January 11, 2025 • 48 mins
Our special Off The Shelf guest this morning is Karen Osborne. Karen has been an avid lover of “stories” since she was a kid. She started writing when she was 12-years-old. However, her career in academia and being a wife and mom, not to mention operating The Osborne Consulting and Training firm, saw writing take backstage. She was traveling when she wrote the first draft of “Getting It Right”. Next came her books “Tangled Lies”, “Reckonings” and “True Grace”. Her next book “Justice for Emerson” is due out March 2025.
Enjoy the show!
Enjoy the show!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the winning literary show off the showf
Books Talk Radio Live with host Denise Turney, author of
the books Long Walk Up Portia, Love for Over Me,
Spiral Love Has Many Faces, and rosett Us Great Hope.
Turn up your dial and get ready for a blast
of feature author interviews, four one one on book festivals,
(00:21):
writing conferences, and so much more. Ready, let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I like to start the show, and this is our
first show of twenty twenty five. So here's the quote
we're gonna start with, and it's from Susie Chasm. Doubt
kills more dreams than failure ever will. You're gonna have
to trust yourself. You're gonna have to trust yourself and
just trust that things will work out so you can
go for it and don't talk yourself out of doing
(00:51):
the things you want to do. Again, Doubt kills more
dreams than failure ever will.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And we learn a.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Lot from failure, just like I learned a lot this morning.
And this is from Susie Chasm. Susie Chasm, and I
want to welcome you, welcome you to this is year eighteen.
We're in our eighteenth year Off the Shelf. We started
on live radio and then that with that Rainbow Soul
Jazz station with blog talk radio, and now we're on
(01:20):
a different platform. So welcome to the Saturday January Laven
twenty twenty five show. We have an amazing author on
deck for you, excited to introduce you to her and
listen to her.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Talk about her books.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
But before we begin that, if you love short stories,
you know we all are so busy. There's just so
much to do that sometimes we don't have time to
really dig into a two three four hundred page novel.
If you love a short story, and this one is
about a woman who she owns her own business and
(01:55):
she is go, go go. I mean she's a hard charger.
But her family history and just the what's something that's
really real that people are dealing with? Burnout is a
topic in this short story and the title of it
and what she goes to she has to learn more
about herself or she could go full fledged into burnout
(02:20):
and the title of.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
It is Pieces of Me. Pieces of Me.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You can get it on Apple Books, you can get
it Amazon again.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
It's a short story. It's about forty five pages.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I think you will love this and depending on what's
going on in your life, it might actually really speak
to you directly. And I also would love for you
to visit me online and sign up for my literary newsletter,
the Book Lovers Having at chistl dot com and as
www dot c chis te l l dot com. And
(02:58):
now let us go and meet our every special off
the shelf guest. And this morning's guest is Karen Osborne
and I could tell you my first time connecting with her.
She is patient, she is flexible, she is resilient, she
is persistent, she is amazing. And Karen has been an
(03:19):
avid lover of stories since she was a kid. She
started writing when she was twelve years old. However, her
career in academia and being a wife and mom, not
to mention operating the Osbourne Consulting and Training form, saw
writing take a backstage for her. She was traveling when
she wrote the first draft of Getting It Right, and
(03:41):
next came her books Tangled Lies, Reckonings, True Grace and
her new book, Justice for Emerson, which is due out
in March of this year.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Please check Karen.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Osbourne out online and her books at Karenosbourne dot com.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
KA r E n k A R E n E.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Hope, she corrects me if I got this wrong. O
s b O r n E dot com. K A
r E n E O s b O r n
E dot com. And we're gonna bring Karen on live. Welcome, Welcome, Karen.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Thank you so much for having me. I so appreciate
being here. Yes, that funny little E in the middle,
there's another Karen Osborne who writes. She's she writes a
fantasy and dystopian novels, and so my E in the
middle is really important. Karen E. Osborne, And thank you
(04:40):
for that.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Ah interesting, thanks for sharing that. We are just so
honored to have you on here. The first three questions
I'm gonna ask you I ask every guest on the
show because our listeners like a little backstory on the guests.
So can you tell us, Karen, where you grew up
and what life was like for you growing up.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
So, I grew up in the Bronx, New York, on
a block where everybody on the block was second generation Americans.
They're mostly from the Caribbean and h and everybody was
your mother and everybody was your father. No matter what
you were doing on the sidewalk and on the street
(05:21):
walking to school. We we just did everything together. And
I'm still friends with so many of those those folks.
You know, a zillion years a zillion years ago, we
were pretty much working class. Everybody on the block was
They worked for the police, so they worked for you know, transit.
(05:42):
This is a new you know, Bronx in the New
York in New York, so they were on the subway.
They were mailmen and firemen. And the mom's pretty much
stayed home because I'm pretty darn old, So the mom's
all stayed home and you know, were housewives and so
on one level, it was a very idyllic upbringing. But unfortunately,
(06:07):
on the other side, I am a survivor more than
a survivor. I was a victim and then a survivor,
and now I am a thriver incest survivor. Oh so yeah,
So it was a complex growing up. And when you
read my novels, you'll see, you know a lot of
(06:29):
my protagonists have trauma, had trauma in their lives. You know,
you write what you know.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Okay, are you an only child? No?
Speaker 4 (06:40):
I have an older brother and a younger brother, and
unfortunately we were all all victims.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Oh bless you bless you.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
As a child. What did you want to be when
you grew up? What did your dream of being when
you grew up?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
I was going to be a writer. Why I knew
it from a little girl. You know, reading was a
great escape my father, who was the perpetrator, but also
gave me lots of gifts. You know, people are not
one hundred percent evil in my experience, and so he was.
You know, he had evil in him. But he also
(07:18):
gave me the love of reading and the love of writing.
So I devoured books as a little girl. It was
also a great escape. It was a way not to
think about what's going on in your life, you know,
just go off someplace and I would just make up
stories all the time, so I always wanted to do it.
I didn't get published till I was sixty nine years old,
(07:42):
but it.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Wasn't too well. But you did it. There you go. Now,
you can never too late. There you go.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I love your spirit, man, You gotta know I'm not
you gotta I'm not quitting spirit. Tell us about the
time you wrote book reports on stories you've made up
in your and did your teachers ever catch on to
what you were doing?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
So because I loved making up stories, and I still
do love making up stories. So and I did read
a lot. It wasn't like I was trying to dodge reading.
But I liked my stories. So I would write the book.
I'd come up with characters, I'd come up with a plot.
I didn't write the story. I would just have all
the pieces in my head and I would the characters
(08:28):
would talk to me in my head, and so I
would write up my book report. I knew that you
were supposed to have an ISBN number, and I knew
from the library you know what's supposed to be the
information that every book has, the year it was published,
and who the publisher was. So it was great fun.
And no, I never got caught. The teachers were always intrigued, like, oh,
(08:49):
I haven't heard of this book, I haven't heard of
this author. Well, Karen, this sounds so interesting. Thank you
for sharing this with us.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Oh my goodness, I have never even heard of anybody. Wow,
what imagination. I never murder of anybody who's done it.
And you're one of the few guests, at eighteen years
on doing off the show, one of the few who
knew as a kid they were a writer. Most it
fell into it. They didn't. They just kind of stumbled
(09:18):
into it.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
That shared.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
What role did you feel while you were working in academia?
Were you a professor?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
So I was in charge of fundraising? So we were,
which is, you know, schools and universities require an awful
lot of money to keep going, and tuition doesn't cover it.
That's one of the reasons tuition keeps going up, up
(09:47):
and up. And I didn't work for one of those big,
rich universities that had huge endowments. I worked for scrappy
institutions that fundraising was really important. I I was responsible
for bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. You know,
I'm not talking about you know, events and you know,
(10:08):
little kinds of gifts. I'm talking about working the high
end of the of the pyramid. And it was exciting.
