Writer Finds Beginning in an Ending

Second Memoir Tells Story Of Author's Transformation

Her first memoir about growing up as an African American Muslim had not been published yet when the sequel took root.

An editor unknowingly played a part, chopping off the last chapter of the initial manuscript with a note: This is an entirely different story.

Indeed, it was.

After a frustrating decade of trying to finish her story and find a publisher, Sonsyrea Tate found help from what might seem an unlikely source -- Zane, a Prince George's County writer who has sold millions of copies of her erotic fiction about African Americans. Also the publisher of Strebor Books International, which has a publishing and distribution deal with Simon & Schuster's Atria Books, Zane ushered into print Tate's new memoir, "Do Me Twice: My Life After Islam."

"It's definitely a story of discovering who you are and learning to love who you discover without shame, without blame," said Tate, 41, who lives in Anne Arundel County.

Tate is among the authors scheduled to read or discuss their works at the Capital Book Fest from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Borders Books, 931-A Capital Centre Blvd., Largo. In past years, the free event has drawn more than 2,500 authors and audience members. Her appearance is scheduled for 11:45 a.m.

In her first book, "Little X: Growing Up in the Nation of Islam," published in 1997, Tate focused on her adolescence in Northeast Washington in an African American Muslim family full of love, contradictions and hypocrisy. The book explores the rigorous rituals of the religion and shows a young Sonsyrea beginning to question theology and a belief system that trained women to be caretakers, deferential to men and void of professional ambitions.

That piece of her story wasn't nearly the half of it.

Tate said she realizes now that she tried to cram too much into what would have been the final chapter of her first book: the story of her first love, troubled young marriage, divorce and break from her religion. Thanks to the astute editor (and two of her sisters, who kept chiding her to "tell the truth"), she knew she had another book inside her. But sorting through all the pain and finding the words would take years.

Hoping for a breakthrough, Tate enrolled in a workshop taught by Marita Golden, a writer she admires. One day, Golden instructed the class to finish this thought: "The story I must tell in order to be transformed is. . . ."

The words began to flow.

"The story I must tell in order to be transformed is the story of my coming out -- coming out of Islam, out of my parents' house, out of traditional choices, out of conventional thinking -- in a way, out of my mind," Tate wrote.