Nicole Glover joins Monica Wisdom on the Black Women Amplified podcast to discuss her latest book, "The Improvisers," which introduces the dynamic character Velma Frye, a pilot and investigator navigating mysteries in the 1930s.

The conversation delves into Glover's passion for blending black history with fantasy, showcasing how Velma's journey reflects the rich tapestry of black experiences during an often-overlooked era. Glover shares insights about her creative process, the significance of family legacy in her storytelling, and the unique magic system she has developed, which is inspired by celestial themes.

As they explore the complexities of Velma's character and her adventures, they also touch on the importance of representation in literature and the joy of celebrating black women's stories. Glover's enthusiasm for writing and her thoughtful approach to historical context make for an engaging and inspiring discussion.

Takeaways:

• Monica Wisdom emphasizes the importance of celebrating Black women's voices and stories.
• Nicole Glover's journey as an author showcases the significance of historical accuracy in fantasy.
• The podcast explores the dynamic character of Velma Frye, a pilot in the 1930s.
• Listeners are encouraged to explore their creativity and tap into their imagination.
• Nicole Glover discusses her unique magic system based on celestial connections and creativity.
• The conversation highlights the need for representation in the mystery genre for Black women.

Links referenced in this episode:

• www.blackwomenamplified.com/powerstory
• blackwomanamplifiedmail.com

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Jim Henson Company

Welcome and thank you for tuning in to black women amplified, the podcast. Your host, Monica Wisdom Tyson, brings you downloadable conversations that matter to women around the globe.

We discuss all things black girl magic, amplify our voices and transform our challenges into triumphs. Monica calls on her league of extraordinary women to push our boundaries, share their expertise and stories of personal transformation.

Welcome your host of black women amplified, Monica Wisdom Tyson. Hello black women amplified. This is your girl, Monica Wisdom. And I am so happy that you were here with us today.

We have an incredible show lined up for you. I have a conversation with another fantastic author. I feel like I need to start a book club. I think I'm going to start a book club.

We're getting so many authors on the show that I would love to discuss their books because there's so much I can't say during the interview because it gives away the story. But maybe we can read them together. I can read them again and read them together and have a discussion. What do you think? What do you say?

Do you like book clubs? I'm personally an audiobook person. I love to relax and listen to books a little bit more than reading.

It's strange because when I start reading a book, I will fall asleep. Like, my brain just goes la la land. But when I'm listening, I'm very engaged, especially if there is a great actor reading the book.

I'm actually listening to Barack Obama's book, his last book that he wrote after he left the presidency. And it's very fascinating. And I also just listened to Jennifer Lewis book, the mother of Hollywood. It's funny. She's just funny.

But listening to her tell her own story, it's just hilarious. So maybe we'll do a book club. Let me know what you think about that.

Just hit me up on our social media, on the Instagram, the black woman amplified Instagram. Or you can email me@blackwomanamplifiedmail.com that's the easiest way to reach me.

But today we have a great, great conversation with an author who has her own book series. It's so exciting. You know, I love to celebrate black women. I love when we win.

I love when they hear us and they allow us to do what we want to do without crafting too much of the other stuff within our own art. So this is one of those conversations. And she's here to talk about her third book in the series, the improvisers.

Nicole Glover is the brilliant writer behind the conductors and the Undertakers, the first two books in her murder and magic book series. Her book follows the adventures of vivid characters, solving mysteries across time and space.

Following the lineage of the Rhodes family, we meet Velma Frye as she solves mysteries and crimes.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Nicole Glover to the black women amplified show. Hello, Nicole. How are you? Welcome to the Black Women Amplified podcast.

It's great to be here and excited for this conversation.

I am, too. How does it feel to be releasing your third book?

I hope it's surreal. It's, you know, the first two came out back to back in the same year. It's been quiet, but I've been busily working on the next one.

And so it's, it's a big old same old, but it's new at the same time because, you know, it's new year, new book, and all the new excitement, things around it.

Now, when you started your journey as an author, did you expect such acclaim? I know everybody hopes for it, but did you expect that it was going to happen for you?

I kind of hope for, in the back of my mind, I wanted to be a writer since I was a very young child. I always been a big book reader. So I've always gone to the libraries, bookstores and always wanted to see, like, my book on the shelves.

So that kind of was something I always kind of hoped for and kind of won for. I guess, in some ways, maybe expected that, you know, you write a book, you think it's going to go everywhere.

