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Mara's debut novel fireside
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00:15What's up, what's up, how y'all doing?
00:24Welcome to the Essence Maze stage.
00:27I am your host for the entire day, Tisha doggone Campbell.
00:38Oh, I'm so excited.
00:40How y'all doing out there?
00:41Y'all getting some good stuff in the convention center?
00:44Did y'all hear me earlier?
00:45Because now I can hear myself.
00:47You heard me?
00:48Yes, yes?
00:49Everybody can hear me?
00:50Good, good, good.
00:51I want to let more people come through.
00:54I want to let y'all know we are going to have an amazing time on this main stage today.
01:00We have some amazing guests and I am excited to be your Essence host on the main stage.
01:09Everybody, yo, clap it up for yourselves for being here.
01:14We celebrating any birthdays out here today?
01:19Who, who, who?
01:20Yo, you tell your age, you tell your age.
01:23How old are you?
01:2551?
01:2641?
01:2731?
01:2821?
01:30Yo, I tell my age, I'm 57 years old.
01:37And I'm hot.
01:40That's right.
01:40I'm hot.
01:41I'm having a hot flash right now as we speak.
01:44Fucking burning up.
01:45I'm burning up.
01:46I'm burning up.
01:47All right.
01:47So I want to get started and get you guys to see our first guest.
01:54Okay.
01:54But first I need something.
01:56Well, I don't really need them.
01:58It's more for like decoration.
02:02Yeah.
02:02Okay.
02:03That's better.
02:03That's better.
02:04That's better.
02:05All right.
02:05She said, I know that's right.
02:07All right.
02:08So you guys, I want y'all to start clapping it up when I give y'all the, the go
02:15ahead.
02:15All right.
02:15I want y'all to welcome these beautiful ladies.
02:18You know, this first woman from her many shows that raised us right now for the first
02:27time.
02:27She is stepping into a brand new chapter in her life as a novelist.
02:34Please welcome to this stage.
02:38Y'all clap it up.
02:39Clap it up for them right now.
02:43Welcome Mara Brock Akil for a fireside conversation on her debut album.
02:49No novel.
02:51The revelation.
02:53Come on.
02:53Hype her up.
02:55The revelation of Dion Daphne joined by my good friend and my girlfriend and my homie,
03:01my love.
03:02Sherri Shepherd.
03:03Ladies and gentlemen, Mara Brock Akil and Sherri Shepherd.
03:06What?
03:07Oh my gosh.
03:10Hey family.
03:12Hey family.
03:14Oh my gosh.
03:16Can y'all give Tisha Campbell a hand?
03:23Everybody needs a Gina in their life.
03:27You know what y'all?
03:29This is like literally every time Mara.
03:33I don't know if this is your first time here at essence.
03:35You've been before.
03:36Yeah.
03:37It's like a family reunion.
03:40Every time we come.
03:42All y'all look like my sisters, my aunties.
03:45You look like my cousin.
03:46I got to put money on her books, but God, y'all look like the church sisters.
03:52I love being here because it is black women loving on black women.
04:00And I am so excited.
04:02I'm so honored to talk to Mara Brock Akil about her new, this is her first novel y'all
04:10called the revelation of Dion Daphne.
04:14Let me get to the seat.
04:15You know what?
04:16I thought I was going to be wearing this to Travis, Kelsey, and Tiffany.
04:19What's her name?
04:21I only know the black woman he was dating.
04:23But Taylor Swift.
04:25I thought I was going to they wedding, but I wanted to wear the dress anyway.
04:28I didn't get the invitation.
04:29I'd rather wear it here to Essence.
04:31Let me go on over to Mara.
04:34Can I, Mara, first can I give you your flowers?
04:38Yes, thank you.
04:39Because I need to, I need people to know you're not the okey-doke.
04:43Y'all remember a show called Girlfriends?
04:48Creator, executive producer of Girlfriends.
04:51Y'all remember a show called The Game?
04:53You remember The Game?
04:56Creator, executive producer.
