As a little girl, Audrey Forrest-Carter read the dictionary out of a sheer fascination for words.
Back then, she never imagined that she would use her love of language to write a novel. But that is exactly what has happened. Forrest-Carter debut novel, “The Wages of Sin,” is now on bookshelves. “I always knew that I could do it, but I have always understood that as a writer, you are just obligated to give your readers all of you and the best of you, and for a long time, I ignored the challenge or ran away from it,” Forrest-Carter said.
When Carter finally put pen to paper, she found the challenge to be easier than she first believed.
“I just one day started free-writing and it just happened, and it grew,” she said. “The Wages of Sin” is the story of a well-to-do professor with a shady past, and the trials and tribulations of her best friend, the wealthy wife of a famous, but scandalous preacher. The novella deals with relationships, as both characters are surrounded by relationships and friendships of all types, from the parent-child relationship to the teenage puppy-love relationship of the minister’s oldest daughter. Dr. Forrest-Carter is no stranger to writing. As an undergraduate at Bennett College, she had several poems published. She came to Winston-Salem State University as an English instructor in 1979, after earning her master’s degree in African-American Literature at North Carolina A&T State University. In 1984, WSSU gave her a grant to pursue her doctorate at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she double-majored in rhetoric and composition and 19th century American literature. She completed her Ph.D. in 1990 and returned to take up the teaching position that she has held ever since.
As for her novel, Forrest-Carter said she had a message to import. “In my book, it shows African-Americans that don’t have to deal with the issue of being economically deprived.
“I want to show a brighter and positive side of our people. We do work hard, we do love our families, we do enjoy good living, we do excel in what we do, and most importantly, we do love our families.”