And in many ways, it's kind of like what I thought it would be, but in many ways, it's different.

So I guess, I guess it's the reality of certain things, of how the mechanics of how publishing works is different than what I imagined as a kid, where books kind of dropped out of the air. But at the same time, it's kind of fun and it's what I want it to be and I still hope for, you know, bigger and brighter things in the future.

Of course.

How did you discover the murder mystery genre?

Oh, I'd say.

Cause I always say I think subaltern like mystery books and neither a mix of like, you know, the ones that for kids like the, wrote like the Nancy Drew's and boxcar children to like the adult ones that, you know, that I might have read earlier than I should have, but all know as well as a bunch of cozy mysteries and things like that. So I kind of gravitated with the mysteries.

I like puzzles, like figuring things out, like kind of guessing who might be a murderer, like all these crimes, or even like, the books with heists and stuff. So that always kind of appealed to me as it's a.

It's fun, and it's also a great, like, engine to tell stories because mysteries can propel any kind of story you can think about, whether it's no matter, no matter across genres, that makes it a really good place to kind of build a story and kind of make something I want to write. I think actually some of my first little stories were mysteries.

I think kind of going back to those early childhood mystery books I'd read, I think the versatile story that I scribbled about were mysteries in many ways.

Were you a Sherlock Holmes fan?

Yeah, I'm a bit of a fan.

I think as much as I like the story, I like the kind of the character type, the duality of having, like, a scene that's the person solving mischief, but also having the main narrator being someone who's like, the lame and the everybody person. You kind of describe the scribe. I mean, he's also a writer, too, so I like that. I like that duo dynamic most of all.

But I think also the idea of there's no someone, there's a detective that can solve things that's also like the police, other people can't really think about. So I think that's that dynamic as well.

Now, aside from writing murder mysteries or mystery books, you have a way of being able to be a mystery yourself, because in researching you, I'm like, where is this girl you have mastered in the world of social media, of remaining stealth? Is it just because you want the focus on your book or you're just not a public person?

I mean, it's a mix of things. I say I'm a very private person. I don't like this. Every detail out in the world, though.

And I think also I also worked a little bit in tech, so I'm like, I'm also leery of anything you put out in the world. It's going to be there forever. So I like to be careful in what I put out in the world, though. You can find if you dig in certain places.

Can you tell us a little bit about the world you were raised in and how it has impacted your work as a writer?

I grew up in a military family. My dad had been in the military for several years, and we moved around a fair bit. Not extensively. We didn't leave the country.

We didn't leave girls all around the US, but we did move several times in Virginia.

First job and my mom's are always kind of there, as she decided when, I guess, basically when I was, I'm the oldest, that she was going to stay at home and be like, there's a kind of consistent support for us, for support system while my dad's out there going places and taking all these trips around the world and stuff. And, yeah, he's taken quite a few trips.

Most interesting time was he'd gone to Brussels once, like, literally the day after we had a hurricane hit, and my mom was not happy about that. But I'm sure he came back with chocolate for all of us, actually, because I have two other sisters.

So he came back with a bunch of chocolate and gifts to kind of make up for it.

I've been to Belgium, and there's chocolate everywhere, so he could not not come home with chocolate.

Yeah, so he's. That's kind of makeup for that. But for the most part, parents are a team. They're a tag team for stuff. Like, it's.

It's always as we ask for something like, you know, a video game or extra, like, allowance or something like that, they'll tell. They'll ping pong us between, like, you ask your mother, ask your father. And even though we know the answer is about the same and stuff, they.

Dad's a big fan of, like, spreadsheets and, like, putting together, like, what he called the journey, which is, like, a list, basically, kind of list of, like, an idealized plan, what we want to do for the year. I think we did that, I guess, middle school, high school age.

My sister, like, basically kind of map out, like, what we plan to do, and we kind of, it was like, a new year's thing we did for those, for that time period, and so we matched our goals for the years we want to aspire to. And so I think when I got a. When I was in high school, he called it the odyssey then, and that was the last time he did it.

But it was basically kind of like, you know, here's how we map out stuff.

And I think when I moved to get my first apartment, he had me, like, make a spreadsheet out for my, like, my year, like, how I break down my monthly salary into all the bills and groceries and things like that. So he's always kind of big in planning out that way. And it was always his thing for that. And my mom was kind of just there to help out with.

She's, I guess she's a consistent, like, people always say their mom's like the number one emergency contact. And she's kind of like that for all of us. She was there for every little thing. And, like, you know, she liked also like to help.

