Connie Briscoe

Connie Briscoe

African American Literature Book Club - The #1 Site for "Readers of Black Literature"

Home • Back • Author Home • Up • Next • Author Profiles • Book Profiles • Writer's Resources • Reviews • Events • About Us • Buy Any Book • Advertise

Connie Briscoe

My real name is Constance, but everyone has always called me "Connie." I was blessed with a wonderful upbringing. Although my immediate family is small--I have one sister--we are very close and supportive of each other.

The only thing unusual about my life was that I was born with a hearing loss, inherited from my father's side of the family. From childhood through my twenties, it was a moderate loss and I was able to attend public schools and to go on to college with few problems. When I was in my mid-twenties the loss worsened and by graduate school I needed a hearing aid. I eventually took a job at Gallaudet University and began to learn sign language. I never let my hearing loss hold me back from doing the things I wanted to do. I just adapted and plowed on.

A couple of years ago, I had a cochlear implant and most of my hearing has been restored. I'm now doing things I hadn't done in years, like going to the movies, enjoying music and using the telephone. It really is a miracle.

I'm not sure when I first thought about being a writer. I've always had "a way with words" and took a few stabs at writing a novel when I was in my twenties, but I never finished--perhaps because I did not have enough life experience to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. I put it off and pursued other things--a brief marriage, my career, traveling around the world, photography--but the desire to write was always in the background. And although my career as an editor was progressing fairly well, I realized that I wanted more out of life. So I took another stab at writing.

This second attempt resulted in Sisters and Lovers, and to my amazement it eventually sold more than 100,000 hardcover and about a half million paperback copies. It appeared on the bestseller lists of the Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly. My second novel, Big Girls Don't Cry, hit many of the bestseller lists as well, including the New York Times. A Long Way From Home, the story of my ancestors, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.

I live with my family in Maryland in a quiet community with beautiful pastoral views. Although I sometimes miss the hustle and bustle of the big city, it's the perfect setting for writing.

Jewels: 50 Phenomenal Black Women Over 50
Click to order via Amazon

by Michael Cunningham, Connie Briscoe, Nikki Giovanni (Contribution by)

ISBN: 0316113042
Pub. Date: April 2007
Format: Hardcover, 224pp
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company

Jewels celebrates the spirit and achievements of mature African American women.

Photographer Michael Cunningham (coauthor of Crowns) and author Connie Briscoe, a New York Times bestselling novelist, profile fifty women over the age of fifty who have been remarkably successful—whether in reaching the top of the corporate ladder, finding fame in politics or the arts, or raising a son to be proud of a single mother—and reveal the ways that they have prevailed despite daunting obstacles. Their stories are paired with Cunningham's intimate portraits of the women.

Jewels includes well-known and little-known women alike—from teachers and executives to artists, authors, and entertainers. Among the celebrities profiled in the book are Ruby Dee, Eleanor Holmes Norton, S. Epatha Merkerson, and Marian Wright Edelman. Coauthor Connie Briscoe also appears here as one of the featured Jewels, telling her inspiring personal story. World-renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator Nikki Giovanni contributes an original poem to the book.

You Only Get Better: The Perfect Life \ Three For The Road \ This Time Around
Click to order via Amazon

by Connie Briscoe (Author), Lolita Files (Author), Anita Bunkley (Author)

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Harlequin (March 1, 2007)
Format: Paperback, 320pp
ISBN-10: 0373830599

Read an Excerpt

Three fascinating women discover that life, love and everything else gets better with age!
Teacher Maxine Davis's life is careening out of control—her marriage is dull, her teenage daughters are driving her insane and she is days away from her fiftieth birthday. New York Times bestselling author Connie Briscoe spins a compelling story of betrayal, forgiveness and redemption in "The Perfect Life," as Maxine discovers the glamorous life she's always coveted may be less satisfying than the "good" life she's been living.

A nasty divorce and the tragic events of 9/11 help an empty nester see beyond the narrow confines of her materialistic existence. In "Three for the Road," Essence and Blackboard bestselling author Lolita Files takes readers on a breathtaking road trip to self-discovery with Lillibelle Goldman, as she meets an unlikely kindred spirit who may hold the key to her second chance for happiness.