I traveled the world. It was it was a wonderful
career and it got me. Then I had one president
too many, on my ninth president of a university that
(10:29):
I stomped out and called my husband and said, I'm
quitting my job right now. And he said, whoa baby, Wait, wait, wait,
can we talk about it? And I said no, no,
I'm leaving. So he then my he's my wind between
from underman my wings. So he said, well then why
don't we started business together?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Wow? Oh my god. Let me ask you.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
The fundraising you had you did for uh college universe,
how has that helped you for our listeners who are
authors themselves or maybe even they own a business, how
has that helped you with going out and marketing, promoting
your books to more book buyers, or trying to get
(11:16):
your books in, whether it would be schools, gift shops,
how has that helped you?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
It was, you know, Denise, I was so blessed. So
when my first book came out, I was still working
full time and a good part of my business was
training other people. So I was a motivational speaker and
a trainer, and I you know, people would invite me
(11:43):
and pay me to come and spend the day and
teach their fundraisers, and teach their board members and teach
their CEOs. And so when Getting It Right came out,
I would just say, I'd say, oh, and you know,
I have this book. And I was wondering at the
end of the taught, at the end of the workshop,
could I just like have a little table and offer
(12:05):
my books, and everybody was, oh, Karen, of course, oh
my gosh, you've got a book. Yes, And so the
first book I sold it mostly at workshops, you know,
when I finished talking, my little table would be set up.
One school even lent me to like two assistants, and
(12:26):
so one person took the money and the other person
handed me the book, and all I had to do
is smile and sign.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Oh god.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
But since I've stopped working full time as a as
a speaker, and at this point in my life, I
don't do it. You know, I take a gig every
once in a while, it's actually been harder to sell
the books because I don't have that natural audience. Okay, okay, yeah,
but it was very helpful. They were people were in
(13:00):
and helpful. And the other thing I would just say
about selling your books is you have to just people say.
Writers say, oh I hate marketing. I hate marketing. Well
if you hate marketing, then you're just never going to
make it right.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
You know, you want to get out there. You got
to introduce people to your books.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
There's so many books published now, they're not just going
to find your book.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You have to get out here and introduce people to it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You mentioned Getting It Right, So we want to talk
about several of your books in to day, including your ladies.
So can you just start off with your first Can
you give us a brief overview of your first novel,
Getting It Right.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah. So, Kara and Alex are half sisters that have
never met each other. They were only six months apart,
and they didn't know that each other existed. And Alex
grew up in dysfunctional privilege. She's white, her product of
her white father and a white mother, and she has
two siblings, and Kara, who is mixed race and has
(14:02):
the same you know, shares the father, the white father.
Grew up in foster care. Her mother died at a
very young age. Her grandmother was quite old. She'd had
her mother late in life, and so she died and
Kara was put into the system. There was nobody else
to take care of her, and all the time that
(14:23):
she was in the system, a lot of abuse happened
and bad things happened to her. She was just praying
every day that her father, whoever he was, would come
and find her. And so the story opens on the
eve of the death of their shared father and he'd
(14:45):
had a massive heart attack, and he calls Alex to
his bedside and said, I need you to find this
child that I abandoned so I can make things right
before I die. And so the story takes place over
two weeks in March when Alex tries to find Kara,
and of course there's lots going on. There's all kinds
of insider trading and FBI and lots of action. Short chapters,
(15:10):
fast moving, but that's the basic press.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
So, okay, who's in the financial services Alex? Now I'm
put of trading and all this stuff? So I'm thinking
one of them works for a bank or something.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
No, it's it's Kara that falls for the wrong guy.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
You know when you haven't grown up with good examples
of po relationships look like. So she's got this guy
and he's the one in financial services that it's her
caught up in a mess, a mess. Kara's struggling. Kara's struggling,
but so is Alex. Alex grew up with all this privilege,
(15:53):
but her mother is crazy and her father is clearly
not a terrific person. So she has a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Of how how old are they how old are they
at the start?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Thirty the thirties, okay.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Thirty years old, both of them the six months apart.
Wasn't he a nice guy?
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah? Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Both his women were pregnant at the same time.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
But what would describe him as? Was he a successful businessman?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Or yeh, okay, he was.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
His name is Worth Lawrence and his his mother in
law used to call him worthless worth. But he was wealthy,
you know, lives in the suburbs of New York. But
for New York, he you know, was his own horses,
you know, just living the high light, had his own company.
(16:49):
He worked for hedge funds. Yes, so he was all
in the world of finance as well.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Hopefully maybe you linked those two together with Kara's boyfriend
and her dad, which would be just a real good thriller.
Introduce me so that for our office shelf listeners, getting
it right? Look at that title. Look at that title.
It's like it starts off maybe I want to totally wrong,
(17:20):
but do these sisters come to form a friendship because
it's not their fault what has happened.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
It's not. But Kara's pretty damaged and Alex kind of
thinks that Kara should be grateful when Alex finds her,
and Kara's not feeling it. So, you know, there's a
lot of dynamics. What does it mean to be family?
What does it mean you know, overcoming trauma. It's got
(17:49):
a lot of a lot of layers.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I'm going to ask you about another previous book, then
we're going to talk about your latest, and I'm going
to try to cover each of your books. But can
you introduce us to Bara Moon Entangled Lies.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Yes. So, Bara is a seventy year old African American
woman who comes home on the first two pages of
the book to find her adult son brutally murdered. Oh oh,
and three months later, she is in a car crash
(18:27):
that Danny, who is our second protagonist, who's twenty five
and white and a hot mess and homeless and a
pathological liar. But she has a good heart. And Danny
sees the car crash and she just feels like something
was wrong. It didn't look like an accident to her.
(18:50):
So over two weeks in May. You'll know there's a
theme here with my books. Over two weeks in May,
they come together very unlikely pair. This seventy year old
black woman and this twenty five year old hot mess
female and both of them looking for things in their
life that are missing, and they solve the murder together.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
And there's times of danger and bad guys and sluice
and again the short chapters, fast moving and one trouble
after another that the two women have to face, including
and I always put a little romance in all my books.
So Danny has a really sweet boyfriend who's dropped her
(19:42):
because of all her lives and bad behavior. So we're
rooting for We're rooting for them too. We want them
to find each other.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I love the book's cover. Who what was it like
working with the cover illustrated?
Speaker 3 (19:59):
You know?
Speaker 4 (20:00):
So this was so Getting it Right was one publisher,
and then Tangled Lives was my new publisher, and both
of them said, oh, well, you know, send you three
choices and you pick the one you like. That didn't
really happen that way, but getting it right. I loved
the cover. I thought it was really great, and I
(20:22):
just said thank you and Tangled Lies. I didn't love
the cover, but I didn't know that I had a
voice that could push back. So when the third book
came out, I was able to push back and have
more of a say in the cover of Reckoning as
(20:44):
I did with the next three books. I just didn't
know because it was the first time I was working
with that publisher, and I was just so grateful, and
I just didn't know that I could speak up and say,
you know, can we do something different? So it's fun
working with designers and you can, you know. I sent
in ideas, and I sent in descriptions of what I
(21:05):
kind of had in mind, and and then the publisher
you know, worked on it and came up with them
with beautiful covers after Tangled, Liiz, it's not the Tangled
Lies is a terrible cover. It's just not as beautiful
as the next two, not one three.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I said, we're going to talk about the latest one next,
but before that, I do want to talk about Reckonings, Reckonings,
True Grace, and then the one that's coming out in March.
So two for reconis, can you get office shop listeners?
A brief synopsis of Reckonings.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
So yes. So this is a thirty six year old woman,
Roxy who African American woman who feels old at thirty six.
She lives with her four children, two rescue dogs. Her
husband in a teeny tiny apartment, and she's worked looking
(22:00):
at a job she hates, and she's tired. She's just
worn out. And she thinks though that she has an
answer and a solution. All she really wants is a
bigger place for her family. And her oldest daughter is pregnant.
She's seventeen years old and pregnant. She won't tell her
parents who the father is, and so Roxy is just
like But she's written a play and the local community
(22:24):
theater has agreed to stage it in nine days, and
when the story starts, it's nine days away. They agreed
long time ago, but when the story opens, the play
opens in nine days. And Roxy is also keeping a
secret when she was eighteen. When she was seventeen, she
(22:45):
was raped by this guy named Spider, and she never
told Carl, her husband, who was her boyfriend at the time.
She never told Jule, who is her oldest daughter who's
pregnant herself. And now Spider is back in town, so
the play is in nine days. She thinks it's gonna
(23:05):
save everything. It's called the Monday Night Murder, and Spider
is back in town. He's wealthy, he's successful, and he's
come back to save the town because the town is
you know, struggling financially and stuff. So he's come in
like a white night, you know, that's gonna save the town.
And now he's threatened Roxy that he's going to tell
(23:29):
Jewel that he's he believes that Jewel is his child.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
And and he in his mind it was consensual sex.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
So it's like, you know again, short chapters, fast paced,
you know, toxic secrets. Poor poor Roxy, Oh.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
My god, you have a lot going on. Let me
these characters lies, these tell us about Roxy's marriage. Is
it a sweet rewarding marriage? Are they king? But like partner?