I always remember helping out with a bunch of little projects we did in school and stuff. All this the weird, even, like, the weirdest, like, out there project for school.

She'll be there helping be the kind of putting our creative input for things. And she got me to think about differently, how they approach different programs and things like that.

Well, that explains how you were able to organize your books. You learned really early how to organize your plots of your books. Your books have strong, dynamic black women, and Velma Frye is one of those women.

And in your third book, you're adding new elements. As we meet her in the improvisers, she's a pilot, an investigator, a jazz pianist, and a welder of celestial magic.

What inspired you to create such a complicated, magical woman? And are any of her qualities that you share as well?

The creation of any kind of characters, kind of drawing out the different aspects around the world, whether it's historical figures, just interesting, this aspect of people you see around you and kind of melding it together and seeing what works for the story. With Velma, I think the core of it comes from all the aspirational, inspirational figures of the black pilots of day.

Bessie Coleman, the big one, as well as, let's say, Willa Brown, Janet Bragg and other female pilots that you probably won't hear as much about who all played major roles through that, the thirties throughout the forties within aviation aspect of things. So kind of bring that element.

I wanted to make sure that was present in her character, like the expiring person who goes out and do things that are unexpected.

You know, Bessie Coleman literally went to another country to get a pilot's degree because she could the pilot's license because she couldn't get one in the US. And basically, as.

As she is now, as she was back then, a big inspiration to everyone to kind of say, oh, you can do the impossible, which was flying a plane.

Other aspects of her character, it's, you know, this investigating the pianist part and all, as well as, you know, being a, you know, even being a slightly reformed bootlegger, all these kind of things are kind of tied into the era of where people had to invent to be creative and do certain things. But her character is more like, as I always think, it's the person who wants to strive and do the impossible, and they seek it out.

To kind of be this aspirational, that inspirational vein of someone who's just going to make their own path in the world.

What was your research process to ensure that it was historically accurate but still fantasy and had the magical elements?

I think with. When I approach historical fantasies, I get enough details that are right that the most obvious stuff is I'm not missing out.

Like, you know, the end dates for prohibition or when the Depression era started and all these different things, or even at key players of this time period, I would make. I make sure the basic facts are right. And then I go and see, like, what can I meld and mish around?

I mean, this setting is a fantasy world building off of what I started my first two earlier books. So I have some leeway of, like, being loose around the smaller details and stuff. So I guess.

And basically, that's where you decide what works for the story.

What works for the story is, to me, to have a really starving aviation community, even though it may or not, it's in historically, might have peaked a few years later than where I set the book, but it's close enough that it still works. And Jenna's trying to decide, like, where you can bend and mesh and where it doesn't, like, conflict with everyone's point of view of the story.

But you can bend on certain inventions as long as it made sense within the context, especially when, like I said, you're playing with magic as well, so you can have that allowance for it. But I do set these stories in historical time periods for a reason. So I started trying to stay pretty true to the time periods and whatnot.

And I approach research by looking at what works. Like I said, what works, what doesn't work, and where I can make things work better for me.

I can tell there's lots of details in this book. It's pretty magnificent. First thing I thought was, oh, this is an epic.

I hope this has turned into a television show so that we can get into the details of all the incredible elements of this book. Now, Velma's journey touches on family, legacy and power. What role does her family history play in shaping her path?

It's a major role. That's why the book kind of starts with the family tree.

It's the way they kind of show not just how the world changed slightly between the first two books, this one, but they're going to show how attached and how very involved she is in their family.

There's a whole little section where you see her extended family for a bit, see your interactions with them, and to kind of compare and contrast how she fits into everything, that's kind of.

And I also saw her work as a magical investigator is directly tied to her grandparents, the main characters from the first two books who were among not just mystery solvers, but, you know, former underground robot conductors who had been very involved in their community at that time and still remain highly involved in their community.

And that she took that inspiration from seeing how they work and interact with people and saying, I want to do something similar in my own way and live up to the high standards they head to phrase, drop in and around.

That's beautiful. I did notice at the beginning, I was like, oh, wait a minute. The family tree.

Okay, it all connects because I know that this is a standalone book, but she's still continuing the legacy of her family. That's beautiful. In this book, there are very magical artifacts which are very intriguing.

Now, if you could design an item for yourself, what would it be and why? And what would it do?

Oh, design my own thing, I guess. Obvious for me would be like a pen that could, you know, write. I can dictate and write. I can write on paper, on itself, basically.

