BY JAVACIA HARRIS BOWSER | For The Birmingham Times

(Women’s History Month Special)

Birmingham-based writer Marie Sutton is making history by exploring her own. Sutton was one of six writers chosen for the debut roster of authors for Storehouse Voices, a new imprint of Penguin Random House dedicated to elevating Black authors.

Officially launched in January 2025, Storehouse Voices hopes to open doors for Black writers, who typically represent only 5 to 7 percent of traditionally published authors. The imprint is led by attorney and entrepreneur Tamira Chapman, who has been ranked the 8th fastest woman-owned business for running her global merchandising company Storehouse and who spearheaded a marketing campaign for Michelle Obama’s memoir “Becoming”.

Sutton’s book, tentatively titled “All That Remains”, tells the story of her grandmother Jimmie Lee Elliott, who endured racism, poverty, and mental breakdowns as a single mom in the segregated South yet still broke many barriers to become the first woman in Alabama to achieve her postmaster rank in the U.S. Postal Service.

“She cobbled together all the pieces that remained and made a beautiful life,” Sutton said of her grandmother. “To give her her flowers, it means so much to me because she deserves it. I just really wish she was alive to see it.”

A Colorful Imagination

Though born on a naval base in Jacksonville, Florida, Sutton has been in Birmingham since the age of two and considers herself a native of the Magic City.

She has fond memories of summer visits to local libraries where she fell in love with books. Reading the stories of others eventually inspired her to write stories of her own. But something was missing.

“There were not a lot of African American characters in the books I read,” she recalled.

“And when I first started writing, none of the characters were Black.”

One day all that changed.

“Once I discovered Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes and other Black writers, it colored in my imagination,” she said. “I started writing about people who look like me, who talk like me, who like what I like.”

Looking back on this experience shows Sutton why representation matters and why imprints, like Storehouse Voices, that are devoted to amplifying diverse perspectives are so important. It’s proof that everyone with the drive to do so should tell their story.

“It’s needed for the little girl or the little boy who comes behind you, or the older woman or the older man that’s ahead of you,” she said. “Tell your story.”

The Story of Jimmie Lee Elliott

Born in 1934, Jimmie Lee Elliott came of age in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1950s during a time when it wasn’t unusual to wake to the smell of burning sulfur. The bombing of the houses of Black folks by the Ku Klux Klan became such a regular occurrence that Birmingham would eventually be nicknamed “Bombingham.” Young Jimmie Lee found an escape in the arms of 17-year-old Webster (who Sutton describes as a young “Humphrey Bogart dipped in chocolate.”)

When 15-year-old Jimmie ended up pregnant, a shotgun marriage came next, followed by the births of more babies that she and Webster struggled to feed. Then, Jimmie faced the biggest bomb yet: Her young husband was killed in a work accident, and she was left a widow at age 20. Eventually the grief, the poverty, the racism and the struggles of single motherhood all took too much of a toll. Jimmie suffered a mental breakdown and had to be institutionalized.

But like a phoenix rising from the ash, Jimmie emerged. She worked multiple jobs, attended night school, taught herself to drive, became a union leader, and led an all-white team of hostile postal workers in Alabama.

“She would often tell stories about working at the post office,” Sutton said. “And she wore her St. John suits and her snake-skin heels. We knew she was big time.”

Despite her conviction that diverse stories should be told, Sutton didn’t always believe her writing was good enough to share with the world. In fact, just months before she secured her book deal with Storehouse Voices, she considered deleting her manuscript.

“I just had a lot of doubt that there could be a place for me and for my stories,” she said.

“Heartbreaking and Beautiful”

An alum of Woodlawn High School and Stillman College, Sutton went to the University of Alabama at Birmingham for her graduate studies, where she obtained a master’s degree in English with a concentration in creative writing. It was in a creative nonfiction class taught by Kerry Madden-Lunsford during the 2015-2016 academic year that Sutton began writing the story of Jimmie Lee, who passed away in 2015.

“It was an assignment to write about your family and, typically, when I would think about my family, I would think about my parents or my siblings, but something just came up about my grandmother,” Sutton recalled.

Captivated by Jimmie Lee’s life, Madden-Lunsford encouraged Sutton to keep going and Sutton’s story of her grandmother became her thesis project.

“I loved working with Marie, and I fell in love with her story about Jimmie,” Madden-Lunsford said. “I just felt like I stepped back in time in Birmingham, a place I did not know at all, and I got to go on this adventure with Jimmie who was so smart and so young. It was heartbreaking and beautiful.”

