Black, Successful and Lonely

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Author Helena Andrews has a good bead on what it is to be sucessful and single in DC and her talents have caught the eye of Hollywood. From The Washington Post:

"Andrews's life appears charmed: The film rights for her memoir, "Bitch Is the New Black," a satirical look at successful young black women living in Washington, were purchased before the book was finished. Shonda Rhimes, the executive producer of "Grey's Anatomy," is set to produce the film and Andrews will write the screenplay.

When Andrews pitched the book, she described it as part "Bridget Jones's Diary," part "Sex and the City." The book is to be published in June by Harper Collins.

"What I am trying to say about single black women in any urban environment is, you don't know them as well as you think you do. They may not know themselves as well as they think they do," Andrews says, seated at a table with a white tablecloth in a restaurant on U Street. Her appearance is flawless: She is wearing an ivory blazer and skinny jeans, her movie-star eyes glisten with shadow and her hair is cut in a fresh bob. Perfect. Image is everything. And it means nothing.

"The book was a time for me to step back and reflect," to capture the internal dialogue and the dialogue with girlfriends who are "caught in a quarter-life crisis." She is not talking about all young black women, but some. Revealing a story not oft told.

A lot of black women put up an exterior that says: "Everything is together. 'I'm fine. Perfect. Don't worry about me. Keep it moving.' That is the trend," Andrews says. "Put on new stilettos. Put on a mask of bitchiness." But that image — prevalent in both the media and the workplace, Andrews believes — is one-dimensional."

Continue reading at WashingtonPost.com

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