They work together?
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Well, so they work together and they've loved each other
since high school. But Carl is also tired. He works,
the two of them work for his father, and he
hates his job and he feels trapped and he feels
like he's getting old, you know, too soon. Also, and
(24:22):
when Spider comes back in town, he be he renews
his friendship because they all knew each other in high school.
So he renews his friendship with Carl. And so that's
even more frightening for Roxy because Carl doesn't know, and
she said she's gonna find. She has a best friend
named Dallas. Dallas is such a cool character, and she
(24:43):
has this really really great friend who says, you've just
got to tell him you're digging a hole. Stop digging,
and she's like, will, I just have to find the
right time. And then there's the actress who's gonna be
and it is also a childhood friend who's agreed to
star are in her play just for one week, and
she has all kinds of drama going. So it's a
(25:06):
lot all in nine days.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Oh my god, how many main characters. We've got her husband,
we've called Spider, We've got Roxy, her friend, and there's
another woman. So you got what five? Or yeah, yeah
it is?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Is she?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
So let's talk. I'm looking at her as a mother.
Her daughter's seventeen and she's pregnant. Some mothers, especially a
single mother, they really do everything and they can to
keep their daughter from going down the same path they
went down. Is she a devoted mother and wife? And
then doing my research for the show, and does she
(25:43):
give in to temptation at any point in this story?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
You don't have to give the details away, but.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Yeah, she is a devoted mother, but she's very torn.
Juel wants to put the baby up for adoption, and
she's she's very torn about that her mother abandoned her.
Roxy's mother abandoned Roxy when Roxy was twelve, and so
one part of her saying, we can't raise another baby,
(26:11):
you know, Jewel hasn't even graduated from high school, and
so we're going to be Carl and I are going
to have to raise this child, you know. So okay,
so adoption is the right thing. But then the other
part of her remembers how she felt, you know, didn't
you love me enough to keep me? Didn't you love
me enough to stay? So she's very torn, and she
(26:31):
and Jewel have a very interesting relationship. You really see,
you see the love, but you see the conflict between
between the two of them. All of my characters are
very you know, multi layered, and in fact, most when
I most I look at reviews of all my books,
one of the things that's consistent is how fully developed
(26:55):
the characters are, how real they are. That's because they
are Denise. I mean, he has a writer, you know that.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Right, you know what that is.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
So that is a great compliment because people say that
one of the number one things that attract readers to
a story and keep their interest is the characters. Even
if you have a lot going on in a story,
it could be it's an action story or a mystery
or whatever romance. If the reader doesn't really care about
the characters, they're not gonna stick with it. It's particularly
(27:25):
if it's a book series, then I gonna stick with
the story because they're not they don't feel a connection
to the characters. So that's a great compliment on the
reviews that you've.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Received from readers. Why did you choose the title reckoning.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Because there's so many reckonings that have to happen. There's
the reckoning of the lie that you know that she
kept for eighteen years, that Roxy kept from her husband
for eighteen years. They're supposed to be partners and you know,
trust each other and hear she's carrying this lot, this
(28:02):
a lie. There's coming reckonings with her daughter, Jewel or
Jewel you know, does Jewel find out that you know,
Spiders could have been her father. It's you know, Roxy
doesn't really know, and so there's a reckoning there. There's
also the reckoning of Spider you know, he doesn't think
he did anything wrong. He you know, he says, you know,
(28:24):
we visit you know, your you're revising history. You know
that's not the way I remember it. Uh. And but
rape is rape, you know. And but he just feels
like he literally said to her when he was finished,
he said, you'll like it better next time.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah. So there's a lot of reckonings that have to happen.
That's why it's a it's an s on there as
opposed to just reckoning. Lots of reckonings have to happen, Okay,
reckonings you guys.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
By Karen Osborn Karen Osborne Karen When and where is
the story True Grace set? And why did you choose
this time period and study.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
So this one? Oh my goodness, I love the cover
of this one too. True Grace is inspired by my grandmother,
and it's set in nineteen twenty four, one hundred years,
you know, years ago, and so many of the issues
of twenty four, you know, the nineteen twenty four are
(29:29):
so similar to today's time. So Grace is twenty seven
years old when you meet her. She has five children.
She was born in the Congo, She was educated in England.
She got married in Jamaica, and now they're in Harlem
during the Harlem Renaissance. This is the Roaring twenties, and
(29:51):
she's living a comfortable life and she's made peace with
her life, even though she her marriage is not happy,
She's truly she made peace with her life. And all
she wants to do is raise her children and give
them more opportunities than she had. And so when the
story opens, she comes home unexpectedly and is met by
(30:17):
something so devastating. I'm very, very proud of the way
I wrote this chapter. It's not for the faint of heart.
But she comes home and finds something so, so devastating.
And so the story is how an uneducated woman, she's
self educated, but she didn't graduate even from high school.
(30:41):
She got married very young. So how this mixed race woman,
this immigrant and a time when immigrants were mistreated, at
a time when women weren't believed a time when even
though the Roaring Twenties was old women taking off their
girdles and their brass, that was young, white, affluent women,
(31:02):
that whole flapper thing. It didn't reach the Harlem housewife.
It didn't reach the Jewish housewife in the in the suburbs.
It didn't reach you know, it was and so, but
well that's going around her, but she can't. That's it's
(31:23):
not part of her. So over, this one is the
only book that's more than two weeks because it's historical fiction,
so over it's only six months. Over six months, it
is how she overcomes. And she's an extraordinary woman. And
my grandmother was an extraordinary, extraordinary one. So it's got
lots of truth in it, like the opening scene. But
(31:47):
I had to make up a lot. But I was
blessed with I have five books that were written about
her father. He was famous in his time. And I
have three hundred hands written letters from Grace so and
the conversations I had with her while I was a teenager.
(32:07):
So I had a lot of good source material. But
I still make up a lot. It's a powerful, powerful story.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Wow. I was going to ask you if Grace was
based on a real life person, and yes, that you
have the answer. It was based in part on your grandmother.
So she said she didn't Disgrace didn't graduate from high school.
She's an immigrant. What house would you describe her? Is
she like bold?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Is she timid?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Is she is she and she has a family of
her own now in the United States? Where in Harlem?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Is that correct? She married is?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
How would you describe her personality this and in the
nineteen twenties when women.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Were held back here? But does she does she take risk?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Does she stay within where people say this is how
you should behave or does she bust out with like
a Mary MacLeod Bethune or a hair cupman? Or how
would you describe Grace in the end the book? In
the novel, how would you describe her.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Grit and grace? She used to say she had a mantra,
and so does Grace in the book, I am the
daughter of a British explorer and a strong African woman
who fought the Congo, who built, who built schools and
(33:30):
and doug wells and help people and dodged, you know,
poisoned darts. I am the daughter of these two incredible people,
and so I can overcome and so she and she
used to say to me that she got her grit
from her African mother and she got her grace from
(33:51):
her English father, and the two things together carries her through.
So she has to dig deep, and every turn she's
not sure what to do. She you know, she doesn't
know what to do, but she just knows that she
has to take care of her children, and she has
to protect her children, and she makes some tough, tough
(34:12):
decisions as she goes along. So when I speak at
book clubs, one of the topics questions that people I
ask them is you know, would you have made some
of the same decisions. Do you think you would have
made some of the same decisions that Grace made? And
what options do you think she had? And did she
not take advantage of all her options? And what if
(34:33):
this happened later in not nineteen twenty four? So we
have rich, rich conversations about Grace's choices. But she is
so determined that she is going to do everything in
her power, which is limited limited power, the police, everybody,
the social welfare system, everything is against her.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
And like I always do, there's a lo story in
there too.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Also, God's gonna ask you who's pulling for her?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Because if she live in America by herself, who's pulling
for her in a story? And if you could introduce
us to that person.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
So she has a best friend named Beryl, and Beryl
is married to a very nice man, patient man, and
and Beryl is but again they're they're limited in their abilities.
You know, Beryl is also an immigrant, and but Beryl
sticks by Grace and really helps her. She she's from Jamaica.
(35:35):
And then she Grace gets a job with a Jewish woman,
Delilah Dahlia, and you have to decide for yourself if
they're friends or not. And then this wonderful man, Jonathan.
