Welcome to The Bookcase.

I'm your host, Shawna Richards, a sometime writer and a longtime reader.

I invite you to join me as we explore The Bookcase and celebrate Virgin Islands authors and talent.

Each week on The Bookcase, we'll introduce you to a local author and learn more about them and their work.

A storyteller lives in each of us, and I am so excited to give our homegrown storytellers a chance to tell their story.

Tonight's selection from The Bookcase is Living Life to the Max and I'm honored to welcome its author, Maxine Fredericks.

Maxine.

Welcome to The Bookcase.

Thank you so much for joining us this evening.

Thank you, Shawna.

And thank you WTJX for having me.

I'm thoroughly honored and thank you so much.

So you are the author of Living Life to the Max, and you are a long time Virgin Islander.

So tell us a little bit about yourself.

Well, I grew up in Florida.

I went to school in Florida and and I ended up in the Virgin Islands because of really a failed marriage.

It was really, really bad.

And I just fell in love.

I fell in love with the with the community.

I fell in love with just the beauty of the island.

And even though I've had an opportunity to go places I always come back, I always come back.

I love it.

And your book, Living Life to the Max, takes us from your early, early days in childhood, growing up in Florida to your moving to the Virgin Islands, not knowing a soul to your life today.

Yes.

What inspired you to write this book?

I have a co-author.

Her name is.

Her name is Danita Knight.

And I met Danita in the gym.

And one day she just walked up to me and she said, you know, like, what do you do?

And I'm asking like, What do you mean, what do I do?

And she says, How do you keep it all together?

And I'm thinking to myself, What is she really talking about?

And so we just started having conversation.

She was actually a director for Weight Watchers.

And so we started having conversations and she was saying, I think you need to write a book.

And I'm thinking to myself, Yeah right.

And but she continually she came back.

She came back, you know, a couple of times.

And then finally she said, No, seriously, you know, I am a director for Weight Watchers.

I've been doing this for quite a while, and I am around women who are always trying to figure out how to put this whole thing together.

And I just watched you in the gym and I think you have a terrific story to tell.

And I just would like to know what it is that you do and how do you do it.

And that's how it was birth.

So when you started writing this book, did you set out to write what is essentially an autobiography, or did you intend to focus on health and wellness?

I wanted to focus on everything because when we started having the conversation and I started telling her my story, I realized that for me, it's the full picture.

It's my spiritual life, it's my mental life, it's my physical life, it's my financial life and all of that.

When I journal, I call it my prayer journal.

It is my prayer journal because all of those things are in this journal.

You know, everything that I do, I don't compartmentalize any of it.

It's all one thing.

So you mentioned journaling.

Have you kept journals all your life?

No, no, I don't even remember when I started.

I was I'm sure I was probably in my early thirties when I first started journaling.

And it's a practice that you continue to this day?

yes, yes, yes.

Pretty much every day, I. I kind of feel guilty when I don't write something in it every day.

And something is not a whole story.

It's usually the scriptures that I read in the morning.

It's usually that I, you know, write the scriptures in.

And then as my day goes on, know, my to do list goes in there just pretty much everything that I do.

So in writing, Living Life to the Max, did you go back and look at past journal entries?

You know, to refresh your memories and to help you create the content that ultimately went into the book?

A few, but not a lot.

A lot of it was to memory.

Because I just pretty much, you know, like, I remember my childhood, I remember the things that I went through and just those memories.

I had to go back and just recreate those memories and make those memories something that's readable.

What I.

What I liked in your book, what I liked in Living Life to the Max, is that at the end of each chapter, you have what is essentially a writing prompt.

Yes, yes, yes.

so that the reader can say In processing what you've wrote, can look at their own experiences and write down, or at the very least think about their own experiences and how they've been shaped and how they can turn the corner to you know, better habits, better practices, etc.. Was that really intentional, Was that something that you set out to do?

That was not what I intentionally set out to do, but Danita actually is a journalist.

And she thought she she said to me, let's give people some things to think about.

Let's give people, you know, I think it would be a good idea at the end of each chapter.

Let's get people can go back and reflect on, you know, the things that have happened to them.

Yeah.

So in Living Life to the Max, you know, we're meeting you now today on The Bookcase as a super fit.

I won't say your age.

As a super fit And at that point, I. Hello.

As a super fit black woman, you know who certainly has benefited and certainly has a wealth of experience to share.

But were you always were you always this fit, this healthy, this confident?

Absolutely not.