In "This Time Around," by bestselling author Anita Bunkley, a successful career woman proves that life doesn't end at forty. At forty-nine, Anika Redmond has just received an extreme makeover and is looking good. With her hot body and power job in place, learn if she gets the one thing in life that still eludes her—a happy ending . . .

Can't Get Enough
Click to order via Amazon

ISBN: 0385501625
Format: Hardcover, 304pp
Pub. Date: April 26, 2005
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated

"This romp of a read combines lush settings, humorous dialogue and outrageous behavior..." Ebony magazine wrote of P.G. County, Connie Briscoe's first excursion into the world of the overprivileged and undersatisfied inhabitants of an elite suburb of Washington, D.C. Readers will be delighted to learn that their mischievous machinations and meddlesome ways reach new heights—and sink to new depths—in Can't Get Enough, the much-anticipated follow-up to P.G. County.

Barbara Bentley, the grand dame of P.G. County, is tentatively embarking on a fresh approach to life, abandoning the alcohol that served to soften the edges of her marriage to her bimbo-loving millionaire husband, Bradford. She's been sober for a year, her part-time work as a real estate agent has boosted her self-confidence, and the unexpected attentions of a handsome young colleague have done wonders for her ego. For Jolene, Bradford's ambitious, conniving ex-mistress, the status she covets remains tantalizingly out of reach. Her decent, hard-working husband, Patrick, has left her for Pearl, a woman proud of her success as a beauty shop owner and eager to create a loving home for Patrick and his two mixed-up teenage daughters. Candice is trying to adjust to the recent discovery of her African American roots, an obsession that has alienated her husband and thrown her into the arms of a manipulative, unreliable lover.

As the characters slip in and out of their Pratesi sheets and stride into mayhem and misdeeds in their Jimmy Choo shoes, Can't Get Enough will hold readers spellbound. A delectable and scrumptious page-turner, it ushers in spring with the fabulous force of aGucci-clad lion.

P.G. County
Click to order via Amazon

Format: Hardcover, 368pp.
ISBN: 0385501617
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated
Pub. Date: September 2002
Edition Description: 1ST

From the Publisher
Connie Briscoe's previous novels have won the accolades of critics, positions on national bestseller lists, and the loyalty of millions of fans. Essence magazine called Sisters and Lovers “a frank and funny tale,” and Mademoiselle dubbed it “riveting ...lively...hilarious.” The San Francisco Chronicle had high praise for Big Girls Don't Cry, declaring “[It] brims with warmth, energy, and a positive message.” With P.G. County, Briscoe serves up a sexy, lush, and irresistible portrait of an elite African American community in Maryland.

Now meet the women of P. G. County:
Barbara Bentley is fifty, rich, fabulous, and the wife of the powerful Bradford Bentley. She has more than enough trouble keeping track of her handsome but all-hands husband while keeping her drinking problem in check

Pearl is a hairdresser who lives on the outskirts of the tony Silver Lake with her grown son, Kenyatta. As Pearl strives to grow her business and recover from a bad divorce, she also has to deal with Kenyatta's new girlfriend, Ashley, who is not at all the match Pearl imagined for her son.

The married Jolene, the black-sheep daughter of a prominent judge, beds down more than one promising candidate as she pursues a wealthy and powerful replacement for her earnest and hardworking husband.

Candice Johnson is remarried, white, and liberal, at least she always fancied herself as such until her daughter enters into a serious relationship with a young black man, and Candice's life as she knows it is suddenly called into question.

Lee is a teenager on the run from her mother's abusive boyfriend and in search of her own father whom she believes to be handsome, rich, and all-powerful.

A Long Way from Home
Click to order via Amazon

ISBN: 0060172789
Format: Hardcover, 368pp
Pub. Date: August 1999
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Briscoe's A Long Way from Home was picked as AALBC.com's The Coffee Will Make You Black reading group selection for February 2000

