Alecia Whitaker
Alecia Whitaker grew up with a big imagination on a small farm in Kentucky, which was worlds away from where she currently resides in fast-paced New York City. She knows more about cows, tobacco, frog gigging, and carpentry than the average girl, and she applies the work ethic and common sense she learned from her southern upbringing to the way she now navigates her career and family life in the big city.
Although she graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BFA in Theatre and a BS in Advertising, she's always been a writer. She won the Soil Conservation Essay contest in the 4th grade, was selected as a Governor's School for the Arts student in Creative Writing in the 10th grade, and then in college, she was a Top Ten Finalist in the US Southeast Region for a Ten Minute Playwriting competition at James Madison University.
Since then, she has been in loads of commercials, as well as on stage in a few small theatrical productions and poetry slams. She appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show numerous times, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, and was a contestant on Deal Or No Deal. She is currently the host of a twice weekly web show called The Baby Book, which chronicles her real life experiences of being a mom in New York City.
Her personal essays have been published in the anthology Blink: Fiction in the Blink of an Eye and several times in Underwired Magazine. She co-wrote the popular one act play Becoming Woman with a grant from The Kentucky Foundation for Women. The Queen of Kentucky is her first novel and proudest artistic accomplishment.
Now living in New York City with her husband and son, she is amused at how often her big imagination takes her back to a simpler life in Kentucky.
“I pound my fist into my palm, furrowing my brow.My dad chokes on his dessert. I am emboldened."I want to wear the maroon and gold-the same maroon and gold you two wore when you fell in love all those years ago. Without that maroon and gold, you never would have fallen in love at prom, and I never would have been born. I am maroon and gold."The drama builds."I have spirit! Yes I do! I've got spirit, how 'bout you?" At this, I wildly wave fierce spirit fingers and heartily attempt the splits.Key word: attempt."Ow!" I cry, my crotch a foot from the floor, pain burning my groin.At this, neither of my parents can hold it anymore and, along with their eye rolling and head shaking, there is gut-wrenching laughter. I fall over to one side-sweet relief.”
“I am very self-conscious as I step over the backpacks strewn in the aisle. Do not fall.Do not fall.”
“It was awful," I tell Luke at his locker. It's on the other side of the hall and I really feel like the air is cleaner over here or something. I almost suffocated trying to stuff my book bag into my own locker, squeezed right between Kimi and her voluptuousness and Wolf and his sexual-awakening-me-ness.”
“I want to die or be trapped on a deserted island with David Wolfenbaker. One or the other, but I've got to get out of homeroom.”
“He makes lookin' good seem effortless. Like, he lives in that lookin'-good zone. I think I'll wear a long white gown and a short veil, and he and his groomsmen will wear sharp charcoal tuxedos. We'll get married on my farm and-"No, it's Ericka. She doesn't want to be called Ricki Jo anymore," I hear Mackenzie remind Laura.Oh,god. Wolf is looking right at me, wearing a lopsided, perfect, melt-me-into-a-pool-on-my-seat grin.”
“I have never seen him before, but I am convinced that the boy grinning at us from an arm's length away must have materialized directly from my head as the ultimate man of my dreams.”
“They all babble on about "state" and "formations" and "tumbling" while I smile and nod. When in doubt, smile and nod.”
“I'm second string to a true, actual, just-moved-here new girl. Mackenzie's from Minnesota, says her O's in a really weird way, and already has more friends than I do.”
“I sigh, feel the heat rise in my cheeks, and look at the clock. Wolf asks me to play a game with him-me! out of all the girls at our table!-and I injure him. Flick him right in the eye.”
“Now it's just that dishwater blond," my mom continued as she snaps the last roller into place.I get up and kiss her on the cheek. "Thanks, Momma," I say, looking in the mirror over the mantel to check my pink plastic Afro head. Dishwater? Seriously? Way to build the self-esteem before the most important day of my life, I think; but what I say is, "I'm gonna go get ready for bed.”
“Yeah, we've got a few stoplights, but I personally think they're just for show. Stop signs usually do the trick. Breckinridge, Kentucky. The epicenter of Nowheresville, USA.”
“You don't even like swimming! You can't jump in without holding your nose," she points out.True.But if I were at the country club with the other kids my age, I would glide in from the shallow end or just plain jump in and drown. At least I'd die cool.”
“Fuming, I reach for the stick at my feet; however, this is the precise moment that a small black garter snake slithers out in front of me. I do what any normal fourteen-year-old girl would do: scream my head off, dance in spastic horror, and throw my tobacco knife into the dirt-completely missing the snake. I look to Luke for help, but he's laughing hysterically, which really gets my already hot blood boiling. Wrists on sweaty forehead, breathing totally out of control, I walk around in a circle until the disgusting little reptile slithers away.I am-offically-over it.”
“Obsessing over a boy makes the time fly.”