I knew that I was an athlete, probably maybe somewhere around 12, 13.

Okay.

In the book, I tell you about my very first experience out running a cop.

And I knew I was really fast at that time.

And I just never You know, we all go through stages.

So there have been stages where I've probably been probably is probably up to maybe like 185lbs But I wasn't comfortable.

And eventually I said, you know, like, I have to do something to get back.

So, no, I was not always fit.

I have not always.

As a matter of fact, when I was in college, I lost a lot of weight and I ate terribly because and I think at that time you referred to it as being skinny fat.

Yes, I was skinny fat.

I use to eat brownies all day long.

I would go weeks just eating sweets because I just had a craving for sweet things.

And you know I learned a little better and it started to evolve.

I start to read more.

I start to listen to what other people were doing because I always want to be.

I always wanted to be healthy.

I wanted to always live a long, long life.

That's just something that is just always been a part of me.

So, no, I have not always been that person that, you know, at 5:00 in the morning.

There have been times in periods in my life and many years where, yeah, I would be up at five, I would be in the gym at 5:00 in the morning, but not always.

I am just regular like everyone.

So in Living Life to the Max, we see that you grew up during segregation.

Oh yes.

How did that impact the person that you grew up to be?

Wow.

I was so naive and I never understood.

I can remember being five years old and going to Five and Dime Store with my mom, and she would have to literally pull me because I wanted to see what was in the white woman's bathroom.

I wanted to drink out of the white people fountain And I couldn't, I couldn't understand like, what?

Why can't I drink this water?

Why can't I, You know?

It just so profound.

I remember thinking to myself, and this is so crazy.

I can remember thinking that white people did not wash their clothes.

They pull them off and they threw them away because they were so rich that they could buy new clothes.

Where they came from, I don't know.

But I also remember graduating from college and I went on my very first job interview.

I model in my mind what I was supposed to look like.

I thought I was supposed to go on this interview and I was supposed to look like whoever was the president at that time, I was like that person's wife.

So of course I go in with the little pillbox hat and the pair of white gloves, and I get rejected from this interview and I have no clue like what the world was actually all about.

I didn't know that there was a system in place and I had a place in the system.

I didn't know that.

And so it was it was just a profound experience for me.

I get to St Thomas and I remember sitting in Lionel Roberts Stadium one night and I'm looking around and every face is brown.

I'm like, oh my gosh.

So you came to the Virgin Islands?

Yes, You came to the Virgin Islands, and the Virgin Islands are really, I think, pivotal part of your story.

Yes.

But you came to the Virgin Islands not knowing a soul?

No, not knowing anybody.

Never been here before.

Yeah.

So coming to the V.I.

from a place very divided by race, from being in the States, where divided by race.

What was that experience like for you?

It was wonderful.

It was, I it was an experience that I just had never had before.

I never have been around.

So other than my community, of course, I grew up in a community.

I knew the people in the community.

I go away to college, of course, and I. I graduate from college and immediately I'm dispersed.

When I graduated from college, I got a job in a very small town outside of my college town.

It was a first year of integration.

So I taught at the school the school got federal funds, but this is what they did because they refused to integrate the school.

They decided that they would integrate the faculty so that they could get the federal funds.

So now I'm in a situation where we're a faculty of people who did not know each other white, black, all different colors, different diversities.

And so we all thrown together.

And because we were all thrown together, we were like this group, this we had to fend for ourselves.

We had to figure out how to live with each other.

And we did.

We all got fired at the end of the year because we became so radical, you know, of all that Because we realized that this was a system on the outside that was trying to dictate what was dictating, you know, like who we were and who we should be to a group of children.

Like, how do you do this to children?

And so from that experience my other teaching jobs were the exact same thing.

So I come here and I have an opportunity to be with people who look like me, who pretty much think like me, and I can just be who I am.

I didn't have to be somebody else, you know?

I always say that basically living in the States you live in a schizophrenic life.

You've got all these different roles that you have to play depending on who you are.

I was able to be myself and depending on where you are.

Yes.

So I was able to be myself.

I was able to interact with kids on a level.

These kids were just so artistic they could express themselves.

They had none of the hang ups that the kids had in the States.

And so the whole experience is just really refreshing.

So in coming to the Virgin Islands, you were a teacher, you worked in sales, and after I forget which hurricane, you finessed your way into, way into a job at FEMA?

Yes, I did.

And throughout all of these So in Living Life to the Max, we really see the evolution of Maxine Fredericks.

Yes.

