Holy Ghost Corner:
Michele Bowen Shares Her Latest Work of African-American Christian Fiction
On North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, July 20 at 9:30 PM

With its hilarious characters and local backdrops, Michele Bowen’s latest novel takes a lighthearted and humorous look at the issues facing today's black Christian woman. In this episode of UNC-TV’s local literary series North Carolina Bookwatch, premiering Friday, September 8, at 9:30 PM, Bowen spotlights the spiritual, and sometimes sordid, side of her local homage, Holy Ghost Corner.  

“I wanted to bring Black Durham to life and I wanted to bring Black Church Durham to life,” says Bowen. “Particularly, I wanted to give a really positive impression of what public housing was supposed to be before the blight of the 1980s and 90s when the communities began to deteriorate from lack of funding and attention.”

Holy Ghost Corner features fictional Theresa Elaine Hopson, 46, owner of Miss Thang's Holy Ghost Corner and Church Women's Boutique. Hopson can't for the life of her figure out why “even Baby Doll Henderson, despite her false teeth and her navy-blue-socks-with-yellow-jelly-sandals-wearing self, can find a man and she can't.” But this time, in the backdrop of her eclectic storefront, Theresa has the realization that the Holy Ghost has been in her love corner all along.

“The store, [Holy Ghost Corner], has a lot of things that are fund, playful and endearing,” says Bowen. “When I wrote it I tried to pretend I was walking through this kind of store and put everything in the store that I’d like to see in a store…and when you’re reading it about it, you really don’t want to leave.”

Don’t miss DG Martin’s all-new interview with Michele Bowen on North Carolina Bookwatch, Friday, July 20, at 9:30 PM, with an encore episode airing Sunday, July 22, at 5 PM, only on UNC-TV!

During the 20-week, 10th anniversary season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: J. Peder Zane (The Top Ten), Gov. Michael Easley (Look Out, College, Here I Come!), Neal Thompson (Driving with the Devil), Joseph Bathanti (Coventry) Joanna Catherine Scott (The Road from Chapel Hill), James Dodson (Beautiful Madness), Dan Heath (Made to Stick), Margaret Maron (Hard Row), James Peacock (Grounded Globalism: How the U.S. South Embraces the World), Tim Madigan (I’m Proud of You), Melton McLaurin (The Marines of Montford Point), Kathryn Stripling Byer (Coming to Rest), David Guy (Jake Fades),  Georgann Eubanks (Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains), Zelda Lockhart (Cold Running Creek), Mike Lassiter (Our Vanishing Americana: A North Carolina Portrait), Joe and Terry Graedon (Best Choices from the People’s Pharmacy), Fred Hobson (Off the Rim), and William Powell (Encyclopedia of North Carolina).

For additional information about series guests and airdates, plus links to the Bookwatch blog and online book club, please visit: www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh’s independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV’s ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

For more information about North Carolina Bookwatch and UNC-TV’s other original productions, please visit our website at www.unctv.org.

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