WS Chronicle

Kecha Brabham has had the idea for writing her first published book for six years. Now that her dream has come to fruition, she wants everyone to check out her book, “Thirty Years Naked ‘Walking the Path Toward Forgiveness.’”

The book is scheduled to be released in early August and Brabham is excited for everyone to read it. Thirty Years Naked will actually be the first book in a trilogy.  She says the book is fiction, but several events and characters of the book were derived from real life experiences she had or stories she had been told.

“Really it’s about a young Black female that talks about her journey through forgiveness and she decided to forgive the demons in her life, so she could set herself free,” said Brabham. “This is like part one of what is probably going to be a three-part series.

“Part one starts from the very beginning and just walks us through to a certain point and then, of course, part two would come in later.”

Brabham says the book initially started off as a short story, but the more she “got into it,” the more the story continued to develop.

“Well, originally I just wanted to talk about stories that people around me were saying, so Megan, the main character of the book, is a fictitious person, but the things she is going through are real,” she said. “So it’s like a collaboration of when people call me, just hearing about stuff in different places and so the goal was to do a short story, but the deeper I got into it, it just kept pointing to, if I as an individual could just learn from her story and forgive the people who wronged me, where could I go from there? How prosperous will I be? Am I cutting myself short, because I am still so angry at what you did to me, I can’t move forward?”

The journey from the start of the short story to a now-completed novel has been a long one, said Brabham. “In the very beginning, which was probably about six years ago, it started out being comical and then the deeper I grew over the six years, the more I got into it and saw the stories unfolding as an end goal,” she continued. “Once I decided this end goal is going to be forgiveness, I took more of a serious tone as we went through.

“I had moments of writer’s block, I had moments of too much going on to just settle down to do it, but I got to a point where I just decided that I want to finish it and so I had to buckle down. Part of what happened in the last three years of my life is that my private relationship that I’m in kind of brought some stability to my life. With that stability, it gave me more opportunity to just get it done.”

Brabham says she worked closely with her editor, Dr. Felecia Piggott-Anderson, and was thankful for her input on the story. They would frequently bounce ideas off of one another to make the book exactly how Brabham wanted it.

Brabham wanted to express that the book is not about her. She says there are stories in the book that are inspired by real life events, but the book is fiction.

After all of the edits, rewrites and additions, Brabham breathed a deep sigh of relief upon completion of the book. She reflected on the time spent on the book over the last six years and is happy to move onto the next phase of her journey.

“It was so amazing,” she said about the feeling of finally finishing the book. “I just closed my laptop and I was just like ‘Yes, Lord.’  It was like 2:30 in the morning and I was sitting downstairs on the couch and I just felt like ‘Yes, I’m done.’”

Not many people have had the opportunity to read the book up to this point. Brabham wanted to keep people in the dark so all of the pre-release errors were fixed before anyone had a chance to read it.

Brabham actually finished the content portion of the book in August of 2020, but was in the editing stage for six months. At the same time, she is also working on her doctoral degree, which leaves little time for working on the book.

“Between finishing the book, editing the book, and keeping my grades up and following the timeline for school has been really challenging,” she said. “My kids went to in-person school this entire school year, so with all of that I was doing, I still had to be mom and make sure they had their homework done and get to basketball and soccer practice.”

Brabham says she wants to inspire other Black female writers to follow their dreams of writing if they have the idea to do so, especially if they are single parents and don’t think they have time.  

“You can do anything that you want to, just set your mind to it and do it,” she said about what advice she would give to others. “Don’t take no for an answer and when you’re tired, you have to persevere. We as women know definitely how challenging life can be, especially if you are a mom and a working mom.  

“It’s tough, but have that thought in your mind that you can do it and that you can be a role model for the next person to say, ‘You can do it too.’ It’s beyond just publishing a book; it’s about building a brand.”

You can find “Thirty Years Naked” on Brabham’s website for pre-order at www.kppennedthat.com.