Read an Excerpt

Description from the Publisher:
A Long Way from Home recounts the joys, pain, and ultimate triumph of three generations: Susie; her daughter, Clara; and her granddaughter, Susan. Born and reared as house slaves on Montpelier, the Virginia plantation of President James Madison and his wife, Dolley Madison, they are united by love, by a fierce devotion to each other and their fellow slaves, and by a growing desire for freedom - a dream that will finally come to fruition for Susan at the end of the Civil War. Trained as a house slave since childhood, Susie enjoys the privileges that her position as maid to Miss Dolley provides her and Clara. For Susie, life holds no mystery, no promise beyond the boundaries of the plantation itself - a lesson she tries to impart to the dreamy Clara, who longs to control her own destiny despite her mother's frightening admonition: "You don't know a thing about freedom, 'cause I don't know anything about it. It takes money and know-how to live free. You don't just up and do it." Life will change for both mother and daughter, though, with the death of James Madison and the departure of his wife for her town house, events that leave the estate in the hands of Dolley's profligate son, Todd. As a result of his neglectful stewardship, the plantation soon falls to a series of owners, each posing a new threat to Susie and Clara, and the other longtime Madison slaves with whom the two women have shared their entire lives. Amidst these devastating changes, Clara grows into womanhood and becomes a mother herself, giving birth to two light-skinned daughters, Ellen and Susan. Yet the threat of separation that has shaped her life is soon a reality when her younger daughter, Susan, is sold to a wealthy businessman in Richmond. Susan must create a new life for herself in this bustling city, a life that will be filled with both terror and hope. And it is in Civil War-torn Richmond that she will find love and realize the long-held dream of her ancestors: freedom.

Sisters and Lovers
Click to order via Amazon

ISBN: 0804113343
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 409pp
Pub. Date: January 1995
Publisher: The Random House Publishing Group

From the Publisher:
Beverly, Charmaine, and Evelyn are three sisters living in the same city, but in very different worlds. They have at least one thing in common though: in their own corners of Washington, D.C., they are reaching their personal breaking points. Beverly, twenty-nine, is successful, reluctantly single, and perennially disappointed. Evelyn, thirty-seven, is educated and ambitious, with a husband, two great kids, and a house in the suburbs; but the secure world she has built for herself is quite possibly about to crumble. And Charmaine, thirty-five, struggles to support her son as well as her useless husband, all the while wondering what either of her sisters has to complain about. As this frank and funny novel unfolds, Beverly will find and lose more men than she'd like to admit, Charmaine will kick her husband out and let him back in more times than she'd like her sisters to know about, and Evelyn will try to keep it a secret that her husband isn't Mr. Perfect after all. But what these three women discover is that having a sister gives you one of the few things you can really rely on. In Sisters & Lovers, debut novelist Connie Briscoe has drawn a vivid and dramatic portrait that will make readers laugh out loud and nod their heads in recognition. It is a novel that announces the welcome arrival of a truly fresh new voice.

Big Girls Don't Cry
Click to order via Amazon

ISBN: 044900564X
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 403pp
Pub. Date: April 1999
Publisher: The Ballentine Publishing Group

From the Publisher:
Naomi Jefferson was born into a comfortable world only occasionally marred by racism - even when she is called a nigger after wandering into the wrong neighborhood, she learns not to let it touch her too deeply. As a teenager in the 1960s, her biggest concerns are when she'll give up her virginity and if you really can't get pregnant the first time, like her friends tell her. But when her adored older brother, Joshua, seemingly the family's chosen one who is destined for greatness, is killed in a tragic car accident on his way to a civil rights demonstration, the rift between black and white America suddenly becomes personal. In an attempt to live up to Joshua's example, Naomi immerses herself in 1970s campus politics. But instead of finding herself, she loses her sense of who she is. She's unsure how to negotiate her way through a world where brothers die for no good reason and the one man she depends on most betrays her with another woman. Slapped in the face with such harsh realities, Naomi makes a decision: Politics are useless, romance is hopeless, and what she really needs is a career. But work and success in the 1980s aren't all they're cracked up to be, particularly since the promotions keep going to the white guys. Just when Naomi starts to think that the only person she can depend on is herself, two people walk into her life who make her believe once again that anything worth having is worth fighting for.

Related Links

Official Connie Briscoe Web Site
http://www.conniebriscoe.com/

Connie Briscoe
In Her Own Words

"I was born in Washington, D.C., on New Year's Eve, 1952. A younger sister followed about twenty-two months later. I had a happy, normal childhood in every way. Although shy and quiet in my early years, I began to get a little rebellious in my teens -- but nothing far out of the ordinary.