And in telling that story, what do you want the reader to gain from reading your story?

That everybody's got a story inside and we all need to share our stories because our stories are what shape us.

We are a community.

We need each other.

We have to be unified with each other.

And if we, we need to be authentic, we need to be ourselves.

We all go through things.

And so we all need to share because that's how we learn.

We learn from each other.

And so my tagline is that the world is waiting for your story.

Shawna, the world needs to hear your story.

And I heard a little bit about your story and then the reason I ask you that question is because I really want to know other people's stories that just gives me so much joy and I learn something that's just really profound about you and you sharing your story.

So you talk about community and the sense of community that you get in the Virgin Islands.

And one thing that really struck me as being very impactful is when you came to Saint Thomas, you knew not one person yet that community rallied together to help get you settled and situated with your children.

What was that experience like for you?

Looking back?

we all experienced miracles in our lives.

I mean, just being alive is a miracle.

Breathing is a miracle.

But there are some impactful miracles.

I got here on a Sunday night.

I didn't know anybody got in a taxi.

Taxi driver asked me where I was going.

I told him I didn't know where I was going.

He said, no problem.

Takes me to this hotel.

I tell this lady my story.

She gets on the phone, she call somebody.

By Monday afternoon, I had a babysitter.

I had two kids with me.

I had a babysitter, I had a job and I had a place to stay just in that short period of time.

So that's what community and that community just continued to embrace me and I was so grateful for all of it.

So in this community.

This community has also seen you evolve and you've seen this community rally together after hurricanes.

You write about coming together after hurricane and helping each other, you know, supporting each other.

Were there any pieces of your story that did not make it into Living Life To the Max?

I don't think so.

I think pretty much everything is in there.

It's all packed in this.

The good, the bad and the ugly, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Yes.

And of course, you know, without the ugly, without the bad, you can't grow to the good.

So that's what life really is about.

Those are the lessons that you learn, all of the tough things, all the things that make all of us.

So when you sat down to to write this book, how long did it take you from start to finish?

Probably about three.

I'm about three, three, three or four years.

yeah.

yeah.

Was there anything that you found really challenging to write about?

Yes, because I'm a procrastinator.

I'd never guess.

And I would start and then I would stop and then I would start.

And then, you know, finally I said, You know what?

You got to get this over with.

And I wanted to get I wanted to get past it.

I wanted to get over with.

And so that's what kind of propelled me.

And I had made a commitment that I was going to write.

It made a commitment to Danita.

I made a commitment to myself.

And so and and my kids, my daughter, Melissa, she's always pushed me.

So it was like, yeah, you got to get this done.

So who are your early readers of your work, in addition to your daughter Melissa?

Who else reads your work and says, okay, you're you're on the right track here?

Danita, of course.

And, you know, I think most of the people who've actually sat down and read it.

you mean you say, well, let me know.

I was on the right track with my editors.

So, you know, they were they they actually pushed me and they just thought it was a great story, too, You know, they would come back.

And I'm thinking to myself sometimes, are they really serious or what?

But they they they pushed me a lot.

So in reading your book, I certainly had a lot of ah ha moments where I was like, wow, but I'd like for you to share, you know, a favorite passage with your audience.

Okay, great.

I'd love to.

here we go.

Got to put on the glasses.

Okay, so here I am.

Chapter eight Breaking Away.

And it says Left alone, no matter at what age or under what circumstances, you have to remake your life.

And that's a passage from Katharine Graham.

So in my early life, I really wanted to be a dancer.

So Katharine Graham is one of my really, really favorite dancers.

So it starts off I move to Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands on September 1975.

I did not know anyone and had never been to the island before my two children.

I arrived on the island late one Sunday evening in September 1975.

I don't even remember the date.

I had nowhere to stay and I didn't know anyone.

But one circumstance led to another and God made sure everything worked out.

I was confident that I would get a job as a teacher and pick up my life and move forward.

I had planned for Saint Thomas to be my first stopping point in the Caribbean.

I had grand ideas of raising my children all over the Caribbean so they could experience a life free of segregation, oppression and racism.

So that comes back into how I felt so much.

You know, there was just so much in me about this whole racism thing.

And growing up, I was known as a Negro and Colored.

Then I became black and in my twenties and early thirties and lived in a world of 80/20 during this time 1968 to 1975, before I left the U.S. mainland, and all the opportunities in America were clearly divided into 80% whites and 20% blacks.

yeah.

So you came here where we are a community of color?

Yes.

And you found your people?