I can talk to it and do all the writing for everything and all that. We have multiple tool options with this pen, you know, headlights and all this kind of fancy stuff, I guess, basic accommodation devices into a pen.

I mean, that's a big one, I think. And I don't know, something with an umbrella that flies, you know, from, like, Mary Poppins in a sense. I don't know.

I guess, for easy travel and, you know, it's you know, protection from elements as well. Maybe something with a bicycle, because I love my bicycles. But you need, they need some, like, some juiced up things, I think.

Right. It takes you through time and space. Now there's an interesting character.

I don't know if he's a frenemy or a nemesis, but Velma and Dylan Harris, the journalists, have a very complicated relationship. Can you tell us the genesis of their tension within the relationship?

That's for me, the diamond between them is the classic. You know, they both talk too much but can't listen to the other person. They have a lot in common, but, you know, they won't admit to it.

That sort of thing.

I always loved, like, kind of bantering, kind of like, you get in, you, you have me make good points, but I don't want to mit to it kind of relationships. And that was, that was a big, fun dynamic for me to write throughout the book.

And it's kind of hearkened to a lot of the screwball comedies of that era.

I think, in some ways, the open the book with them basically going back and forth in the newspaper columns that you both each had at the newspaper they worked at.

And that's kind of in some way, the reference to an old movie, woman of the year with Spencer tracely and I, Katherine Hepburn, who I always, I remember watching it a long time ago, wishing they had that bantering aspect with the newspaper articles lasting longer. So this is, in some ways, is me getting my way of having a little bit more in my own book and stuff.

So I kind of based that kind of off of that, like, its sense of like they're just going at each other but not really getting, I guess, because they got so enmeshed and so stubbornly enmeshed in these roles, it's hard to break out of it. And throughout the book, you see that they work well together.

They just had to figure, they had to basically figure that out for their own self as they go throughout as they work together throughout the case and mystery. So that was kind of fun working, not just having them work together with the mystery, but working out the kinks in their relationship.

They were very interesting. It was like, he's on my trail. It was fun. It was fun to read their interactions. Hello, everyone. Monica Wisdom here.

I am the host and the producer of the Black Women Amplified podcast. But what you might not know is that I'm also a consultant for women entrepreneurs.

I help women entrepreneurs develop their ideas, their brand, and their overall business strategy. Are you developing a groundbreaking idea or have a wealth of knowledge that could impact the world but unsure where to go next.

Business is good, but you're ready for it to be great. With countless ideas racing through your mind, it's challenging to figure out what's next.

I understand you have excelled with top companies, but entrepreneurship feels like a new language. The truth is, you can do this. You've achieved great success for others, and now it's time to achieve it for yourself.

At Monica Wisdom Consulting, we focus on your vision and crafting a clear, concise, strategic plan. Your dreams are within reach. You simply need a powerful roadmap to get you there. Are you ready to take the next step?

Book a call, and let's discuss your vision and future. You can reach me at the now. Your first two books, the conductors and the undertakers, follow Hattie and Benjamin.

And for those that are being introduced to your work now, can you tell us a little bit more about those books and the characters of Hattie and Benjamin?

Yes. My first two books, the Conductors and the Undertakers, take place post civil war in Philadelphia.

But in the first book, they get a rather unusual case where one of their close friends has found murder and they got to figure out who it is and maybe think someone in their social circle that might have been involved in it.

And the second book basically picks up a few months later with another mystery and within the community that they had to deal with, that kind of centered surround mysterious fires that have been very alarming but seem to have reasons that seem a little bit too. More obvious than it might be on the surface.

Amazing.

And those books are kind of. Yeah, those books, for me, answer the question.

What people did after the civil war, after they got the freedoms and, you know, people, you know, they did all kinds. They figured out. They found the connect with family, and they found jobs.

And for me, you know, solving murder mystery seemed an obvious audience for me, with people with skills, you know, to vade and go travel and go places like those underground railconductors once did.

I love that you are interjecting our history into that timeframe, because it's not. Course is not told, but it's. Most people don't even think about it.

You know, they don't think about that time period between the end of slavery and the beginning of Jim Crow. It's like a. It's. It's a mystery in itself.

So I love that you're putting these characters back into the lexicon of our history, that's a beautiful thing. Now I am thrilled to hear that the conductors is being adapted to film. I'm excited about that.