Determined to help Sutton continue telling Jimmie’s story, years later Madden-Lunsford recommended Sutton for a writing intensive hosted in California. The COVID-19 pandemic meant the workshop had to be virtual but that didn’t keep Sutton from wowing her instructors. In fact, she even had the opportunity to share her manuscript with a literary agent who was also impressed. This led to the chance to be mentored by one of the instructors, but Sutton didn’t follow up, self-doubt slowing her down.

“I read writers that I love, that I’m obsessed with, and I think, ‘I can’t do that. I’m not like them,’” Sutton admitted.

Sutton had evidence showing that she, in fact, could do what her favorite writers were doing. She’s the author of The A.G. Gaston Motel in Birmingham: A Civil Rights Landmark, which was published in 2014. She’s ghostwritten two books. She’s been a freelance writer for various media outlets and organizations, a features writer for The Birmingham News, and an editor for a local Christian magazine. Furthermore, she’s led communications departments at UAB, St. Vincent’s Health System, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

“People would say my writing was good, but I thought it was just because they’re in my community,” she said. “I thought people were affirming my writing because they wanted to affirm me.”

Women and Words

In 2023, Sutton — a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. — learned about a new program for Black women writers through an email from her sorority.

The Women & Words program, a collaboration between Tamira Chapman’s company and Penguin Random House, included a series of virtual workshops and networking sessions aimed at demystifying the publishing industry for underrepresented women. More than 10,000 Black women registered within 30 days and thousands attended each online session.

Sutton eagerly signed up but struggled to attend all the virtual sessions because of her demanding day job. Sutton currently serves as Public Information Officer for the City of Birmingham’s Mayor’s Office — a time-consuming role that’s far from a typical 9 to 5.

But when Sutton learned that the Women & Words program was accepting manuscripts, she silenced her self-doubt and jumped at the chance to submit her work, which once again impressed readers. Sutton was invited to New York in March of 2024 for an opportunity to pitch her book idea to agents.

The day felt like a dream, Sutton said, as she recalled walking into the sleek Manhattan building.

“Everything was so beautiful, colorful, and bright,” she recalled. “They had all these affirmations everywhere and stacks and stacks of books by people like Maya Angelou. They gave us bags with a journal and a pen. They showered us with stuff.”

Sutton talked with some agents who gave her encouraging feedback, but she didn’t leave New York represented by anyone. And after that whirlwind trip to the Big Apple, Sutton heard nothing for months. She was ready to give up. “This summer I almost hit the delete button on the manuscript,” she confessed.

A Dream Come True

Fortunately, Sutton didn’t let her inner critic get the best of her. She did not delete her manuscript and when Women & Words invited her to New York for a second time she was still armed with the story of Jimmie Lee. And she knew this story was worth a shot.

So did the team behind Women & Words. Sutton found herself before Chapman as well as David Drake, president of Crown Publishing Group, and Porscha Burke, Senior Editor-at-Large at Random House. She was asked to pitch her book idea again. She did, nervously. When she was done, she thought she’d fumbled this chance, but she was wrong.

Chapman gleefully announced that they were offering Sutton a book deal for a new imprint dedicated to telling the stories of Black writers. They had already read her proposal and chapters. They knew Jimmie Lee’s name and her story and had the offer letter already typed out.

That’s when she proceeded to “ugly cry” tears of joy before calling her husband James and her mother to share the good news. “This is my dream come true,” Sutton said. “I feel like it’s validation. I grew up a shy kid, so to have that validation means so much.”

Adding to the feelings of affirmation, Kiese Laymon, one of Sutton’s favorite authors, shared news of Sutton’s book deal in a social media post. One of the same authors Sutton once compared herself to was now celebrating her success.

Write On

Bolstered by her book deal, Sutton is more determined than ever to share her grandmother’s story. She recently met with her grandmother’s siblings to let them know that she doesn’t plan to shy away from tough topics such as Jimmie’s battle with mental illness.

“They got it,” she said of her family. “They understood that it makes her victory that much greater when you see everything she went through.”

So, Sutton, mother to 17-year-old Simone and 16-year-old Stephen, sets her alarm for 4:30 am each weekday so she can make time to write before getting the kids off to school and heading to City Hall. She writes on the weekend, too, and she plans to use vacation time to finish up the additional interviews she needs to complete to round out the story

Her message to others with literary aspirations is simple: “Write on. Keep writing. There’s a place for your voice in the world.”

She also recommends being part of a writing community for extra support.

“Your story is as unique as your fingerprint, and the world needs your story,” she said. “We live in a world where people want to project and assume, but you have the power to give voice to your experience.”

Follow Marie Sutton’s writing and publishing journey at mariesutton.substack.com.