I did.

I found my peoples.

I did.

What tips do you have for aspiring writers?

For the person who says or who may think that they have a story in them, What would you say to them?

Write, write, write!

Just write!

Well, you know, my whole thing is you got to practice, practice, practice, everything.

You got to practice your spiritual life.

You have to practice it every day.

You got to practice your mental life.

You got to do that every day.

You've got to practice your financial life every day.

You've got to practice your educational life.

You got to be learning something every day, so you got to practice.

But write just in writing is practicing because now you're practicing whatever it is that you want to do.

How important is health and wellness to your overall story?

it's everything.

I always wanted to live a very long life from a very, very young age.

I don't know why and I always wanted to be healthy and I've always found I was I was always reading about health articles.

I was always, you know, I'm that person that I read all the labels.

I'm always want to be in the company of people that are healthy so that I can learn more no matter what my challenges are.

I just that's health is just always been something that's really generally been a part of me and I know is my gift and it's the gift that I have to give back to other people.

And I try in every way to, you know, to always give back.

And health is not just physical.

Health is mental, health is encouragement, health is love.

Health is everything that we do and making sure that we're giving and not only giving, but forgiving.

When you set out to be a bodybuilder.

Was that the hardest challenge you ever set for yourself?

I don't think so.

No, no, no, no.

it's probably the most discipline, but it wasn't the hardest because I do like working out, you know, I like lifting heavy.

I've always liked lifting heavy.

I like moving, you know, heavy things.

I've never challenged myself in the way that I challenge myself in terms of moving weight.

But no, that's not what I think that was.

I think the most challenge, the most challenging thing for me in my life has ever been was to make a decision to leave a relationship that was really not good for me because I wanted it so much to work.

That's what I wanted in life that was not meant to be.

And I had to realize that that was not going to happen and I had to give it up and let it go.

And I think that's a valuable message for the readers of Living Life To the Max that you can.

And it may be in your best interest to leave a realationship.

It doesn't have to be a romantic relationship.

It could be a job.

It could be.

Yeah, it could be any situation that is not serving you well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At some point you will in some way that happened to me is that having had that real, real challenge, it allowed me to realize that in other circumstances, when it came time to cut it loose, you just you just cut it loose and you just move forward.

Yeah.

Made it a lot easier.

And in reading your book, what I certainly got from it is that you can do hard things.

yes, we can all do.

We can all do hard things.

Yes.

You know, the hard things are the things that make us.

So for you would tell any aspiring writer to just start writing, would you recommend journaling as a jump off point for that?

I think everybody has to find their own space.

And so you find out what space it is for you when it's a good time for you to write.

But you know, you have to put it in.

You have to, you know, you've got to take that two or three years.

You got to take that time out.

You got to be open minded.

You know, there are a lot of things that are in the book that I wouldn't have wanted to be that way.

But then I had to, you know, like, hey, I'm not an editor.

I'm not a you know, I'm not that I'm the person that's just writing that book.

So a lot of different people come into play and it's, you know, like in in every profession, in everything you do, there's a there's so many people that are in your life that can help you to make whatever you do the best that it can be.

You can't do everything.

Well, there's that saying that you can you can get rich by yourself, but you can't get wealthy by yourself.

That's that's a good point.

So how do you balance being creative with everything else that you have going on in your life?

The balance is, I don't know.

It's some of it pretty much comes natural for me when I'm creative.

I'm creative when I'm not creative, I'm not great, you know what I mean?

Like for as is yesterday, I mean, I got up and I probably spent like three and a half hours in the gym.

I don't have that luxury every day.

Nobody really has that luxury every day.

But I determined yesterday that this is how I want to feel.

And so I took that time and I did that.

And so whenever I want to be creative or, you know, if there's something I just put aside everything else and I spend that that time just doing that, you know, I no longer try to multitask.

I want to be very, very good with whatever it is that I'm doing.

But the only way I'm going to do it is to put that practice in and take that time and make that happen.

So to be very intentional.

Yes.

With your time.

Yes.

So what's next for you?

Well, making sure that I'm healthy, I my my I'm at that point in my life where I want to give I want to encourage I want to make sure that anyone who's interested, whatever it is that I can give, I want to make sure I give back.

Well, thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure to learn more about our local talent, Maxine Fredericks and her book Living Life To the Max.

For more information on this book or any of the books featured on this program, visit our website.

WWW.WTJX.ORG We appreciate your support of our local authors and we'll see you next week when we take another book from The Bookcase.