04:57Y'all remember a show called Be a Mary Jane?
05:03Creator, executive producer.
05:05Have y'all watched the first season of Forever?
05:11Creator, executive producer.
05:13It's going into its second season forever.
05:15And I first met this wonderful, beautiful lady when I played Sheila on the Jamie Foxx show.
05:22It's when I met you.
05:24That was a fun time.
05:25That was a very fun time.
05:26And since then, Mara, you have gone on to create the most memorable shows.
05:33Congratulations to you that all of these shows are so, have been so successful.
05:39Because I believe I can speak for everybody.
05:41We always saw somebody that reminded of us.
05:45I've been watching.
05:47Yes.
05:47Just like you were talking about, that's my cousin and that's my aunt.
05:50That's my sister, that's my friend.
05:53And you talked about how beautiful we are.
05:56Yes.
05:56I look at the beauty all the time and I just want to put it on the page.
06:00So I consider the works that I have done and I want to thank you guys for being supporters and
06:05watching the shows.
06:07I see your beauty and I want to put those portraits up on the screen so that you can see
06:12how beautiful you are.
06:13And funny you are.
06:14And complicated.
06:15And a little messy.
06:17And ambitious.
06:18And need a break.
06:20And want to hustle.
06:22All of those things.
06:23I want us to see ourselves.
06:24Thank you so much for representing us so well.
06:27Because I feel like everything that you produce, that you create, is a love letter to black women.
06:35Because it is.
06:36You know, it starts with self love though too Sherry.
06:39Yes.
06:39I mean like I love myself.
06:42I love, and then that next step.
06:45I love, I was made to love by my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt to love myself.
06:50So technically I love them first.
06:52And because they held me, I could held myself in order for me to hold us in stories and all
06:59the different stories I do.
07:00And I just want to shout you out and say thank you.
07:02It's been so much fun collaborating with artists such as yourself.
07:06It makes me excited about writing.
07:08So I'm really happy to be here with you today.
07:12Feeling is mutual.
07:13And now you have your debut novel, y'all.
07:16This is what it looks like.
07:17The Revelation of Dion Daphne.
07:21Have you guys gotten it?
07:22Who has gotten the book?
07:24Okay.
07:25It's day five.
07:26I'm going to tell you I'm two thirds and 90% of the way through the book.
07:31I have laughed.
07:32I have cried.
07:33I have cried.
07:34I have said, ooh, that's me.
07:36Ooh, that's my girlfriend.
07:38You hit so many things in the book.
07:41Now, is writing a novel different from writing a TV show?
07:45I think initially the fear, it seems much, much, much, much bigger.
07:51Yeah.
07:51I was, it just feels very daunting.
07:54And, but when I started to break it down and just became myself, I just, I did the book similarly
08:01to how I break shows.
08:02I literally take a lot of notes on the character.
08:06I go over it.
08:07And so I just sort of translated a lot of what I do.
08:10The book gave me more space to talk about the interior of the character versus just the, you know, the
08:19exterior aspect of who she is.
08:21And that dichotomy, that duality is always interesting to me.
08:25And I can only get so much on the screen, but I think I got a lot in the book.
08:29You're able to get much more into the book.
08:32When I read this book, there were so many themes in here.
08:36I thought I was just, this was like a just, I could read this at the beach, put it down
08:39and walk away.
08:40I could not walk away from Dion Daphne.
08:43Can you tell our family here what the book is about?
08:47Yes.
08:48So this is the book set in the early nineties in New York.
08:53And in so Dion Daphne, funny enough, her job, she works as a beauty editor at essence in the book.
09:01And she's, and she's actually trying to get a promotion.
09:04Life is good.
09:05She had a man for about five years.
09:07He didn't marry her.
09:08So she, she left him six months later.
09:11She's back outside.
09:12Her girlfriend says, girl, it's time to get back outside.
09:15She gets outside.
09:16She meets this great guy.
09:18It's the nineties.
09:19She got money in her pocket.
09:21She can make decisions.
