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"Too many of us are hung up on
what we don't have, can't have, or won't ever have. We spend too much energy being down,
when we could use that same energy -- if not less of it -- doing, or at least trying to
do, some of the things we really want to do." —Terry McMillan

Author Photograph: Stephanie Rausser
Originally from Port Huron, Terry McMillan, with her phenomenal New York
Times bestseller Waiting to Exhale, has become one of the most important American
novelists writing today.
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Terry McMillan received her B.A. in Journalism from the University of California at
Berkeley, and attended the MFA Film Program at Columbia University. Macmillan's first
novel, Mama, published in 1987, received a National Book Award by the Before Columbus
Foundation. She has been awarded a 1988 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
in literature, a 1986 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and the
Doubleday/Columbia University Literary Fellowship. She was a three-time fellow at
Yaddo Artist Colony and The MacDowell Colony. She has been a Visiting Professor of
English at the University of Wyoming and Stanford University and an Associate Professor of
English at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
It's OK if You're Clueless: and 23 More Tips for
the College Bound
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Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: Viking Adult (April 25, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0670032980
From bestselling author Terry McMillan, life wisdom for high school graduates and
those who love them
When her son Solomon graduated from high school, Terry McMillan was asked to
be the guest speaker at the commencement ceremony. Determined not to be dull
or redundant, Terry thought back to when she was stepping out into the world
for the first time and the things she wished people had told her. Printing
up what she thought were the most important tips for these new graduates,
Terry was surprised to find that not only were these homemade pamphlets a
hit with the students, but their parents clamored for copies too.
Now with It’s Ok If You’re Clueless, Terry McMillan brings her trademark wit and
sass to every son and daughter about to take their first tentative steps
into adulthood. Offering such nuggets as “Sit up straight,” “Don’t listen to
your parents,” and “Bring your laundry home,” as well as “See the world” and
“Read anything and everything,” It’s Ok If You’re Clueless is packed with
the commonsense advice and conversational tone that have made her novels
classic bestsellers. Equal parts witty and wise, It’s Ok If You’re Clueless
is the perfect gift for the college bound this May.
The Interruption of
Everything
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ISBN: 0670031445
Format: Hardcover, 384pp
Pub. Date: July 19, 2005
Publisher: Viking Adult
Since Terry McMillan's breakout novel Waiting To Exhale surged
onto the bestseller lists, critics and readers alike have been captivated by
her irreverent, often-hilarious take on the issues faced by contemporary
women. With The Interruption of Everything she picks up,
pitch-perfect, the dilemmas of midlife: an empty nest. Hormones gone wild.
Too many irrelevant demands and too little room to breathe.
Marilyn Grimes is about ready to jump out of her skin. She's the consummate
wife and mother of three grown kids. She's got a
no-great-shakes-but-a-good-provider of a husband, Leon; and a live-in
mother-in-law, Arthurine, who comes with a bingo-playing beau, Prezell, and
an elderly pooch, Snuffy. Marilyn's two best friends, Paulette and Bunny,
are the quintessential take-no-prisoners, vintage McMillan girlfriends who
will be there when Marilyn jumps, but . . . she's just not sure exactly
where that will be . . . or when. First, she needs to remember what she used
to love and call back some of her own postponed dreams. But just as
Marilyn's plans for making changes are taking shape, life comes up with a
few twists of its own. Suddenly Marilyn must reinvent just about everything:
marriage, friendship, family-and not least of all, herself.
The Interruption of Everything is a triumphant testament to the fact
that the detour is the path, and living life "by the numbers" never quite
adds up.
 A Day Late and a Dollar Short
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Format: Hardcover, 448pp.
ISBN: 0670896764
Publisher: Viking Penguin
Pub. Date: January 15th 2001
Much-heralded and long awaited, Terry
McMillan's tour-de-force novel introduces the Price family-matriarch
Viola, her sometimes-husband Cecil, and their four adult kids, each of
whom sees life-and one another-through thick and thin, and entirely on
their own terms. With her hallmark exuberance and cast of characters so
sassy, resilient, and full of life that they breathe, dream, and shout
right off the page, the author of the phenomenal best-sellers Waiting to
Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back has given us a novel that takes
us ever-further into the hearts, minds, and souls of America-and gives us
six more friends we never want to leave.