One writer, one reader wrote me on Facebook and she said,
(35:57):
I wanted Jonathan.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Okay, Jonathan.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
So she has a she has a really sweet, sweet
guy who's pursuing her and who she's running from. She
has secrets to secrets, secrets and lies.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
So okay, what have readers been saying about True Grace?
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (36:23):
I get wonderful, wonderful reviews. If you go on Amazon,
you'll read some amazing, amazing reviews. Here's here's one. A
powerful story about love, courage, sacrifice, resilience and hope. True
Grace by Karny Osborne will hold you captive from its
(36:44):
tragic and uplifting journey of True Grace. A compelling and
suspenseful historical family drama about a woman with intelligence, courage, heart,
and of course grace, Oh.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
My goodness, and got in love When you get those
those and you learn so much from reviews what to
change with the next book and what to keep going.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
That is awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Now I know Justice for Emerson it's not due out
for a couple of months, but could you introduce us
to that book, Justice for Emerson, and just give us
a brief overview of.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Justice for Emerson? I had so much fun writing this book.
In East's book, I decided I was tired of trauma.
I wanted to turn away from writing about trauma, and
so why not to write about murder again? Right? So
(37:45):
Aria is fifty years old. She's a young black woman.
She has a seventeen year eighteen year old son who's
in college, and she runs a not for profit. She's
a really good person and this not for profit helps
people who the unhoused and hungry. And she has after
(38:06):
school programs and free showers and she gets free clothes
and food. And so she's running this not for profit,
but it is in a lot of trouble and she
doesn't know why. She's not understanding why the money is
just draining away, and she also doesn't know why her
(38:27):
son has not been in touch with her when he
usually calls her like several times a week. So she's
worried about her son, she's worried about the not for profit.
She's worried that this guy has fallen for her. But
she's only at five foot two and she wears three
in cheels, and she has sort of a chip on
(38:47):
her shoulder about being little. And this guy that's interested
in her, and she says she's a brown skinned black woman.
And this man that's interested in her is six foot two, wow,
And she says he's too tall, Like she asks her friend,
how do they even make love? Does he have to
lift people up? Click she can. And then so he's
(39:08):
too tall, he's too rich because he's a donor to
her not for profit and so what would people say?
He's too young? She's fifty and he's forty, and maybe
he wants to have more children or you know, like
my factory is closed he's And then he's also too white.
(39:29):
This is the first white man she's ever ever had
anything to do with, you know, on a romantic level.
And finally it's too soon. Her husband Ben has only
been dead for two years. So that's all happens on
page one that we find out all this stuff, and
then she discovers the murder of one of her volunteers,
(39:51):
one of her sweet, wonderful volunteers. He's seventy seven years old,
he's a Vietnam Vet and he's murdered in the basement
of her enough and the murderer is still there when
she finds him, and he runs up the stairs and
he you know, and she fights him back and he
runs out. So all this happens like in the first
(40:12):
few pages, so over two weeks in what month is it.
I can't remember what month this is this time, but anyway,
this's over two months. I think it's March again or April.
They're trying to She and Jax Jackson's the two everything
boyfriend are trying to solve the murder along with the
(40:33):
local police, and there's all kinds of intrigued there. But
we meet Emerson, who's the murdered Vietnam VETT is a
dual timeline story, and so we meet him when he's
twenty in nineteen sixty eight, and we follow his life
until he ends up murdered in present day. So it's
(40:57):
it's sort of historical fiction. The whole part of Emerson's
life and what happened to Vietnam that's when they came back,
and how black men felt. He was on his way
to Vietnam on the day that Martin Luther King was murdered.
Oh my gosh, and it makes you, you know, I
just made the black men on their way thinking like
why what am I doing here? Why? And then just
(41:21):
a few months later, Bobby Kennedy is murdered, and so
these these young brothers in Vietnam are questioning, you know,
questioning their loyalty and questioning and then you know, so
they were treated so badly when they came back, and
like when you read how Women, you know Women by
(41:42):
Kristin Hannah, you know how women were treated, the combat nurses,
how they were treated when they came back. So it
was it's a Emerson had a lot to overcome, a lot,
and he was working hard on being the best person
he can be. By he stumbled and stumbled and stumbled,
(42:02):
and so there's addiction aloholism, and then he how did
he become this sweet, wonderful volunteer and then why did
he get murdered?
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Yeah, A mystery. You like mysteries.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I can tell there's a big, a bit of a
mystery in each of your stories. Now, we touched as
we start to come to the close of the day's show.
We touched on this a little bit earlier when we
were talking about your fundraising that you did for academia.
But I always like to ask this question for our
office sheelf listeners who themselves may be book lovers and
(42:36):
also authors, Can you share three to four steps that
you personally have found to be effective at getting the
word out about your books.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
So I have a podcast like you do. I have
a but it's a video weekly video podcast, and I
I do it to really help and lift other authors,
you know. So, but while I'm interviewing people, I sometimes
mentioned my books in the So that's one way that
(43:12):
I'm out there every single week. I'm four years old.
And then I have a and then I post that
on my website, which brings people to the website. And
I have a YouTube channel, and I try and keep
my website active and interesting, and you know, and then
you know, I lean on friends, my dear friends who
(43:36):
invite me and host me and uh and do that,
and and then I think there's really something to be
said about ads. You know, you have to invest money,
and if you don't invest money, it's.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
You know, yeah, you got to get you got to
get the public things. I've found attending public speaking events
of book festivals and if not book festivals, I used
to go to a lot of African American festivals any
place where people who would read my books were and
just stand up at that table and not sit down,
(44:13):
and I'd get people to subscribe to my newsletter while
I was there. I'd hand them out free excerpts to
my books, bookmarks, everything to with my website, you arel
on it. I found that to also be helpful. And again,
like you said, ads, Now before we talk about where
people can get copies of your books, can you tell
(44:36):
what advise, Karen, would you have for someone who's looking
to write and publish a book based on your experience,
just to help to hopefully prevent them from a painful experience.
What advice would you have for somebody who really to
(44:56):
they say in twenty twenty five, I'm gonna write and
publish a book.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Tips could you share with them?
Speaker 4 (45:02):
The first one is writers write. You have to write.
You can't keep talking about writing. You can't keep saying
that I have a novel in the works. You have
to write, you need to finish something. Something like only
five percent or six percent of the people who start
books ever finish them. So that's the first thing. Even
(45:22):
if it's fifteen minutes a day, that's what my son,
who's also a writer, he just bows it fifteen minutes
a day. He will at least write that every day.
The second one is is that you've got to learn
your craft. You know, I spend so much time taking
workshops and you know, just trying to be better reading
(45:43):
to learn. You know, other people's novels teach you so
much what to do, what not to do. So writers write,
writers read so you can work on your on your craft.
And then the last thing I would say, I do
have a blog post called thirteen Tips for Getting Started
that you can find on my website, But just to
keep it short, the third one that I would say
(46:05):
is don't give up. You're never too old, you're never
too young, You're never to anything, And don't give up,
be tenacious.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Be okay, where can all the shelf listeners get a
copy of your books?
Speaker 4 (46:20):
So I'm on Amazon, Barnes and Noble book bub you know, Goodreads,
and so you can get you know, any place that
you buy your books or borrow your books, even if
it's not on the shelf. You just have to ask them,
and you know they can order it for you. And
then and then you can find me and more information
(46:42):
about my books and my videos and where I'm going
to be speaking www dot Karen e Osborne O S
b O r n E. There's no you and Osborne
Karen e Osborne dot com.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Oh, what a pleasure. We have just been blessed to
connect with Karen E. Osborne again.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Please visit her online at our website www dot k
A r E n E O S b O r
n e dot com.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
What a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
And look for our new book, Justice for Emerson, which
is scheduled to be released and Marching twenty twenty five.
Other titles by Karen E Osborne or Getting It Right,
Tangle Lives, Reckonings and To Grace and again Justice for
Emerson do out March of this year. Oh my gosh,
thank you so much, Karen. I'm preciate having you here
(47:42):
on the show. And once it finishes streaming and I'm
finished editing it, I will send you a link to
the show. Wish you the best with your writing career,
and thank you so much again. And to our off
the shelf listeners.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
As I always tell you, you are amazing. You are
absolutely incredible. Go out and create a fabulous day for yourself.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
I'll see you back here next Saturday, eleven am. We
will not be live as we were before, but on Saturdays,
I'll had a show post it either Saturday or soon after,
it'll be out and available, and I'll be marketing promoting
the show again. Go create a fabulous day for yourself.
