We had the pleasure to talk with Nina Foxx who is a best-selling author, playwright, and filmmaker. Nina talks about her new novel that is set to be released in August called You’d Better Not Tell. Read an excerpt from her upcoming novel:
Summer on a college campus seems like a chance for Rumer to reinvent herself and leave her bookish identity back in the halls of her high school. She’s studied how to be an “it” girl and plans to make the best of her three weeks. After scoping things out, Rumer attracts the attentions of Dante, an athlete and scholar that she has watched on the track every day since arriving, and is ecstatic when she discovers that he might have noticed her too. Dante is popular, smart and everyone knows him, so what if he ends up being the teaching assistant for Rumer’s class? As school business mixes with pleasure, Rumer is smitten and in awe of Dante’s confidence. His smooth manner leaves Rumer with her nose wide open, confused and with signals crossed, and ignoring the voice inside her head so expertly that she is almost Jedi Mind tricked into believing that he knows what’s best for her, and that her “no” really doesn’t mean “No”.
Tell us about your new novel, You’d Better Not Tell coming out in August?
It’s actually a follow up to Catfish. All the things that were going on in the media with, what is consent for a young person and what does this mean? All the things you hear about Date Rape and the Date Rape drug. I was sitting with some friends in Houston last summer talking about Catfish. I never really thought about how we as young women have to navigate and I said I am really considering writing a book about date rape. I was sitting with my good friend Pam Walker-Williams and her husband. Pam does my website and she is an author.
It was such an interesting reaction that I got. Pam was all for it and thought it was a great idea and her husband was against about me writing on this topic. If it was so polarizing for them then it would make an interesting story. It would be really interesting if I could make sure it ambiguous thing for the boy and the girl. That’s how the idea how “You’d Better Not Tell” came up. I think it’s something that a lot of young women and men face. They don’t realized it’s happened to them until afterwards and they don’t realize why they act the way they do because they didn’t know how to deal with it.
How do you come up with your title of your novel?
Most of the time it’s was before I write. What was the story behind it? For instance, one of my earlier books “No Girl needs a husband 7 days a week” that is something my sister use to say all the time. My sister and her husband had a commuter marriage. For my next book, I came up with the idea first. One of the things that was always in my mind, young women and men were always told, “You better not tell anybody either.” That’s how You’d Better Not Tell came about from an idea.
What can your readers expect from this novel?
I think it will be intriguing and it’s a little bit more adult than Catfish. Anyone in dating or otherwise can be found in this type of thing. Especially when you have one person is a position of authority and another person not. When you think back to what happened to Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. They both were wrong but a lot that was going on there was Monica Lewinsky looked up to him and he abused his power. They found themselves in a situation. Whether you are old or young you can see this happening. He is a product of his environment and he’s been told that you know they want it. I want people to start talking about it.
Are you working on any other projects? I always have a couple projects in the works or at least in the back of my head. I have another book that is more in the vain of Mama Gone that I am working on. I am not sure what it is called now I think that it’s called Good For Nothing, but I am not sure. The characters always tell me what the title will be by something that they say. I think that will happen with this book too. I have more projects than I have time.
What advice would you give new or aspiring writers?
You really have to study the craft and it doesn’t necessarily mean go to school. It means reading like a writer and learning what you like about those writers and always creating. Look at how people create dialogue, how they create setting, and understanding how to plot a story. When you have an idea write it down and go back and work on it. You have to forgive yourself because you didn’t write 10 pages today and you tell yourself you failed. If you write nothing then you are not a writer. You have to write something and if you don’t make the goal that you set for yourself, then that’s okay there is always tomorrow.
Thank you Nina, for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with us about your newest novel. You can learn more about Nina Foxx by following her on Social media and checking out her blog.
Website: Nina Foxx
Blog: Vixen Chronicles
Twitter: @NinaFoxx
Photo Source: Courtesy of Nina Foxx