In her fifteen years as a journalist, she has worked at various television stations including WABU-TV in Boston, ESPN Classic and WABC-TV in New York. She also served as Coordinating Producer for “Like It Is with Gil Noble,” the country’s longest running African American public affairs show, airing on WABC-TV.
Tell us a little bit about you outside of being an author. MTamanika (Nika) C. Beamon is an African-American female currently residing in Newark, New Jersey. Currently, I am a Writer/Producer for WABC-TV Eyewitness News in New York; the number station in the country.
I’ve has won several award throughout my career including a Peabody Award for ABC News’ coverage of the September 11th Attacks. She is also the recipient of the Cush Campus Schools Excellence in Communications Award.
I’ve also been credited as a reference in the several books on television news including: Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalist Report on September 11 by Alison Gilbert and News is People: the Rise of Local TV News and the Fall of News from New York by Craig M. Allen. I am a member of the Writers Guild of America East and the National Association of Black Journalists.
Outside of work, I’m a sport enthusiast. In high school, I was on the male JV baseball team and played Ice Hockey. While, in college I continued to play sports and dedicate my free time to community service. At ABC in New York, I continued my commitment to helping those less fortunate by taking part in the corporate volunteer program as a mentor, feeding the homeless, etc…
Tell us a little bit about your work in progress and/or your upcoming release. My upcoming release is I Didn’t Work This Hard Just to Get Married: Successful Single Black Women Speak Out. In I Didn’t Work This Hard Just to Get Married, through lively and revealing interviews with women from various walks of life, Nika Beamon explores the challenges and issues affecting single black women who defy expectations. They candidly discuss aging without a man and reevaluate dating, single homeownership, career, and children. The book speaks directly to the black woman’s experience, addressing unique challenges such as income discrepancies between genders, the high rate of male incarceration, and the Baby Momma Syndrome. The women discuss the false expectations they face from men, from families, and from friends.
Currently, I am working on another non-fiction book: Media’s Black Eye. Media’s Black Eye is a compilation of one-on-one interviews with African Americans journalists that fulfill a vast variety of roles in media, from in front of the camera to behind the scenes. It will probe how these individuals got their start in this business and what obstacles they faced on their path to success. It will address the personal sacrifices necessary to work in the 24-7 environment of television news and the responsibility of delivering information to the public. It will investigate the racial landscape of the industry and how much race matter in terms of the angles and decision to cover ethnic issues and topics. Finally, it will investigate what changes these professionals have seen in the news business and what future journalists need to know to survive in the competitive environment.
I’m also finishing up a fiction novel, Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace is the tale of Jasmine Quinzon, a flirtatious, 16 year-old, Catholic schoolgirl who is abducted by a man, who’s been watching her for quite some time. She turns to her faith to give her strength to survive her ordeal and she also learns to use his physical attraction for her to gain his trust. Once free, she learns how devastating her captivity has been on her family and how long the road to recovery will be for her family.
How many years of professional writing experience (if any) do you have? What have you written? Well, I am currently a professional journalist by trade but I’ve also written reviews for several major magazines. In 2000, I published her first novel, Dark Recesses, listed in Inside Magazine’s Hidden Hit List column as a best-selling print on demand title. In 2002, I completed her second novel, Eyewitness.
What credentials establish you as an expert in your field or have contributed to your success as an author? (Please include degrees, work experience, personal experience, hobbies, etc.) After pursuing a dual BA in Sociology and a BA in Communications at Boston College, I began working in television. However, I’d been writing since high school. First, I was an award-winning newspaper editor/reporter and then a published poet.
About the Book
What was your motivation for writing this book? Honestly, I was motivated to write this book at the suggestion of an editor who thought my profession background would allow me to interview and translate the stories of black women to the printed page without bias.
Tell us some of the factors that make your book unique. What truly makes I Didn’t Work This Hard Just to Get Married unique is that it is absent of blame towards black men or society for the circumstances of the women. You will find that they are not bitter nor or they jaded; most want to marry, they just want to make sure they wed the right person. Additionally, the women have no regrets about their lives. In fact, they are happy and fulfilled. More importantly, these women use their lives as examples but stop short of offering advice to others on how they should lead their lives.
What is the single most important thing that readers of your book will be able to do after reading your book that they could not do before? I hope that single women heed the last line. “Instead of looking at the one specific kind of love I or other single women don’t have, I challenge black women to fight to get through life alone and not lonely, concentrating on the love you have given, received, and shared.”
Is there local or regional relevance for your book? No, I think the book is universally because it truly speaks to all women of all races.
What emotions does your book evoke from readers? Empathy, understanding and clarity are the emotions I think the title evokes from readers.