Read an AALBC Review of
A Day Late and a Dollar Short written by Paige Turner
Read
an Excerpt of this book |
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How
Stella Got Her Groove Back
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Amazon
Publisher: NAL/Dutton
Date Published: August 1998
Review from Lillian Lewis - BookList:
Stella Payne is a successful 42-year-old investment analyst and
divorced mother of an 11-year-old son, Quincy. But Stella has begun to feel that her life
needs some "groove." On the spur of the moment, she plans a trip to Jamaica to
relax and escape from her routine. She meets a man, half her age, whose honesty and
physical charm challenge her perceptions of what is acceptable and force her to rethink
and re-prioritize her image of herself and her life. Once she returns from her vacation,
she recognizes that her life has only been satisfying because it is what was expected from
a woman her age. Stella accomplishes her mission of doing something totally out of
character by taking her solo vacation "and" she succeeds at putting more than
just a "groove" back into her life. The stream-of-consciousness narration that
is utilized for most of this story is a bit awkward at times. McMillan's style here
differs markedly from that of "Waiting to Exhale", which brought her much
"girlfriend" popularity; yet she just may connect with an untapped readership. |
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Mama
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Publisher: Pocket Books
Date Published: December 1993
"McMillan's zesty first novel"
Review from Library Journal :
Mama , a first novel, tells of a proud black woman, Mildred Peacock, and her five
children. After a violent fight, Mildred throws her drunken husband out of the house. On
her own in the poor town of Point Haven, Michigan, Mildred scrimps and drinks, works and
goes on welfare, struggling to raise her kids and keep her sanity. Mildred's closest bond
is to her oldest daughter, Freda, and their lives parallel each other's progress from
despair to hope. The book's main weakness is that the author apparently could not decide
what to leave out. She also has not decided who her audience is: at times she seems to be
writing to blacks, at other times to be explaining things to naive white readers. Although
the story has power, it lacks focus and a clear point of view. Janet Boyarin Blundell,
MLS, Brookdale Community Coll. Adjunct Faculty, Lincroft, N.J. |
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Breaking
Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Writers
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Amazon
Terry McMillan
(Editor), John Edgar Wideman (Photographer)
ISBN: 0140116974
Format: Paperback, 683pp
Pub. Date: September 1990
Publisher: Penguin
A striking collection of works from authors both established and emerging, this is the
first original anthology of African-American writing in over a decade. Featured
contributors include: J. California Cooper,
Marita Golden, Gloria
Naylor, Darryl Pinckney, Ntozake Shange, Alice
Walker, Ishmael Reed, Terry McMillan, and many others.
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Waiting
to Exhale
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Publisher: Pocket Books
Date Published: September 1994
Review of Waiting to Exhale
Review from Library Journal :
Like McMillan's previous novels, Disappearing Acts ( LJ 7/89) and Mama ( LJ 1/87), her new
effort features a predictable plot, prose that often falls flat, and a narrative that
lacks depth. Four African American women living in Phoenix devote most of their energies
to searching for the one good black man who will make their dreams of the perfect partner
and lover come true. Unsurprisingly, Savannah, Bernie, Gloria, and Robin all kiss several
toads, but their trials and errors never arouse much interest. Far stronger is the
author's sharp, often humorous depiction of the strong bonds among the four friends, their
relationships with their families, and their community activities; readers will regret
that McMillan did not develop these areas further. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/92.--
Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia -Library
Journal
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Disappearing
Acts
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Publisher: Pocket Books
Date Published: August 1993
Review From Thulani Davis - Voice Literary Supplement:
Disappearing Acts, like Terry McMillan's first novel, Mama, is an
energetic and earthy book that takes place wholly within the confines of an intense
relationship. While the narrator of Mama sounded like a character in the story, in this
book McMillan uses two alternating voices that speak directly to the reunder. The whole
world is filtered through the self-naming, self-mythologizing first-person monologue--from
racism to masturbation, parental conflicts to staying on a diet. And because there's no
one obvious for Zora Banks or Franklin Swift to tell it to--they are loners in every
way--the question is whether these folks are for real. In many ways they are quite
ordinary, in other ways they are hardly tangible. |
Related Links
Terry's Official Website
http://www.terrymcmillan.com/
Terry's Blog
http://www.comment-terry.blogspot.com/
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