How is that process going and what has the process been, and what did it feel like for Queen Latifah and the Jim Henson, the iconic Jim Henson company say, hey, we want to turn this into a film?

Oh, yeah, it's a real estate. Two names like that I'm familiar with. And I guess the back to a little bit, it's just been options for the most part. I haven't.

I'm actually, well, not entirely really close to what was going on with the films. I think there's one of these cases where they take. They get the rights and they do what they want with it, basically.

But still, you know, I got paid for it. I got, you know, I got to say, these people were. They'd read my stuff, are interested in it. So that's, to me, a boon all around.

So I don't have really any updates with that.

But you know what? That's okay, because the film industry is going through a whole thing, so it might be better to wait anyway.

Yes, but just the idea that your story can become a film, like, do you have a vision of what that will look like for you or who would star in it, who would write the screenplay? All of those things.

Not too much. I mean, I always said, like, when it comes to casting, I, you know, I rather. I just.

I always say, like, open someone unknown, somebody to be undiscovered sort of thing. I think always we get stuck. We always get stuck on certain. For casting certain people.

But beyond that, you know, just, I guess I always kind of want, like, a short, like mini series or series whatnot, because I always feel like a mystery, can I guess, because I'm used to all those procedural shows where you can have a mystery per week, but an overarching thing, that would be my ideal adaptation.

And like, you know, I have, like, a short seat, I guess, you know, they're doing short seasons now, I guess, you know, eight and eight to ten episode season with little mysteries, but a larger overarching thing would be ideal. But a film could still work in either way.

So it would always be interesting to see what happens with it because I know with any adaptation, there are lots of things that get changed around. So I guess I've always been the person, like, you know, long to keep the spirit of the book and story in the adaptation. Anything could go with it.

How it comes about.

I've interviewed two other authors who are having tv shows. Nicki Mae and Jane Allen are both going through the same process.

And so I think it's beautiful that they are putting our stories on the screen, written by us, for us. So that's regardless of where it is in the process, I'm grateful that it's happening now.

Velma is on assignment to solve a mystery, and she's flying across the nation to these different cities. What are the significance of these cities? Primarily bramble Crescent. I've never heard of that until I read this book.

Yeah, this bramble crescent is my creation for the story. It's entirely fictional, but it's based off of oak bluffs and mountain vineyard, the classic black town on that part of the world.

I think I remembered going to the national history of African american history and Culture Museum, DC, and, you know, being. Walking through exhibits and being surprised, oh, there's black people in Martha's Vineyard. That sort of thing.

I didn't know there was, like, a town like that before because I always heard Martha Vineyard, but I never heard.

Of oak bluffs or sag harbor. Yeah.

So, yeah, all those places like that, those beach towns like that really fascinated me.

So I thought it'd be great for this story that Velma kind of grew up on island, kind of based off of these things that, like an all, kind of all black town that's been not fully isolated, but isolated enough, they can build up their own unique kind of culture. So I envision that Velma grew up in a place where, you know, magic is freely, like, done around her, like it's natural. People, you know, they'll be.

People would let their groceries be, like, unpack themselves because of magic or that this is more casual use compared to the US or the main states, where it's more. More restricted, more rules, especially with the elements of prohibition going on in this particular book as well. I like the contrast of how she can.

She grew up thinking about magic differently and how you can see how she uses magic when she's on the island and when she's elsewhere. And it's very. I like the idea that's very different, how it kind of informs how she acts as well, because how she approaches things.

And as far as other places, you'll see across the book, some of them were. Some of them, honestly were picked for the map because I had this idea she's going to crisscross from east to west, basically.

So I had to structure how she gets there because I actually looked at the old us air mail, postal maps, where they had charted these courses across the US. And given the vision, because I envisioned that's how she gets across the country, using something map similar like that.

So I visualize that and look at what's kind of close to where I want it to be, because I want to do different regions of the US and kind of picked off these places of interest and everything like that.

And that's why another major stop she makes is like Sacramento, which I thought was an interesting place for just to have her backstory as being a bootlegger. Being where she did a bunch of stuff.

That's where she did all her bootlegging stuff at California, and just draw in some different elements that we hadn't seen in the other books. My other books were all mostly set in Philadelphia.

So this is my chance to be like a travel book to different places, the US, and kind of seed how magic might crop up differently across the place.

You know, you don't think about that. You think.

You still think a certain perspective or a certain image and idea of what black people were doing back then, but to know that she was flying.