Are there any controversial elements in your book? I think the subject matter is controversial b/c both men and women are touchy about their personal lives, especially when it comes to their relationship status after a certain age. Each sex often blames the other for why people are getting less these days.
In researching your book, did you come across any surprising facts, figures or statistics? I think there are a lot of surprising facts, such as the myth that African American marriages were destroyed due to slavery. The truth is the major drop off happened during the 1970’s. I was also disturbed to learn that poverty and crime in the African American community is directly linked to out of wedlock births and the lack of male presence in the home.
If your book were for sale in a major bookstore, in what section would it be found? I presume it will be found in the African American section, mainly b/c I am black and the subjects are also black. However, it should be in the relationship or current events section.
What did you learn while writing this book? I learned a lot about myself. As a single women, I often don’t focus on the fact that I am missing that gold band but I know this book made me wonder about the choices I’ve made– good, bad or indifferent. While, I have no regrets, I realize that I do value marriage and hope to have a partnership someday that allows me to be an individual but part of a productive twosome, as well.
What one thing about writing do you wish other non-writers would understand? The same thing all writers say, I guess, that it is not as easy as it looks. In regards to non-fiction, it is infinitely more difficult to write about real people that those crafted from your imagination.
What are three things you wish you’d known before you reached where you are now? In terms of writing, I wish I knew that I had the talent to tell all kinds of stories… I never thought I’d write non-fiction. Secondly, I wish I knew that a writer’s life is often isolating, solitary and extremely humbling. And lastly, that it’s more important to have something of value to say then to write just to get something down on paper or cash a check.
How and why does your book differ from books of a similar topic? The increasing number of unmarried black women is an epidemic that’s been bantered about recently in an NBC national news special, in Essence Magazine and in the 2008 National Urban League State of Black America report issued just this month. However, it is an issue that’s largely been ignored by the publishing industry.
What would you like your readers to take away from your book? I would like them to take away the fact that single or married, we were all born alone and will die that way; the key to life is filling the time in between with as much love as you can.
If you could change one thing you did during your road to publication, what would it be and what would you have done different? I guess If I could’ve done anything differently, it would’ve been to include more of myself between the pages because I feel it’s highly unfair to have other expose their sole but keep mine private.
What advice would you give an aspiring author? I would probably say write if you can’t help it; read because you want to learn the craft and publish because you know yours is a story everyone needs to hear.
Where can readers learn more about you and your books? Readers can read excerpts from my books on my website:
http://www.mcbeamon.com
They can also look for me on Facebook and MySpace.
Also, a video trailer for the book is available on YouTube.com
Please identify five recent books (with title and ISBN) that compete most directly with yours.
Of the limited number of titles about single women trying to navigate life in their 30’s, the vast majority of them are advice books rather than personal accounts explaining the agonizing life alerting decisions that women must make in order to move forward and achieve the life they always wanted without a man.
1. Single: The Art of Being Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent (Paperback) by Judy Ford (Author) is one woman’s account of her life after being widowed and then divorced. The book is one inspiring story of how to achieve independence when on becomes suddenly single, however, by the very natre of it being a single story limits the number of women that may actually relate to it or find motivation from the story.
2. With or Without a Man: Single Women Taking Control of Their Lives (Paperback) by Karen Lewis gives a psychotherapists’ explanation of why women tend to be stuck in a rut while biding their time waiting for a man. Although it clearly details the reasons why women often find themselves in this state and gives helpful tips on how to get unstuck and move on; it is a practical guide rather than personal accounts designed to inspire the reader to make changes.
3. Flying Solo: Single Women in Midlife (Paperback) by Carol M. Anderson (Author), Susan Stewart (Author), Sona Dimidjian (Author). The authors of this book present the findings they’ve gathered from interviews with 87 middle-aged single women. These women discuss how they’ve found happiness without marriage. On the surface this seem the most similar of all titles to Alone, but it doesn’t provide profiles of the women or address the particular challenges that African American face in single life, especially given the low number of marriages in the back community.
4. Midlife Crisis at 30: How the Stakes Have Changed for a New Generation–And What to Do about It (Hardcover) by Lia Macko (Author), Kerry Rubin (Author). This book is the most similar in objective and procedure to Alone. However, Midlife Crisis divided into two sections: part one gives the reason for 30-something angst; Part two provides anecdotes from real women to show the reader they aren’t alone in their difficult-to-define struggles. Alone will focus on aiding the reader by only provide stories that inspire so that the reader immediately feels comfortable and identifies with the struggles of those profiled.
5. Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School (Hardcover) by Rachel Greenwald (Author) is a plan to help women find a man in 12 to 18 months. While this book is a great concept, its objective is the opposite of Alone. Alone is designed to help women feel at peace with their single lives and rise above the obstacles they perceive to be standing between them and their dreams.
