Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant, friends for more than 25 years, turned a friendship into a successful writing collaboration producing seven novels, several bestsellers, written between 1990 and 2010. In a lighthearted 2010 interview DeBerry and Grant described their books as, "We wreck characters’ lives and put them back together for entertainment ... we wreck characters’ lives, not real people. And we hit them where it counts: their ambition, bank account, politics and family secrets."
Contents
A notation on African American Literature Book Club (AALBC) states as follows, "Important Message: Our writing career is officially on "HOLD" (Nov 15, 2012) This was confirmed by the Grant and DeBerry who wrote that writing had become a grind. With publishers demands on types of subjects, faster production, marketing and self publishing on the internet they decided they would cease writing.
Biography
Donna and Virginia first met in New York as plus size models vying for the same assignments. Their modeling careers led to the opportunity to launch Maxima, a fashion and lifestyle magazine for plus-size women, where Virginia was editor-in-chief and Donna the managing editor. When publication of Maxima ceased, Virginia and Donna tried writing a book together. Their first novel, Exposures was published under the pseudonym Marie Joyce (for Donna Marie and Virginia Joyce). It was also published in Spain as Instantaneas. Their second book, written as DeBerry and Grant, was Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made, was an Essence Bestseller and won the Merit Award for Fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, as well as the 1998 Book of the Year Award from the Blackboard Bestseller List/African American Booksellers Conference-Book Expo America. Far From the Tree was a New York Times Bestseller, and Better Than I Know Myself received two Open Book Awards, and was included on the Best African-American fiction of 2004 lists of both Borders and Waldenbooks.
Donna attended Barnard College and is a graduate of New York University. She is a Brooklyn, New York native and currently lives in the borough with her husband Hiram. Before becoming a novelist, she spent more than a decade as a plus size model, represented by the 12+ division of Ford Models.
Virginia is a former high school English teacher from Buffalo, New York. She attended Fisk University and is a graduate of SUNY at Buffalo. She now lives in New Jersey.
In 2008 Donna and Virginia joined with partners Tyrha Lindsey and Tracey Kemble to form 4 Colored Girls Productions. They hoped to make a film of Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made, based on their 1997 novel, as their first independent feature. They were unhappy with the type of film Hollywood wanted and the film was never made.
In 2009 they spoke at the first annual California Book Club Summit and were part of a panel discussion on the unease of African Americans about the publishing industry.