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 JUDY C. ANDREWS
"As a high school teacher, I've always encouraged students to dream big," says author Judy Andrews who released her first literary and suspenseful novel, An Ocean of Jewels, in June 2006. "I always dreamed I'd be a writer, from the time my eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Abate, returned my first short story to me. She said it was 'excellent.' Hearing someone use that word and my name in the same sentence exhilarated me because I had never thought that anything I had ever done in life up until that time, had been excellent. So I was thrilled, and I decided that day that I would dream big, although I didn't even know what that meant, and be a writer. In high school and college I wrote every chance I got, even for free. If you really love what you do, you don't care that much about the money. Everybody wants to get paid, but what's the point if you don't love the work you do."
Today, Ms. Andrews has the best of both worlds: she's a high school English teacher in Brooklyn and a writer. "I live comfortably," says the vivacious author, "and I'm passionate about both jobs. Education saved my life!" Ms. Andrews has been a teacher for 16 years. Many of the students who visit her classroom have similar experiences she's had, especially students who live in foster care. "I originally wanted my novel to be about the foster care system through a child's eyes, but as I continued writing, I found myself with a more intense story."
The novel, An Ocean of Jewels has a few scenes that are similar to the author's life, although it is a work of fiction. In the novel, the major character, Imani Jewel Henderson, finds herself on a journey to heal from the scars of foster care. At age 29, she realizes that her childhood was filled with many family secrets as well as tragedy. Her biological parents were never nurturing; they were distant and too engrossed in their own pain to tend to Imani's heartaches. For example, in one scene, Imani must attend her father's funeral and wear a "fabulously fake" smile to let others believe that she and her father had a beautiful friendship. Nothing could be further from the truth. At age eleven Imani is placed in a group home because her mother commits suicide and her father's wife refuses to let her live in their home. On the same night, Imani's grandmother, Nana Zola Jewel dies. The next day, Christmas day, Imani tries to celebrate her 12th birthday, but the hurt she feels keeps her from any joy for that day or many holidays to come.
Ms. Andrews was taken at the age of eight out of her mother's house to a group home by her father. She remembers, "It was a week before school began, and my father told me he was taking me shopping. I was happy about that. But we never ended up at a store--we ended up at a building in New York City's Bowery neighborhood--an orphanage, which today would be called a group home--named St. Barnabas. No one ever explained why I had to be placed there. I cried myself to sleep that night because as I child I couldn't understand why my own father would take me to a place like that and leave me without saying a word. It wasn't until years later when I was an adult that I understand the kind of poverty I was living in with my mother. She was blind and diabetic and couldn't nurture me properly. It broke her heart to give me up to the State. My father was married, yet separated from his wife. He had another family. I was devastated when I was placed in foster care, where I remained until I was emancipated at age 21. The following year, my mother died. My father had passed on when I was 15. So, I had to really grow up fast, and this experience shaped the way I viewed the world. But thank God for books: Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Piri Thomas, Rosa Guy, James Baldwin--these authors, through their books, showed me another world--thank God for Oprah!!! Her shows saved my butt when I entered the work world. A whole lot of praying and music--Maxwell is my favorite musician--saved my life."
Like the character, Imani, in the novel, Ms. Andrews used education to better her life. She graduated from high school, and went on to college to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in liberal arts and science, and a Master of Arts in creative writing. "Like the character, Imani, in the novel, the scars of foster care are still there, but I've had many extraordinary opportunities. I've worked as a child advocate for former president Jimmy Carter. I've worked as an executive secretary, an intern at WCBS-TV, a freelance writer, and as an editor for a romance magazine. I've traveled to Africa, Hawaii, and Canada as well as throughout the United States. I had great social workers and great mentors in my life--as well as angels helping me along the way on my journey. I am so grateful to God for just being alive, and I continue to dream big!"
Ms. Andrews looks forward to completing her second novel, Water/Thirst/Hunger, about a love affair a woman has with an African American relief worker who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after surviving the Rwandan genocide of 1994. |
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AN OCEAN OF JEWELS by Judy C. Andrews