09:22She decides to bring him home.
09:24And that's the night that her boyfriend returns, but he doesn't return to ask her to marry her.
09:30She asked, marry him.
09:32Excuse me.
09:33He reveals some really terrible news that just rocks her world.
09:38Yes.
09:38And, and has her taking an HIV test.
09:42Um, and that's how we shape the book.
09:44What, what, how her, her life was perfect on the, on, on, on one day.
09:49And it's a, it's a rock bottom mess on the second day and how she pulls herself through
09:54it with love, friendship, some tough conversations, but really about facing the storm of her life.
10:01Um, and the two week period.
10:03And it really is a proposal read.
10:04And it was a really fun way to structure the book that way.
10:08And I brought TV training to the book because, you know, I got to keep you guys watching episode after
10:14episode after episode.
10:15Well, that is very difficult.
10:17That type of craftsmanship of the work, I was able to bring to the book.
10:22And I think, I think it's a page turner as I've been told.
10:25You did.
10:26I can see that because I kept wanting to know what the next chapter is.
10:29When you talk about, you know, the, the woman, when she went to get tested, told her she had to
10:34make a list of everybody that she had slept with.
10:37And it brought some revelations into her life where she had to confront people in her life.
10:43She had to confront family members.
10:45And I want you to, I'm going out of order, but I want you to talk about after she was
10:50told this, she had to go get tested for HIV.
10:52She still went to work.
10:54She still put her face on and she went to work.
10:57And so many women here, we may not be dealing with that issue, but we deal with issues.
11:02So many black women, we got to go, we got to put on the mask.
11:05We got to do the code switch and we got to go and make sure and make pretend that everything
11:10is okay.
11:11When our life is falling apart.
11:13Can you talk about that Mara?
11:15Well, that's the thing that I see a lot of us.
11:18I want us carrying the weight.
11:20And I, in this case, I'm talking a lot about shame, carrying the weight of any sort of shame, small,
11:27medium or large.
11:28It's too heavy for us to carry anymore.
11:32You know, we're talking about, talking about beauty, right?
11:34We got the glam today.
11:37We are gorgeous, right?
11:38Yes.
11:39But we're also talking about our health.
11:40We're talking about cortisol levels and all these things.
11:43But where do you think it comes from?
11:44It comes from the stress that we are carrying, trying to hide all of these things that happened to us
11:50and trying to mask it.
11:52I think the character Dion is asking us to be brave enough to face the storms of our life, not
11:58just be okay.
11:59I'm fine.
12:00I'm fine.
12:00I'm fine.
12:21I'm fine.
12:22You've got to wake up on sometimes.
12:23And so when you do, we really enjoy it.
12:26I was reading this book after I came from the concert yesterday and I said, let me take off the
12:32mask because you feel like you got to be perfect.
12:35it. You say hi, you smile, you take pictures. I took that wig off. I had my prison braids in.
12:42I took the dress off. I took the damn Spanx off. I let everything hang. I'm staring in the mirror
12:48myself. I read this book butt naked because I said, I'm going to take this mask off. You know
12:54what? I'll put that mask back on. But it really, but in taking the mask off, you know what it
13:01showed me? I really had to think about what is stressing me out. What is going on in my life?