(48:27):
See you back here next week. Bye for now, Bye,
You're listening to the winning literary show off the showf
Books Talk Radio Live with host Denise Turney, author of
the books Long Walk Up Portia, Love for Over Me,
Spiral Love Has Many Faces, and rosett Us Great Hope.
Turn up your dial and get ready for a blast
of feature author interviews, four one one on book festivals,
(00:21):
writing conferences, and so much more. Ready, let's go.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
I like to start the show, and this is our
first show of twenty twenty five. So here's the quote
we're gonna start with, and it's from Susie Chasm. Doubt
kills more dreams than failure ever will. You're gonna have
to trust yourself. You're gonna have to trust yourself and
just trust that things will work out so you can
go for it and don't talk yourself out of doing
(00:51):
the things you want to do. Again, Doubt kills more
dreams than failure ever will.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
And we learn a.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Lot from failure, just like I learned a lot this morning.
And this is from Susie Chasm. Susie Chasm, and I
want to welcome you, welcome you to this is year eighteen.
We're in our eighteenth year Off the Shelf. We started
on live radio and then that with that Rainbow Soul
Jazz station with blog talk radio, and now we're on
(01:20):
a different platform. So welcome to the Saturday January Laven
twenty twenty five show. We have an amazing author on
deck for you, excited to introduce you to her and
listen to her.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Talk about her books.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
But before we begin that, if you love short stories,
you know we all are so busy. There's just so
much to do that sometimes we don't have time to
really dig into a two three four hundred page novel.
If you love a short story, and this one is
about a woman who she owns her own business and
(01:55):
she is go, go go. I mean she's a hard charger.
But her family history and just the what's something that's
really real that people are dealing with? Burnout is a
topic in this short story and the title of it
and what she goes to she has to learn more
about herself or she could go full fledged into burnout
(02:20):
and the title of.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
It is Pieces of Me. Pieces of Me.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
You can get it on Apple Books, you can get
it Amazon again.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
It's a short story. It's about forty five pages.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I think you will love this and depending on what's
going on in your life, it might actually really speak
to you directly. And I also would love for you
to visit me online and sign up for my literary newsletter,
the Book Lovers Having at chistl dot com and as
www dot c chis te l l dot com. And
(02:58):
now let us go and meet our every special off
the shelf guest. And this morning's guest is Karen Osborne
and I could tell you my first time connecting with her.
She is patient, she is flexible, she is resilient, she
is persistent, she is amazing. And Karen has been an
(03:19):
avid lover of stories since she was a kid. She
started writing when she was twelve years old. However, her
career in academia and being a wife and mom, not
to mention operating the Osbourne Consulting and Training form, saw
writing take a backstage for her. She was traveling when
she wrote the first draft of Getting It Right, and
(03:41):
next came her books Tangled Lies, Reckonings, True Grace and
her new book, Justice for Emerson, which is due out
in March of this year.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Please check Karen.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Osbourne out online and her books at Karenosbourne dot com.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
KA r E n k A R E n E.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Hope, she corrects me if I got this wrong. O
s b O r n E dot com. K A
r E n E O s b O r n
E dot com. And we're gonna bring Karen on live. Welcome, Welcome, Karen.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Thank you so much for having me. I so appreciate
being here. Yes, that funny little E in the middle,
there's another Karen Osborne who writes. She's she writes a
fantasy and dystopian novels, and so my E in the
middle is really important. Karen E. Osborne, And thank you
(04:40):
for that.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Ah interesting, thanks for sharing that. We are just so
honored to have you on here. The first three questions
I'm gonna ask you I ask every guest on the
show because our listeners like a little backstory on the guests.
So can you tell us, Karen, where you grew up
and what life was like for you growing up.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
So, I grew up in the Bronx, New York, on
a block where everybody on the block was second generation Americans.
They're mostly from the Caribbean and h and everybody was
your mother and everybody was your father. No matter what
you were doing on the sidewalk and on the street
(05:21):
walking to school. We we just did everything together. And
I'm still friends with so many of those those folks.
You know, a zillion years a zillion years ago, we
were pretty much working class. Everybody on the block was
They worked for the police, so they worked for you know, transit.
(05:42):
This is a new you know, Bronx in the New
York in New York, so they were on the subway.
They were mailmen and firemen. And the mom's pretty much
stayed home because I'm pretty darn old, So the mom's
all stayed home and you know, were housewives and so
on one level, it was a very idyllic upbringing. But unfortunately,
(06:07):
on the other side, I am a survivor more than
a survivor. I was a victim and then a survivor,
and now I am a thriver incest survivor. Oh so yeah,
So it was a complex growing up. And when you
read my novels, you'll see, you know a lot of
(06:29):
my protagonists have trauma, had trauma in their lives. You know,
you write what you know.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Okay, are you an only child? No?
Speaker 4 (06:40):
I have an older brother and a younger brother, and
unfortunately we were all all victims.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Oh bless you bless you.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
As a child. What did you want to be when
you grew up? What did your dream of being when
you grew up?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
I was going to be a writer. Why I knew
it from a little girl. You know, reading was a
great escape my father, who was the perpetrator, but also
gave me lots of gifts. You know, people are not
one hundred percent evil in my experience, and so he was.
You know, he had evil in him. But he also
(07:18):
gave me the love of reading and the love of writing.
So I devoured books as a little girl. It was
also a great escape. It was a way not to
think about what's going on in your life, you know,
just go off someplace and I would just make up
stories all the time, so I always wanted to do it.
I didn't get published till I was sixty nine years old,
(07:42):
but it.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
Wasn't too well. But you did it. There you go. Now,
you can never too late. There you go.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I love your spirit, man, You gotta know I'm not
you gotta I'm not quitting spirit. Tell us about the
time you wrote book reports on stories you've made up
in your and did your teachers ever catch on to
what you were doing?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
So because I loved making up stories, and I still
do love making up stories. So and I did read
a lot. It wasn't like I was trying to dodge reading.
But I liked my stories. So I would write the book.
I'd come up with characters, I'd come up with a plot.
I didn't write the story. I would just have all
the pieces in my head and I would the characters
(08:28):
would talk to me in my head, and so I
would write up my book report. I knew that you
were supposed to have an ISBN number, and I knew
from the library you know what's supposed to be the
information that every book has, the year it was published,
and who the publisher was. So it was great fun.
And no, I never got caught. The teachers were always intrigued, like, oh,
(08:49):
I haven't heard of this book, I haven't heard of
this author. Well, Karen, this sounds so interesting. Thank you
for sharing this with us.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Oh my goodness, I have never even heard of anybody. Wow,
what imagination. I never murder of anybody who's done it.
And you're one of the few guests, at eighteen years
on doing off the show, one of the few who
knew as a kid they were a writer. Most it
fell into it. They didn't. They just kind of stumbled
(09:18):
into it.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
That shared.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
What role did you feel while you were working in academia?
Were you a professor?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
So I was in charge of fundraising? So we were,
which is, you know, schools and universities require an awful
lot of money to keep going, and tuition doesn't cover it.
That's one of the reasons tuition keeps going up, up
(09:47):
and up. And I didn't work for one of those big,
rich universities that had huge endowments. I worked for scrappy
institutions that fundraising was really important. I I was responsible
for bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. You know,
I'm not talking about you know, events and you know,
(10:08):
little kinds of gifts. I'm talking about working the high
end of the of the pyramid. And it was exciting.
I traveled the world. It was it was a wonderful
career and it got me. Then I had one president
too many, on my ninth president of a university that
(10:29):
I stomped out and called my husband and said, I'm
quitting my job right now. And he said, whoa baby, Wait, wait, wait,
can we talk about it? And I said no, no,
I'm leaving. So he then my he's my wind between
from underman my wings. So he said, well then why
don't we started business together?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Wow? Oh my god. Let me ask you.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
The fundraising you had you did for uh college universe,
how has that helped you for our listeners who are
authors themselves or maybe even they own a business, how
has that helped you with going out and marketing, promoting
your books to more book buyers, or trying to get
(11:16):
your books in, whether it would be schools, gift shops,
how has that helped you?
