis, and assumes that whatever is contained behind the cover is trash, garbage, and that's all that we know. As evidenced by our sales, we, as artists in our craft, as entertainers of the masses, we also can spin a tale of love, loss, longing, and want. Our readers message us and ask when is the next installment? They identify with our characters, because their mannerisms mirror theirs. We know through our reviews whether or not we've touched a nerve or need to go back to the drawing board. We take the good with the bad and we grow, we change, we adapt.
The urban fiction genre has continued to flourish, grow, and thrive. As both an author and an avid reader, I look forward to being a part of a genre that is growing momentum every day. And, at the end of the day, it's just fiction....
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for an introduction to a few of the faces of urban fiction...
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