13:07What am I, why am I eating this Hershey's bar? And it was because the mask was off. You really
13:14got to
13:14deal with yourself and issues in your life when all of that comes off. You know, it's interesting
13:19that the shape of the book, her life changes in two weeks. A lot of times we don't take two
13:26seconds
13:26to have a pause to ask why am I eating the Hershey bar? And here's the deal. If you're
13:33pausing to eat the Hershey bar and you are loving the idea of eating, that's pleasure that we lean
13:40into, but you're, you're eating the thing because you don't take care of yourself. You didn't take
13:44time to eat. You didn't do all the things you're crashing. And so you need a sugar spike. That's a
13:50problem. And what are we not taking time for? That is what I'm hoping we collectively as
13:56black women. There's so much on us. It is so much on us and we are carrying the week and
14:03we pile on top of the stuff that we're hiding. Yes. I would love for us to shed this so
14:09that
14:09we can get our energy back so that we can one of, first of all, if they would just listen
14:15to us, we can fix all these problems that are going on in the world, but it's hard to
14:19do that, to do even your daily problems when we are just carrying too much weight. And that's
14:25what I like. And it's interesting. It's proven when we are, when our, and I'm saying this
14:30for real, when our stress comes down, the inflammation in our bodies come down. We literally lose weight
14:36by reducing our stress. And I'm not talking about walking 10,000 steps. I'm talking about
14:44really unburdening ourselves from the shames that we are, that we are carrying. And sometimes
14:50like Dion, it takes catastrophic moment that drops us to our knees for us to then reevaluate
14:58our life. I think the power of books and stories is that we can share our story and be like,
15:04well,
15:04I don't want to do it. I don't want to be like that. So maybe I should, or maybe I
15:09could deal with
15:12my stuff a little differently to, to save me from a moment like this.
15:17And that leads me to, I want to jump to another point. I want y'all to remember this one
15:21topic,
15:22friendship. Don't let me forget it. Cause I, I didn't turn 59 and I can't remember my head
15:27from my ass tomorrow. So remember that. You need some of Mary Jane's post-its girl and menopause
15:32too. But I want to talk about that. So many, this catastrophic thing has hit Dion. She, her whole
15:39world was together. She had to go and confront different people. And I want to talk about trauma
15:46because when you take off the mask and you talk about high cortisol levels, inflammation,
15:51a lot of that is trauma that we've dealt with in our family, with friendships that, uh, sometimes we
15:58hide behind it. Everything's okay. I'm going to forgive. I'm going to let go, but we have to address
16:04it. Can you talk about dealing with family trauma and forgiveness with Dion? You know, it's the formula
16:14is really simple. I don't necessarily think the steps are, the steps are easy, but the formula is
16:20literally having the difficult conversations. Sometimes just saying it out loud to a friend releases it.
16:28But until you really deal with the person or the issue that caused you pain. And then the other
16:36thing is, if you don't deal with the trauma, we are also responsible for the ripples effects of not
16:41dealing with it. And we start creating bad behavior ourselves, making bad, and we put it on our children
16:48and we put it on the people around us. So I think the trauma until you really have this, the,
16:54the, the,
16:56the, the, the direct communication and confrontation. And by confrontation, I don't mean while out.
17:03Exactly. I mean, have, let it be known what happened to me. Tell, tell, and then because it, when you
17:12release it, you forgive yourself. And, and the, and the, and the journey of forgiving yourself, you in naturally
17:19extend that to others when you are first compassionate and empathetic with yourself.
17:24And the, that's, that's, that's how I see it. When you were talking about family trauma,
17:29and I loved in the book, Dion didn't just, it was, it's messy. It's messy trauma. It's messy
17:36forgiveness. I think we go to forgiveness so quickly and we don't allow time to mourn. And I'm reading this
17:42book and she, you know, she, she says the things she does not say, Oh, I forgive you. She is
17:47angry with
17:48them. She tells them what's on her mind and all the things she didn't say. She is forced to say
17:56it
17:56when, when you are looking back in the day in the nineties, you guys waiting on the results of an
18:01HIV
18:02test felt like a death sentence. And so you get real clear with, Oh my gosh. And you have to
18:09go back
18:10and you have to make a list of all the people that you had sexual relationships with and you get
18:15to look
18:16at your life. Yeah. And so sometimes you might look at the list and want to forgive yourself.
18:22You look at that list and you realize that was a bad decision. That was those, those few were good,
18:27but that I think my whole list would be called bad decisions. Even the ones I married bad decisions.