Yeah, that's another important thing about being the pilot. That's probably why I was strongly felt this should be a travel book. That's because she has the access to the plane, the flying.

And I think it's also another theme, or I guess, symbolism of her being able to freely go as she pleased for the most part, but with care. I make the point that she has. She has friends and connections to these places she stops and where she doesn't have friends and connections nearby.

It's a feel. It's a different sort of tension when she lands and goes to where she knows she has a friendly face nearby.

Yeah, I loved how she built herself a barn and how beautiful it was described. She wanted a special place for her plane. Now, talk to me about the magic. What is celestial magic?

And is it something that only lives inside of your book, or is it derived from other different magical systems?

And special magic is what I kind of created for my magic system. This idea that. That they can. The magic that people can express in the world, they kind of base it off on the constellations.

They look at this as these are basically the constellations or the frame in which they can focus their magical energy upon. And I think it's. That's kind of the basic idea of it, because I like the idea that you can. It's.

The magic can also be expressed in certain crafts, like someone who sews or makes jewelry, like velma, make sure it can store up her magical. Certain magical abilities or energies as well.

And so it can be expressed different ways, but the magic system allows it to be kind of funneled through. And it's this element of this is kind of what I was building upon the earlier book, but also done differently in certain ways.

And basically how expressed and how it's being used about. And it includes the system that I always. I thought it was mostly. I mostly get kind of based off of astrology port for fun.

But I also thought it ties a lot culturally from when I first developed in the first two books about how they can look to the stars. It's always kind of stare and free. You can use that as a way to map out the magic.

And there's other parts of the system includes potion making, which, I mean, that's another going back to more becoming a naturalistic making of potions and herbal remedies and things like that, which is also another reason why it was part of the prohibition thing as well, because my research, prohibition was like a lot of prohibition has lots of interesting roots, but most of it has come from like, a native is like, you know, these foreigners, these black people, these irish people, you know, they're drinking and doing bad stuff. So we've got banned. That's why prohibition came about, basically.

That's kind of, that's what made having, like, potions as part of that, wrapped up in that prohibition aspect of it wasn't natural fit for it. And it will also be like, of course, that's why we do certain things for it.

But, yeah, that's really cool. And I think about that when I think about people, you know, loving crystals and herbal lotions and healing properties of different plants.

And I love, you know, how the ancient elements were put into this book as well, besides historical, because we are rooted people and many different things. I think about my dad when he gave me a hot tidy when I was, you know, all the things that went into that, his potion, his drink to make me better.

Now, when the books are incredible.

And thank you for putting your art out into the world and when I very rarely hear about black women writing mystery novels or intriguing novels like this. Are there any other authors that are also out in this world that we should be paying attention to?

Yeah, there are plenty. But, you know, whenever someone asks about the other authors, all the names blank out.

I never know who's doing the place, but basically you can seek out places. There are, if you go to social media, ask about writers. I think there's different genres. There'll be. There's a bunch out there. This is most.

In many cases. It's hard to find in some places, but there are out there and talk to the right people.

Now, what advice do you have for women that are interested in exploring this genre?

I think with, as in first, either as a reader or a writer.

As a writer, anybody who's interested in getting into writing mystery novels, adventure stories, creating their home world, what advice do you have for them?

I think with writing, you know, start with things you like and enjoy reading. Do you like reading about, you know, murder mysteries, where, you know, it's.

They have the classic, you know, everyone's at dinner party and somebody falls, they spurs in the soup, you know, write your own story and kind of just build off the things, what elements you enjoy reading about or reading or watching about or hearing about and kind of work that way in.

And if you're not comfortable with it, you know, read other people, learn about the different tropes and themes you might see in these kind of stories and be afraid to be inventive about it. Some of these stories are really, are fairly familiar, well throtted. So you can learn to mix it up, make it.

Make things surprise, make your own little twist, certain things, and, you know, be unafraid about it because there's lots of people who can write really well, but also a lot more people who write really badly. So you don't. Don't be afraid that you're the worst person out there.

Now. What was your journey to becoming published?

That's a long one. I think I'd started some years ago. I think I'd written some older stories.

I had, like, kind of basically used as trial cases to figure out how publishing works, because I decided to go, I'm going to traditional route, so I knew I needed an agent. So I think whatever story I felt comfortable, confident about, I started pitching to agents.

I did my research about where to find them, what best place to reach them, what genres are looking for. Their open submission is on and just made of the lesson.

