Today I welcome another exciting book club. This time we've traveled to Memphis to meet the ladies of Girls in Real Life Situations (G.I.R.L.S.) Book Club. I interviewed the club president, Shauntay Hampton-Prewitt, and she answered these questions about her book club.
Welcome Shauntay, tell us about the G.I.R.L.S. The G.I.R.L.S. book club is a part of New Direction Christian Church in Memphis, TN. We have been in existence about 4 years and have on average 15 members.
Great acronym for your name, what are those “real situations”? The real situations are things like baby mama drama, cheating husbands, loss of jobs, unruly children, broken hearts, and stuff like that.
You have a large number of members, you've had up to 30 at one point. How do you keep the sister love amongst so many women? We try to get together out side of our monthly meetings. We go places together and call each other while we are reading to chat about a part that sticks out to us.
Tell me about the types of books your club likes to read. How do you make your reading selections? We love the authors, Victoria Christopher Murray and Kendra Norman Bellamy. Before the book is read by the group, the pre-read team reads a books and votes to see if it is a book the entire group would enjoy.
What format do your meetings take? Our church owns the restaurant where we hold the meetings. We order a couple of group appetizer platters and talk about what parts of the book stuck out the most to us. We love talking about what we call "God Nuggets". That sounds like a great place to meet and I like that, "God's Nuggets".
Tell us about a recent Christian Fiction book you’ve enjoyed and why? We love books that are part of a series, because you get a change to keep following a character throughout there journey.
What types of stories would you like to see more of in Christian Fiction? More books from a man perspective. Something that men would enjoy reading. When we first started the book club it was called G.I.R.L.S. & G.U.Y.S (God Understands Your Struggles) however there was not enough books to keep the men’s attention. Okay so you'll enjoy Secrets and Lies, my novel is written in the point of view of a man.
The number of book clubs in the African American community has grown by leaps and bounds. Tell me why you think that is? Well it is an opportunity for people to get together and have fun.
Thanks so much for stopping by, Shauntay. I hope to be chatting with your book club when my novel comes out.