18:34If I had to go back and look at it, you got a trace where that decision came from. And
18:39typically it's
18:40unmet, unhealed, unresolved trauma. And I'm telling you, when we release the anger, the anger after
18:48years feels like weight, it feels like weight, I mean, little physical weight, not, and then the
18:54emotional depression and all of that stuff. I'm telling you, if you go through the storm and stop
19:00trying to run away from the storm, you will come back through it. And I'm, I would even want to
19:06do
19:06like a documentary about it. Like if you do it and you just watch literal physical health
19:13change for the better, your beauty comes back. Your, I know this cause I went, I know this to be
19:20true. You know what I'm saying? And you've seen it on our friends and we're like, and we'll, we've given
19:25the testimony of our girlfriends and be like, wow, she was this. And now look at her. And, and the,
19:31what the beauty that we're seeing is the light that she got back. That's forgiveness.
19:36And you spoke about that. What was the thing I'm supposed to talk about y'all?
19:40Oh, you talked about girlfriends. Another thing that I loved in the revelation of Dion Daphne
19:47was about friendship, unlikely friendships that she had along the way, but she had her
19:54ace boom coon, Farrah, her best friend. Can you speak to how many of y'all have been on the
20:01ground in tears and you had that girlfriend that lifted you up? Just raise your hand and
20:06let me know when you had that girlfriend that just lifted you up. That just, she, you didn't
20:10have to say anything. You just sobbed in her arms and she already knew how many of you had a
20:15girlfriend
20:16that no matter what, she bossy, she going to check you. She going to tell you what God didn't
20:20told her you ain't heard it from God, but she didn't hurt it. Yeah. They called a few times.
20:25You had that girl. How many you got their girlfriend? She ready to fight everybody for you.
20:30It's you spoke about friendship in this book, which I love because I am a girlfriend.
20:36That's a girly girl. Talk to me about the power of friendship. Well, you know, Sherry, this was
20:43interesting. Whenever I work on a project, I don't know the creatives out there, but I, I expect my own
20:50revelation in the work. The work will tell me something. I didn't go into the work trying to craft.
20:57And what was interesting about taking Dion authentically through her journey, I realized
21:03why I even wrote girlfriends 25 years ago, 25 years ago, girlfriends was on the air and, and today it
21:13is still finding new audience and resonating. And I know why, because our girlfriends or guys,
21:20your guy friends, our friend groups, but let's be speak for the girlfriends right now. Girlfriends,
21:26I realize are our surrogate parents until we are strong enough to stand on our own feet and
21:34reparent ourselves. That is the only way to heal. You have to reparent yourself. And sometimes,
21:40and oftentimes that's a daily practice. Parenting is a daily practice. The daily practice is we have
21:47to be strong enough to reparent ourselves. And notice I said surrogate because even adopted parent
21:54is asking too much of our parent, I mean, too much of that role, because we do need to carry
22:00our own
22:01bucket of water. Healing is a me, myself, and I process. You can get help in therapy and in
22:10girlfriends, but girlfriends have the power to hold you, pray for you, point you in the direction of a
22:16therapist, point you in the direction of, so that you can get on about taking care of yourself.
22:22And think about that. Once you do that, then you can start to have forgiveness, compassion,
22:27empathy for those who have even hurt you. And what you do more powerfully is that you don't
22:32continue to hurt yourself and we don't continue to hurt the future. And what we have to do more than
22:37anything is take care of ourselves or really take care of our babies. Yes. Before we end this,
22:44I want to know when you ask people, I would love for you to get the revelation of Dion Daphne.
22:51It's
22:51such an amazing book. What would you like people to take away from this book? I would like people to
22:58take away the idea that, and I kind of talked about it a little bit, but really examining what kind
23:05of
23:05shame are we holding onto that does not belong to us anymore at times to sort of let it down.
23:12And Dion, to me, Dion is a, is someone who's decided to raise her hand and say, Hey, I'll go
23:19first. I'll, I'll, I'll give testimony to my life so I can lay it down. I want people to lay
23:25it,
23:25feel, feel compassion for her and people like her, but I really want people to have compassion for
23:31themselves and willing to kind of do, do their own journey, face their own storm and come back
23:36more beautiful than ever, not needing to wear a mask, but we're, but we're their makeup and their
23:41hair to celebrate their life, not to hide their life, not to hide their life. Would you guys give
23:47Mara Brock Akil another hand? I would love to share. I'm headed, I'm headed guys. I'm headed to sign
23:55books at the author's pavilion right now. You guys can meet me over there at the author's pavilion.