Speaker 4 (11:22):
It was, you know, Denise, I was so blessed. So
when my first book came out, I was still working
full time and a good part of my business was
training other people. So I was a motivational speaker and
a trainer, and I you know, people would invite me
(11:43):
and pay me to come and spend the day and
teach their fundraisers, and teach their board members and teach
their CEOs. And so when Getting It Right came out,
I would just say, I'd say, oh, and you know,
I have this book. And I was wondering at the
end of the taught, at the end of the workshop,
could I just like have a little table and offer
(12:05):
my books, and everybody was, oh, Karen, of course, oh
my gosh, you've got a book. Yes, And so the
first book I sold it mostly at workshops, you know,
when I finished talking, my little table would be set up.
One school even lent me to like two assistants, and
(12:26):
so one person took the money and the other person
handed me the book, and all I had to do
is smile and sign.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Oh god.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
But since I've stopped working full time as a as
a speaker, and at this point in my life, I
don't do it. You know, I take a gig every
once in a while, it's actually been harder to sell
the books because I don't have that natural audience. Okay, okay, yeah,
but it was very helpful. They were people were in
(13:00):
and helpful. And the other thing I would just say
about selling your books is you have to just people say.
Writers say, oh I hate marketing. I hate marketing. Well
if you hate marketing, then you're just never going to
make it right.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
You know, you want to get out there. You got
to introduce people to your books.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
There's so many books published now, they're not just going
to find your book.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You have to get out here and introduce people to it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
You mentioned Getting It Right, So we want to talk
about several of your books in to day, including your ladies.
So can you just start off with your first Can
you give us a brief overview of your first novel,
Getting It Right.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah. So, Kara and Alex are half sisters that have
never met each other. They were only six months apart,
and they didn't know that each other existed. And Alex
grew up in dysfunctional privilege. She's white, her product of
her white father and a white mother, and she has
two siblings, and Kara, who is mixed race and has
(14:02):
the same you know, shares the father, the white father.
Grew up in foster care. Her mother died at a
very young age. Her grandmother was quite old. She'd had
her mother late in life, and so she died and
Kara was put into the system. There was nobody else
to take care of her, and all the time that
(14:23):
she was in the system, a lot of abuse happened
and bad things happened to her. She was just praying
every day that her father, whoever he was, would come
and find her. And so the story opens on the
eve of the death of their shared father and he'd
(14:45):
had a massive heart attack, and he calls Alex to
his bedside and said, I need you to find this
child that I abandoned so I can make things right
before I die. And so the story takes place over
two weeks in March when Alex tries to find Kara,
and of course there's lots going on. There's all kinds
of insider trading and FBI and lots of action. Short chapters,
(15:10):
fast moving, but that's the basic press.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
So, okay, who's in the financial services Alex? Now I'm
put of trading and all this stuff? So I'm thinking
one of them works for a bank or something.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
No, it's it's Kara that falls for the wrong guy.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
You know when you haven't grown up with good examples
of po relationships look like. So she's got this guy
and he's the one in financial services that it's her
caught up in a mess, a mess. Kara's struggling. Kara's struggling,
but so is Alex. Alex grew up with all this privilege,
(15:53):
but her mother is crazy and her father is clearly
not a terrific person. So she has a lot.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Of how how old are they how old are they
at the start?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Thirty the thirties, okay.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Thirty years old, both of them the six months apart.
Wasn't he a nice guy?
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Yeah? Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Both his women were pregnant at the same time.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
But what would describe him as? Was he a successful businessman?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Or yeh, okay, he was.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
His name is Worth Lawrence and his his mother in
law used to call him worthless worth. But he was wealthy,
you know, lives in the suburbs of New York. But
for New York, he you know, was his own horses,
you know, just living the high light, had his own company.
(16:49):
He worked for hedge funds. Yes, so he was all
in the world of finance as well.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Hopefully maybe you linked those two together with Kara's boyfriend
and her dad, which would be just a real good thriller.
Introduce me so that for our office shelf listeners, getting
it right? Look at that title. Look at that title.
It's like it starts off maybe I want to totally wrong,
(17:20):
but do these sisters come to form a friendship because
it's not their fault what has happened.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
It's not. But Kara's pretty damaged and Alex kind of
thinks that Kara should be grateful when Alex finds her,
and Kara's not feeling it. So, you know, there's a
lot of dynamics. What does it mean to be family?
What does it mean you know, overcoming trauma. It's got
(17:49):
a lot of a lot of layers.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I'm going to ask you about another previous book, then
we're going to talk about your latest, and I'm going
to try to cover each of your books. But can
you introduce us to Bara Moon Entangled Lies.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
Yes. So, Bara is a seventy year old African American
woman who comes home on the first two pages of
the book to find her adult son brutally murdered. Oh oh,
and three months later, she is in a car crash
(18:27):
that Danny, who is our second protagonist, who's twenty five
and white and a hot mess and homeless and a
pathological liar. But she has a good heart. And Danny
sees the car crash and she just feels like something
was wrong. It didn't look like an accident to her.
(18:50):
So over two weeks in May. You'll know there's a
theme here with my books. Over two weeks in May,
they come together very unlikely pair. This seventy year old
black woman and this twenty five year old hot mess
female and both of them looking for things in their
life that are missing, and they solve the murder together.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
And there's times of danger and bad guys and sluice
and again the short chapters, fast moving and one trouble
after another that the two women have to face, including
and I always put a little romance in all my books.
So Danny has a really sweet boyfriend who's dropped her
(19:42):
because of all her lives and bad behavior. So we're
rooting for We're rooting for them too. We want them
to find each other.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
I love the book's cover. Who what was it like
working with the cover illustrated?
Speaker 3 (19:59):
You know?
Speaker 4 (20:00):
So this was so Getting it Right was one publisher,
and then Tangled Lives was my new publisher, and both
of them said, oh, well, you know, send you three
choices and you pick the one you like. That didn't
really happen that way, but getting it right. I loved
the cover. I thought it was really great, and I
(20:22):
just said thank you and Tangled Lies. I didn't love
the cover, but I didn't know that I had a
voice that could push back. So when the third book
came out, I was able to push back and have
more of a say in the cover of Reckoning as
(20:44):
I did with the next three books. I just didn't
know because it was the first time I was working
with that publisher, and I was just so grateful, and
I just didn't know that I could speak up and say,
you know, can we do something different? So it's fun
working with designers and you can, you know. I sent
in ideas, and I sent in descriptions of what I
(21:05):
kind of had in mind, and and then the publisher
you know, worked on it and came up with them
with beautiful covers after Tangled, Liiz, it's not the Tangled
Lies is a terrible cover. It's just not as beautiful
as the next two, not one three.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I said, we're going to talk about the latest one next,
but before that, I do want to talk about Reckonings, Reckonings,
True Grace, and then the one that's coming out in March.
So two for reconis, can you get office shop listeners?
A brief synopsis of Reckonings.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
So yes. So this is a thirty six year old woman,
Roxy who African American woman who feels old at thirty six.
She lives with her four children, two rescue dogs. Her
husband in a teeny tiny apartment, and she's worked looking
(22:00):
at a job she hates, and she's tired. She's just
worn out. And she thinks though that she has an
answer and a solution. All she really wants is a
bigger place for her family. And her oldest daughter is pregnant.
She's seventeen years old and pregnant. She won't tell her
parents who the father is, and so Roxy is just
like But she's written a play and the local community
(22:24):
theater has agreed to stage it in nine days, and
when the story starts, it's nine days away. They agreed
long time ago, but when the story opens, the play
opens in nine days. And Roxy is also keeping a
secret when she was eighteen. When she was seventeen, she
(22:45):
was raped by this guy named Spider, and she never
told Carl, her husband, who was her boyfriend at the time.
She never told Jule, who is her oldest daughter who's
pregnant herself. And now Spider is back in town, so
the play is in nine days. She thinks it's gonna
(23:05):
save everything. It's called the Monday Night Murder, and Spider
is back in town. He's wealthy, he's successful, and he's
come back to save the town because the town is
you know, struggling financially and stuff. So he's come in
like a white night, you know, that's gonna save the town.
And now he's threatened Roxy that he's going to tell
(23:29):
Jewel that he's he believes that Jewel is his child.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
And and he in his mind it was consensual sex.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
So it's like, you know again, short chapters, fast paced,
you know, toxic secrets. Poor poor Roxy, Oh.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
My god, you have a lot going on. Let me
these characters lies, these tell us about Roxy's marriage. Is
it a sweet rewarding marriage? Are they king? But like partner?
They work together?
