“Auntie Maya was really there for me a lot, and she was always my inspiration for writing. “She was my mother and father’s best friend, and my auntie, by proxy,” Rolonda says. Maya Angelou endorsed Rolonda’s novel, and more than that, she was pivotal in encouraging Rolonda to keep going during the years of writing. The inspiration of Maya Angelou-keep the story going There’s a line in the book where she says ‘he couldn’t play with me because I was black, and I couldn’t play with him because he was poor.’ Classism and racism are such a big deal.”
“Destiny and Chase, my lead characters, are both coming from families that are very, very, prejudiced. Today, kids can be anything they want-black, white, green, LGBTQ-and it wasn’t that long ago that it was against the law. That was a true story in the book about the teacher pinning the note on my chest, saying I couldn’t go to the park with the class because I was black and they didn’t allow blacks and Jews. “I wanted to tell this story because I feel as if I’m one of the last generations that actually remembers the two Americas,” she says. Rolonda digs into her personal story-of both prejudice and happiness. And it’s not just about finding your first love again. We’re deep into a conversation about her new book, Destiny Lingers, a romance novel that was ten years in the writing. It’s the only thing that we as human beings really own, our story.” “I think that stories are the most powerful thing about human experience. “I’ve seen the power of stories and how they change people’s lives,” Rolonda Watts says.
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