24:00I'm signing my debut novel. I don't have a lot of stops on this tour because I am, uh, filming
24:08forever two season two, and I got to get back on set. But I, um, I came to essence because
24:14you guys
24:15are beautiful. I want to meet you. I want to see you. And I would love to, um, share my
24:20book with
24:21you. So meet me over on the author stage pavilion. I would say also ladies, remember, this is the woman
24:27who celebrates and writes a love letter to black women every show that she does. Please support her
24:33on her debut novel. Please support her. We don't have many out here. We don't have many out here
24:40doing this. Uh, and we're in a time where the people are trying to erase us. So when you have
24:46a black woman out there fighting the good fight for us, by us, about us, please go and support
24:52and get this book because it tells other publishers that we spend our money on what we care about
24:59and who we care about. So thank you so much, Mara. We love you. Thank you for spending time with
25:06me.
25:07Thank you for skipping the wedding and being with me. I wouldn't, I wouldn't go to that wedding for
25:11nothing. I want to be with you. And I want to say this y'all watch my movie on lifetime.
25:16It's called
25:16angel in the rubble. I'm executive producing it with Robin Roberts on lifetime, September 12th,
25:22about the last rescue of nine 11, the terrorist attacks. She was buried alive for 27 hours. And this
25:28is my first starring role in a movie y'all. So thank you for my very first starring role. And
25:35I'm an author
25:36two of my book, life is a K drama because I'm obsessed with K dramas. It's coming out on my
25:41birthday, April, 20, 27, a black woman meets a rich Korean man. I wanted a black woman in these two.
25:49So for my birthday, y'all can pre-order it at sherryshepard.com. So thank you for inspiring me.
25:54I love that you're telling your stories. It's a scary thing. Could you give some advice to women
25:59who have a dream that they may want to do something, but they're scared. Could you just give a word,
26:04do something every day that the biggest thing is consistency. People get started, they get hyped.
26:10And also I would not talk about it too much. I would not talk about your idea creatively. I would
26:17actually just put it to work. The time to talk about it is when you write the end and then
26:23you
26:23want to share it. The more you can keep it in gestation, the better that God meets every creative.
26:31And when you sit in the chair consistently, the muse meets you every day. I promise you,
26:36you'll create ritual around it. You will protect it, but be consistent. And then you look up and
26:42then you will have a book or you will have a script or you will have a poem or you
26:45will have an essay
26:46or you will have a blog or you will have a, a, a, a business plan, or you will have
26:52a recipe. You will
26:53have something at the end of that. And that's when we invite others in. When we're creating,
26:59we've invited God or God has invited you. God can only be seen through you. Tell your story,
27:06journal every day. If your story is only for you and then tomorrow is for you and your friends. And
27:12then after that is for your community. And then after that, you wanted to sell it at Netflix,
27:17but get today, right today. Our story is our most valuable asset that we have in a time when human
27:24intelligence is going to be the, the critical thinking, creativity, imagination. It is going
27:32to be the most valuable asset we have in a world that is moving toward AI. Nothing to be scared
27:40of,
27:40but be consistent with your unique point of view, your unique imagination, your God-given creativity.
27:49That's what I would say. And that's a word. Y'all, can you give it up for Mara, Brock, Akil?
27:54She's going to be at the author's pavilion. I'm headed over there right now. She's going over there
27:58right now. Go over there and get the revelation. I think I got about an hour. So come see me.
28:02The revelation of Dion Daphne. Go over there and talk to Mara. Let her sign your book. We love you.
28:07Bye-bye.
28:13Bye-bye.
28:18Bye.
28:20Bye.
28:24Bye.
28:28Bye.
28:29Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
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