Speaker 4 (24:01):
Well, so they work together and they've loved each other
since high school. But Carl is also tired. He works,
the two of them work for his father, and he
hates his job and he feels trapped and he feels
like he's getting old, you know, too soon. Also, and
(24:22):
when Spider comes back in town, he be he renews
his friendship because they all knew each other in high school.
So he renews his friendship with Carl. And so that's
even more frightening for Roxy because Carl doesn't know, and
she said she's gonna find. She has a best friend
named Dallas. Dallas is such a cool character, and she
(24:43):
has this really really great friend who says, you've just
got to tell him you're digging a hole. Stop digging,
and she's like, will, I just have to find the
right time. And then there's the actress who's gonna be
and it is also a childhood friend who's agreed to
star are in her play just for one week, and
she has all kinds of drama going. So it's a
(25:06):
lot all in nine days.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Oh my god, how many main characters. We've got her husband,
we've called Spider, We've got Roxy, her friend, and there's
another woman. So you got what five? Or yeah, yeah
it is?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Is she?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
So let's talk. I'm looking at her as a mother.
Her daughter's seventeen and she's pregnant. Some mothers, especially a
single mother, they really do everything and they can to
keep their daughter from going down the same path they
went down. Is she a devoted mother and wife? And
then doing my research for the show, and does she
(25:43):
give in to temptation at any point in this story?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
You don't have to give the details away, but.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Yeah, she is a devoted mother, but she's very torn.
Juel wants to put the baby up for adoption, and
she's she's very torn about that her mother abandoned her.
Roxy's mother abandoned Roxy when Roxy was twelve, and so
one part of her saying, we can't raise another baby,
(26:11):
you know, Jewel hasn't even graduated from high school, and
so we're going to be Carl and I are going
to have to raise this child, you know. So okay,
so adoption is the right thing. But then the other
part of her remembers how she felt, you know, didn't
you love me enough to keep me? Didn't you love
me enough to stay? So she's very torn, and she
(26:31):
and Jewel have a very interesting relationship. You really see,
you see the love, but you see the conflict between
between the two of them. All of my characters are
very you know, multi layered, and in fact, most when
I most I look at reviews of all my books,
one of the things that's consistent is how fully developed
(26:55):
the characters are, how real they are. That's because they
are Denise. I mean, he has a writer, you know that.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Right, you know what that is.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
So that is a great compliment because people say that
one of the number one things that attract readers to
a story and keep their interest is the characters. Even
if you have a lot going on in a story,
it could be it's an action story or a mystery
or whatever romance. If the reader doesn't really care about
the characters, they're not gonna stick with it. It's particularly
(27:25):
if it's a book series, then I gonna stick with
the story because they're not they don't feel a connection
to the characters. So that's a great compliment on the
reviews that you've.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Received from readers. Why did you choose the title reckoning.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Because there's so many reckonings that have to happen. There's
the reckoning of the lie that you know that she
kept for eighteen years, that Roxy kept from her husband
for eighteen years. They're supposed to be partners and you know,
trust each other and hear she's carrying this lot, this
(28:02):
a lie. There's coming reckonings with her daughter, Jewel or
Jewel you know, does Jewel find out that you know,
Spiders could have been her father. It's you know, Roxy
doesn't really know, and so there's a reckoning there. There's
also the reckoning of Spider you know, he doesn't think
he did anything wrong. He you know, he says, you know,
(28:24):
we visit you know, your you're revising history. You know
that's not the way I remember it. Uh. And but
rape is rape, you know. And but he just feels
like he literally said to her when he was finished,
he said, you'll like it better next time.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah. So there's a lot of reckonings that have to happen.
That's why it's a it's an s on there as
opposed to just reckoning. Lots of reckonings have to happen, Okay,
reckonings you guys.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
By Karen Osborn Karen Osborne Karen When and where is
the story True Grace set? And why did you choose
this time period and study.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
So this one? Oh my goodness, I love the cover
of this one too. True Grace is inspired by my grandmother,
and it's set in nineteen twenty four, one hundred years,
you know, years ago, and so many of the issues
of twenty four, you know, the nineteen twenty four are
(29:29):
so similar to today's time. So Grace is twenty seven
years old when you meet her. She has five children.
She was born in the Congo, She was educated in England.
She got married in Jamaica, and now they're in Harlem
during the Harlem Renaissance. This is the Roaring twenties, and
(29:51):
she's living a comfortable life and she's made peace with
her life, even though she her marriage is not happy,
She's truly she made peace with her life. And all
she wants to do is raise her children and give
them more opportunities than she had. And so when the
story opens, she comes home unexpectedly and is met by
(30:17):
something so devastating. I'm very, very proud of the way
I wrote this chapter. It's not for the faint of heart.
But she comes home and finds something so, so devastating.
And so the story is how an uneducated woman, she's
self educated, but she didn't graduate even from high school.
(30:41):
She got married very young. So how this mixed race woman,
this immigrant and a time when immigrants were mistreated, at
a time when women weren't believed a time when even
though the Roaring Twenties was old women taking off their
girdles and their brass, that was young, white, affluent women,
(31:02):
that whole flapper thing. It didn't reach the Harlem housewife.
It didn't reach the Jewish housewife in the in the suburbs.
It didn't reach you know, it was and so, but
well that's going around her, but she can't. That's it's
(31:23):
not part of her. So over, this one is the
only book that's more than two weeks because it's historical fiction,
so over it's only six months. Over six months, it
is how she overcomes. And she's an extraordinary woman. And
my grandmother was an extraordinary, extraordinary one. So it's got
lots of truth in it, like the opening scene. But
(31:47):
I had to make up a lot. But I was
blessed with I have five books that were written about
her father. He was famous in his time. And I
have three hundred hands written letters from Grace so and
the conversations I had with her while I was a teenager.
(32:07):
So I had a lot of good source material. But
I still make up a lot. It's a powerful, powerful story.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Wow. I was going to ask you if Grace was
based on a real life person, and yes, that you
have the answer. It was based in part on your grandmother.
So she said she didn't Disgrace didn't graduate from high school.
She's an immigrant. What house would you describe her? Is
she like bold?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Is she timid?
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Is she is she and she has a family of
her own now in the United States? Where in Harlem?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Is that correct? She married is?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
How would you describe her personality this and in the
nineteen twenties when women.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Were held back here? But does she does she take risk?
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Does she stay within where people say this is how
you should behave or does she bust out with like
a Mary MacLeod Bethune or a hair cupman? Or how
would you describe Grace in the end the book? In
the novel, how would you describe her.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Grit and grace? She used to say she had a mantra,
and so does Grace in the book, I am the
daughter of a British explorer and a strong African woman
who fought the Congo, who built, who built schools and
(33:30):
and doug wells and help people and dodged, you know,
poisoned darts. I am the daughter of these two incredible people,
and so I can overcome and so she and she
used to say to me that she got her grit
from her African mother and she got her grace from
(33:51):
her English father, and the two things together carries her through.
So she has to dig deep, and every turn she's
not sure what to do. She you know, she doesn't
know what to do, but she just knows that she
has to take care of her children, and she has
to protect her children, and she makes some tough, tough
(34:12):
decisions as she goes along. So when I speak at
book clubs, one of the topics questions that people I
ask them is you know, would you have made some
of the same decisions. Do you think you would have
made some of the same decisions that Grace made? And
what options do you think she had? And did she
not take advantage of all her options? And what if
(34:33):
this happened later in not nineteen twenty four? So we
have rich, rich conversations about Grace's choices. But she is
so determined that she is going to do everything in
her power, which is limited limited power, the police, everybody,
the social welfare system, everything is against her.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
And like I always do, there's a lo story in
there too.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Also, God's gonna ask you who's pulling for her?
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Because if she live in America by herself, who's pulling
for her in a story? And if you could introduce
us to that person.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
So she has a best friend named Beryl, and Beryl
is married to a very nice man, patient man, and
and Beryl is but again they're they're limited in their abilities.
You know, Beryl is also an immigrant, and but Beryl
sticks by Grace and really helps her. She she's from Jamaica.
(35:35):
And then she Grace gets a job with a Jewish woman,
Delilah Dahlia, and you have to decide for yourself if
they're friends or not. And then this wonderful man, Jonathan.
One writer, one reader wrote me on Facebook and she said,
(35:57):
I wanted Jonathan.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Okay, Jonathan.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
So she has a she has a really sweet, sweet
guy who's pursuing her and who she's running from. She
has secrets to secrets, secrets and lies.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
So okay, what have readers been saying about True Grace?
