Brenda McClain – Fan-Girl Friday!

Y’all know I love a good southern story. And you know I love a writer that’s not afraid to make the reader cry. The very first page of Bren McClain’s novel, ONE GOOD MAMA BONE, let me know I was not going to be disappointed. I fell in love with Sarah Creamer – the main character who at an early age was told by her emotionally abusive mother that she didn’t have one good mama bone in her. But despite years of heartache and heart wrenching events, after witnessing a mama cow’s love for her calf she learns what unconditional love is, and Sarah proves her mother wrong.

I had to know more about Bren. I followed her on FaceBook and watched as she blazed a trail from one bookstore after another, so impressed and inspired by her – I became a huge fan.
And she’s the nicest person you’d ever want to meet. I’m so glad she took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to participate in the Fan-Girl Friday Blog.
Bren – What am I up to? Wrapping up the best 15 months of my life. I have been out Mama Bone Barnstorming for my debut novel, One Good Mama Bone, across this great land, racking up 41,000 miles on my mud brown Hyundai and meeting the most amazing folks on the planet. A whopping 165 events, including a private party in a 1894 plantation house in Alabama, a swamp party in South Carolina, standing room only for the southern gal out in the renowned Book Passage outside of San Francisco. I am so blessed! Now it’s time to put my butt in the chair and finish my next novel, TOOK, inspired by Eula Bates, a woman in SC, who refused to give the federal government the right-of-way to run a four-lane blacktop through her farm into the Savannah River Hydrogen Bomb Plant in 1951. What happened next will blow your mind. You just wait!
One hundred and sixty-five events in fifteen months! Now that’s impressive – and exciting. I can’t even imagine what that was like.
ONE GOOD MAMA has won some awards to boot. Longlisted for the coveted Southern Book Prize by the Southeastern Independent Booksellers Alliance, named Pulpwood Queen 2017 Book of the Year, a 2017 Great Group Reads by the Women’s National Book Association, top book of 2017 by Lit Picks, a 2017 winter Okra pick by the Southeastern Independent Booksellers Alliance, and a finalist for the 2018 Crook’s Corner Book Prize.
I read that TOOK was named the gold medal winner for the 2016 William Faulkner –William Wisdom Novel-in-Progress. How exciting was that?
Bren – Are you kidding me????? Every nerve in my body cried. And to think that the final judge was a guy from Berkeley – that he got behind my little southern voice blew my mind.
I can’t wait for Bren to finish TOOK. I know it’s going to be another new favorite.

I got to meet Bren in person at the Story & Song Bookstore here on Amelia Island, and I’ve got to tell you – I bawled like a baby when she talked about Sarah Creamer. The love she has for the characters in her novel comes through loud and clear. If you get a chance to hear her in person do it. You will not be disappointed.

Find her on Facebook or check out her website http://www.brenmcclain.com
*Bren will be teaching a couple of workshops — one on Perseverance and the other on Making Readers Care– June 1st and 2nd in Clarksville, TN. I added the link below.
http://www.artsandheritage.us/writers