Started submitting, basically, and I got a lot of rejections before I even got even interested in people seeing the first couple chapters. And for a while, I actually got to the point, I think, when I was. I think I've actually had.

I did a bunch of old stories and think eventually you did the conductors even that wasn't, like, biting for a while. I think just when I decided to put the conductors up, a person that became my agent actually reached out and saying, oh, this looks interesting.

I'd like to see if you had any. He had recently updated it because it was in the wild until I had sent it out. So I said, yes, I sent out the new version. She liked it.

She signed me and think we worked together for this one last kind of update before we send out to editors. And it was on submission out with editors for about two months before I signed the contract. Get the book published, and that's really fast.

Doesn't always happen. It's very rare that it happens. And I got really lucky.

I had signed the two book deal, which became the conductors and the undertakers, and it's, you know, the rest is history, but it's getting started in some ways.

The thing is with that, the publication, the first two books, I think I only really originally only had the conductors at the one book, and when they said two books, I wasn't sure where to get the second book out of. But luckily, as I was editing the first book, I was able to pull out from my things, I cut to make the undertakers.

But the benefit of knowing I had coming in with two books saying, I could say, oh, I could say this for later, or maybe I don't have to squish all this into one book. I can, you know, extend these things another one.

And through that kind of revision process that when I came around for this round where I got another two book deal for this from the improvisers and the next book that's coming out, I had generated some ideas of, like, what I want the future of the series to look like. And I think in the back of my mind, I always wanted to do different generations because I was a bunch of research throughout historical time period.

It was also kind of fun to see how this world would change with different time periods.

So when I came up first saying they wanted two more books, this series, like I was, I kind of pitched well this, you know, different with the different decades and stuff. So I came up with these things, and here I am now you're working.

On book number four. Where does that fit into the series? Is it going backwards, forwards? Is it the same characters? New characters?

So it was very sixties, and that's aspects of the space race and stuff. It's. And yeah, you can tell it's very inspired by hidden figures.

And I always loved space, so I came out with hidden figures came out, which also unleashed a torrent of other Bruce to other female scientists in that era that aren't the ones, that aren't just the ones that feature in that book and movie. I got all bunch of extra research easy to find for this book.

Right.

So that one was a lot of fun to write because it's looking at, I guess, what I could say for now, it's like it's a treasure hunt that takes, that leads to both the stars and below the seas.

I smell little black panther. I smell a little Star Trek.

Yes.

That's going to be fun.

Yeah. I think this one, I got to indulge a lot of my science fiction tendencies and interests.

You know, I even made the main character very interested in the science fiction novels and comics of the time period, so.

Yeah, it's fun. Anything. If you look at the family tree, you can see where I leave my seeds for other stories.

Because there's a bunch of stories I could write in the generation, the year, decades, I'd skip between the books. So I always have a bunch of ideas. Leave seeds for anything. When I happen to get lucky enough to get a chance or a pitch for the book and the future.

Definitely. When I looked at the family tree, I was like, wow, they were busy. It went from two people to a couple of families to like, oh, my goodness.

So there's lots of stories to tell and lots of decades to hit. And I'm sure in your research you have come across so many ideas of where you can go with each one.

Yeah, I just write my head. I have a list of all the things that whenever I get a chance or someone asked me to, I got a list ready to go.

Always prepared. That's the advice. Be prepared and keep a notebook with your ideas in it because you never know what it's going to spark.

Well, Nicole, thank you so much for this conversation. I hope that this is made into a mini series. I would love to see Velma flying across the country on my tv screen. And I'm wishing you all the best.

And hopefully the movie will be made and the next whenever. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience?

No, but other than that, just. Do you have an idea? Feel free to dream big and go after it.

Oh, I have one final question.

Yes.

What is your black girl magical power?

Ooh, my magical power. Is it cliche to say, being creative and imaginative, I like to look at what's the ordinary and see how I can make it extraordinary.

That's beautiful and hopeful in a world full of cynics. So tapping into your imagination is your magical power. That's beautiful.

So how can people find out more about you and the projects that you're working on?

Yeah. My main place to look for any updates information would be my website, Nicole Dash glover.com. i'm sporadically on email on social media.

My instagram is author Nicole Glover, and I think that's it for now. I have a newsletter, my substat. I think you can find a link on my website. We'll have more in depth of update as well as other thoughts about writing.

And I might have more social media in the future. Who knows? Who knows?

I doubt it. It's scary on these Internet streets. Stay still. Stay still now. I just want to thank you again for this opportunity to speak with you again.

