The impact of author Bebe Moore Campbell
(philly.com) The last time I saw Bebe Moore Campbell was in August of 2005 at the National Book Club Conference in Atlanta. I was in the audience while she read from her latest novel, 72 Hour Hold. I savored the moment.
That was also the year Terry McMillan dominated the headlines after discovering that her husband and literary muse, Jonathan Plummer, was not only gay, but on the down low to boot. Reporters had attached themselves to McMillan like Velcro, asking her annoying questions like, “Terry, do you think you’ll ever get your groove back?”
McMillan was the story that year. But not on this particular afternoon. Not at Campbell’s session.
While Campbell read about a mother’s struggle with her daughter’s mental illness in her usual assured, mesmerizing voice, McMillan sat cross-legged and unassuming in the corner. Just another fan among more than 100 women, hanging onto the words of a talented writer who had done it longer, better and with more consistency than anybody else in the room.
Campbell, a Philadelphia literary treasure, had been writing women’s stories long before a bunch of Gen Xers distilled the genre into chick lit. (more…)