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (36:23):
I get wonderful, wonderful reviews. If you go on Amazon,
you'll read some amazing, amazing reviews. Here's here's one. A
powerful story about love, courage, sacrifice, resilience and hope. True
Grace by Karny Osborne will hold you captive from its
(36:44):
tragic and uplifting journey of True Grace. A compelling and
suspenseful historical family drama about a woman with intelligence, courage, heart,
and of course grace, Oh.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
My goodness, and got in love When you get those
those and you learn so much from reviews what to
change with the next book and what to keep going.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
That is awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Now I know Justice for Emerson it's not due out
for a couple of months, but could you introduce us
to that book, Justice for Emerson, and just give us
a brief overview of.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
Justice for Emerson? I had so much fun writing this book.
In East's book, I decided I was tired of trauma.
I wanted to turn away from writing about trauma, and
so why not to write about murder again? Right? So
(37:45):
Aria is fifty years old. She's a young black woman.
She has a seventeen year eighteen year old son who's
in college, and she runs a not for profit. She's
a really good person and this not for profit helps
people who the unhoused and hungry. And she has after
(38:06):
school programs and free showers and she gets free clothes
and food. And so she's running this not for profit,
but it is in a lot of trouble and she
doesn't know why. She's not understanding why the money is
just draining away, and she also doesn't know why her
(38:27):
son has not been in touch with her when he
usually calls her like several times a week. So she's
worried about her son, she's worried about the not for profit.
She's worried that this guy has fallen for her. But
she's only at five foot two and she wears three
in cheels, and she has sort of a chip on
(38:47):
her shoulder about being little. And this guy that's interested
in her, and she says she's a brown skinned black woman.
And this man that's interested in her is six foot two, wow,
And she says he's too tall, Like she asks her friend,
how do they even make love? Does he have to
lift people up? Click she can. And then so he's
(39:08):
too tall, he's too rich because he's a donor to
her not for profit and so what would people say?
He's too young? She's fifty and he's forty, and maybe
he wants to have more children or you know, like
my factory is closed he's And then he's also too white.
(39:29):
This is the first white man she's ever ever had
anything to do with, you know, on a romantic level.
And finally it's too soon. Her husband Ben has only
been dead for two years. So that's all happens on
page one that we find out all this stuff, and
then she discovers the murder of one of her volunteers,
(39:51):
one of her sweet, wonderful volunteers. He's seventy seven years old,
he's a Vietnam Vet and he's murdered in the basement
of her enough and the murderer is still there when
she finds him, and he runs up the stairs and
he you know, and she fights him back and he
runs out. So all this happens like in the first
(40:12):
few pages, so over two weeks in what month is it.
I can't remember what month this is this time, but anyway,
this's over two months. I think it's March again or April.
They're trying to She and Jax Jackson's the two everything
boyfriend are trying to solve the murder along with the
(40:33):
local police, and there's all kinds of intrigued there. But
we meet Emerson, who's the murdered Vietnam VETT is a
dual timeline story, and so we meet him when he's
twenty in nineteen sixty eight, and we follow his life
until he ends up murdered in present day. So it's
(40:57):
it's sort of historical fiction. The whole part of Emerson's
life and what happened to Vietnam that's when they came back,
and how black men felt. He was on his way
to Vietnam on the day that Martin Luther King was murdered.
Oh my gosh, and it makes you, you know, I
just made the black men on their way thinking like
why what am I doing here? Why? And then just
(41:21):
a few months later, Bobby Kennedy is murdered, and so
these these young brothers in Vietnam are questioning, you know,
questioning their loyalty and questioning and then you know, so
they were treated so badly when they came back, and
like when you read how Women, you know Women by
(41:42):
Kristin Hannah, you know how women were treated, the combat nurses,
how they were treated when they came back. So it
was it's a Emerson had a lot to overcome, a lot,
and he was working hard on being the best person
he can be. By he stumbled and stumbled and stumbled,
(42:02):
and so there's addiction aloholism, and then he how did
he become this sweet, wonderful volunteer and then why did
he get murdered?
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Yeah, A mystery. You like mysteries.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I can tell there's a big, a bit of a
mystery in each of your stories. Now, we touched as
we start to come to the close of the day's show.
We touched on this a little bit earlier when we
were talking about your fundraising that you did for academia.
But I always like to ask this question for our
office sheelf listeners who themselves may be book lovers and
(42:36):
also authors, Can you share three to four steps that
you personally have found to be effective at getting the
word out about your books.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
So I have a podcast like you do. I have
a but it's a video weekly video podcast, and I
I do it to really help and lift other authors,
you know. So, but while I'm interviewing people, I sometimes
mentioned my books in the So that's one way that
(43:12):
I'm out there every single week. I'm four years old.
And then I have a and then I post that
on my website, which brings people to the website. And
I have a YouTube channel, and I try and keep
my website active and interesting, and you know, and then
you know, I lean on friends, my dear friends who
(43:36):
invite me and host me and uh and do that,
and and then I think there's really something to be
said about ads. You know, you have to invest money,
and if you don't invest money, it's.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
You know, yeah, you got to get you got to
get the public things. I've found attending public speaking events
of book festivals and if not book festivals, I used
to go to a lot of African American festivals any
place where people who would read my books were and
just stand up at that table and not sit down,
(44:13):
and I'd get people to subscribe to my newsletter while
I was there. I'd hand them out free excerpts to
my books, bookmarks, everything to with my website, you arel
on it. I found that to also be helpful. And again,
like you said, ads, Now before we talk about where
people can get copies of your books, can you tell
(44:36):
what advise, Karen, would you have for someone who's looking
to write and publish a book based on your experience,
just to help to hopefully prevent them from a painful experience.
What advice would you have for somebody who really to
(44:56):
they say in twenty twenty five, I'm gonna write and
publish a book.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Tips could you share with them?
Speaker 4 (45:02):
The first one is writers write. You have to write.
You can't keep talking about writing. You can't keep saying
that I have a novel in the works. You have
to write, you need to finish something. Something like only
five percent or six percent of the people who start
books ever finish them. So that's the first thing. Even
(45:22):
if it's fifteen minutes a day, that's what my son,
who's also a writer, he just bows it fifteen minutes
a day. He will at least write that every day.
The second one is is that you've got to learn
your craft. You know, I spend so much time taking
workshops and you know, just trying to be better reading
(45:43):
to learn. You know, other people's novels teach you so
much what to do, what not to do. So writers write,
writers read so you can work on your on your craft.
And then the last thing I would say, I do
have a blog post called thirteen Tips for Getting Started
that you can find on my website, But just to
keep it short, the third one that I would say
(46:05):
is don't give up. You're never too old, you're never
too young, You're never to anything, And don't give up,
be tenacious.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Be okay, where can all the shelf listeners get a
copy of your books?
Speaker 4 (46:20):
So I'm on Amazon, Barnes and Noble book bub you know, Goodreads,
and so you can get you know, any place that
you buy your books or borrow your books, even if
it's not on the shelf. You just have to ask them,
and you know they can order it for you. And
then and then you can find me and more information
(46:42):
about my books and my videos and where I'm going
to be speaking www dot Karen e Osborne O S
b O r n E. There's no you and Osborne
Karen e Osborne dot com.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
Oh, what a pleasure. We have just been blessed to
connect with Karen E. Osborne again.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
Please visit her online at our website www dot k
A r E n E O S b O r
n e dot com.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
What a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
And look for our new book, Justice for Emerson, which
is scheduled to be released and Marching twenty twenty five.
Other titles by Karen E Osborne or Getting It Right,
Tangle Lives, Reckonings and To Grace and again Justice for
Emerson do out March of this year. Oh my gosh,
thank you so much, Karen. I'm preciate having you here
(47:42):
on the show. And once it finishes streaming and I'm
finished editing it, I will send you a link to
the show. Wish you the best with your writing career,
and thank you so much again. And to our off
the shelf listeners.
Speaker 3 (47:56):
As I always tell you, you are amazing. You are
absolutely incredible. Go out and create a fabulous day for yourself.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
I'll see you back here next Saturday, eleven am. We
will not be live as we were before, but on Saturdays,
I'll had a show post it either Saturday or soon after,
it'll be out and available, and I'll be marketing promoting
the show again. Go create a fabulous day for yourself.
(48:27):
See you back here next week. Bye for now, Bye,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a thought-provoking, opinionated, and topic-driven journey through the top sports stories of the day.