The best of luck, everything. And listeners.

I will put a link to her latest book as well as her previous books in the show notes so that you can tap into the world of Nicole Glover. Thank you so much, Nicole. And thank you, black women amplified listeners.

Make sure that you visit our website, www.blackwomenamplified.com to sign up to our newsletter, as well as more news and information about black women amplified. Have an amazing day and we will talk to you soon. Take care.

Bye bye.

Welcome to the afterglow with Monica wisdom. Did you enjoy the conversation I had with Nicole Glover? It was intense, in a good way.

I got all of my questions answered, so I was excited about that. I'm always very curious when people write fantasy. I'm just curious about their process. Like, how do you tap into your imagination?

How do you keep track of all the characters and the storylines? Because you're literally making everything up. Like, from the stars in the sky to the cities.

You know, everything is created as opposed to a novel where there's, you know, you could say London and London is London. Or you could say, you know, South Carolina. South Carolina is South Carolina. But when you're making up a whole world. What does that look like?

And how do you keep track of it? Because my scatter brain, I don't know if I could do it. I can't keep focused to write an essay.

But so I loved hearing her process, and I think that her incredible passion for black history is all throughout this book. It's just all throughout this book. And she really writes just dynamic characters.

One thing I really enjoyed about the book, the physical book, because I have the physical book, I would take a picture of it and show it to you. But it's not the finished book. It's the promo book.

I tend to get the promo books, but she has a family tree inside of the book, so we follow the family tree. And the protagonist in this book is Velma Fry. And Velma Fry is the granddaughter of the people in the first two books.

So even though she took a departure from her first two books, so the characters don't carry on, the family does. So she has a list of several family members, husbands and wives and kids. So there's many different directions she can go in throughout her series.

You know, she could take it in many different.

You know, when I think about Star wars or Star Trek or, you know, all the stories that can come out of one idea, and she gets to explore, and I think that's beautiful for her, that she gets to tap into her imagination. And she has a team that supports her in this journey of hers as an author. When her, the publicist, they contacted me to interview her.

I've worked with her before. She's an amazing lady.

And I had just finished my interview with Jane Allen, and then the next day, she was like, hey, oh, by the way, I said, well, that was quick, because normally, sometimes it's a couple of months between particular person sending me somebody else and the publicist send me people, and they're not in alignment with black women amplified.

So anybody listening to this, if you have reached out to me or you are publicist who's listening and you want your person to be on this show, I just want you to know that if I decline to the opportunity, it's not because I don't think that the person is a great person or they have a great product or great whatever. It's. That it's not in alignment with this podcast. It's very specific what I'm looking for. And everything for me has to flow organically.

I'm not a podcaster who's just gonna interview everybody for the sake of interviewing. It's gotta be something that I feel that I think, you know, people need to hear, or that even that I'm curious about.

I often get people who are business people. And even though I've had business people on, I am not a business podcast. This is about women, black women's empowerment.

This is about us tapping into our imagination and tapping into our knowledge and, you know, learning about other people and their process. So, you know, and I've talked about this before, but I just.

I don't know why I felt the need to say this, but just know that it's not because I don't think they're a dynamic person or they have a great offering. It's just I look for specificity when it comes to the black woman amplified podcast. So every episode is curated.

And I put a lot of work into putting my interviews together. So I'm not doing it just for the sake of having people on the show. That's why there's not an interview every single show I could.

But if it don't feel right, I ain't doing it at the end of the day. But anyway, back to Nicole. Yes. So she follows the family lineage, which I think is fantastic.

And she has a deep passion for black history, which I think is fantastic. And I love the character of Velma. Here she is flying around the country, following clues in her own airplane. Honey. Okay, she's not just a pilot.

Make sure you read it from the very, very beginning, before the first chapter, so that you. And get the physical book so that you can see all of the family tree and just her introduction to all the things.

So thank you for listening to the afterglow, giving you a little bit of insight of my thoughts of the interview, my thoughts of the book, and I will talk to you soon. Have an amazing day. And don't forget to download the journal www.blackwomenamplified.com. powerstory and that will also put you on our newsletter.

You don't want to miss out on newsletter and go to the website and read the blog. Have an amazing, amazing day wherever you are in the world, sending you light and love, peace, joy and prosperity.

Thank you for listening to black women amplified. We hope you enjoyed the show. Be sure to subscribe and log on to blackwomenamplified.com for more information. Keep shining.