#blackwomenwriters

Today’s guest is Brooke Dean. Brooke and I have been friends since the mid-90’s when I used to work for Inroads, Inc., an organization that supports talented youth of color in their goals of developing the acumen needed to be successful in business & industry. Brooke was an alum of the program and volunteered her time to give back to the youth in our cohort when I first met her.

Brooke has a more than 20 years of experience in the television industry and currently oversees the Audible Originals Third Party Scripted Content and Podcasts team at Audible.com.  Brooke and I reconnected a couple of years ago when Audible was looking to increase the diversity of talent that it worked with to create their audiobook and podcast cover art and I was picked up as an Audible artist. Brooke and I have since worked on a few projects together including one that she pitched and produced which is a biographical memoir of popular writer, motivational speaker, and TV personality, Mikki Taylor who is known as the country's leading authority on beauty and style for women of color. We’ve also collaborated on art for a podcast series that tells the story of Jerry Lawson, an African American video game engineer who invented the video game cartridge.

In addition to her corporate experience, Brooke is also a freelance writer and an author, and the reason that Brooke is with us today. A multi-disciplinary writer, Brooke’s first published work as an author is an erotic story that examines the idea of discovering one’s sexual identity in terms of likes, and dislikes, turn ons and turn offs, but also how one navigates who they come to realize themselves to be especially when social norms would be in conflict. Brooke’s book titled, Brooklyn Unbound, is in the same lane as legendary erotic fiction writer, Zane, who helped to edit the book and who has also edited Brooke’s second book set to come out as part of a three-part series exploring her protagonists journey.

An incredible human, Brooke has written for online magazines such as madamenoire.com focusing on love, sex, relationships and lifestyle content. A native Philadelphian now a NYC transplant, she currently resides in Queens with her son Jaxon, who is also a budding author of the children's picture book series The Whisker Gang. Brooke is also a podcaster herself, having recently launched a podcast with her friend and colleague Phara Joseph titled “Single Moms Doing the Most.” Brooke is our first writer on this podcast and it was great to start off with a literary creative as smart and intelligent as Brooke.

Visit me at www.oskarcastro.com and if you like what you hear please support us at - https://www.patreon.com/Oskar.

For Episode 27, That Social Work Lady welcomes author B. Angela Redd to the studio to discuss community, family, and her writing process.

Since the age of twelve years old Redd has believed she was destined to be a writer after completing her first play and corralling neighborhood kids to read for parts, study their lines, and show up on time daily for rehearsal. Her passion for writing never ceased throughout the years.  It would be thirty years before Redd put family, career, and life on pause, faced down the paralyzing fear and self-doubt she’d known from years of low self-esteem and mustered the courage to do what she knew was her God-given assignment - write.

B. Angela Redd realized her dream on April 29, 2022, when she published her first novel, Willfully Blind. A literary fiction writer to her core, she masterfully seized and conveyed the depths of her characters through a story both complex and thematic. With a three-tier Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism, Political Science, and Sociology from the University of Michigan- Dearborn, B. Angela Redd’s background lends her passion for writing, political and social justice, and mental wellness. She has always retained a heart for those struggling with mental illness, hence her decision to work for a community mental health agency advocating for vulnerable adults struggling with mental illness and developmental disabilities for the past eighteen years.

Follow B. Angela Redd for more:
www.bangelaredd.com