Interview with Fey Ugokwe, Author of ‘Wifey’

Fey Ugokwe, author of Wifey, is an attorney and the founder/owner of a socially conscious media company. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Pennsylvania, she attended both college — where she majored in political science — and law school, in Massachusetts. Fey has been writing fiction and poetry since a child. She received formal training in novel writing, genre fiction writing, contemporary fiction writing, and political fiction writing in Massachusetts. Fey’s interests are contemporary, genre and political fiction, and she endeavors to uniquely combine the essences of the three, in order to highlight the underpinnings of the human experience.

Congratulations on the release of your book, Wifey. When did you start writing and what got you into contemporary fiction?

Thanks, so kindly! My maternal Grandmum taught me to read and write at the age of three, and essentially, my fingers haven’t shut up since. I’ve a love for most genres of fiction writing, but I knew my first book would have to largely be a walk in the often still-so-painstaking, nearby now, and not anything set in times we simply haven’t yet been.

Did you have any struggles or difficulties when you started writing?

Sadly, my Mum — a truly dear, hard-toiling lady — has stage IV uterine cancer, and was undergoing a blistering chemotherapy regimen and first set of radiation treatments at the very same time as my penning of this book.

What was your inspiration for Wifey?

Visiting a young male cousin of mine and his sweetheart of a wife in their stuff-sometimes-strewn, ex-post-Greek Life starter apartment. He was winkingly, smooth-tossing about that term, “wifey” — but with nothing more intended by it than a lover’s quick, double-eyebrow-raising, easy-going tease. It set my mind to realizing, however, that at the very same time, in some elsewhere house or flat, the same moniker could be being used not in the playful, but rather, to program/reprogram and put down. And since in these days, so far from those, the term “wifey” can mean anything from indeed a wife, to an indispensably mad-fabulous girlfriend, it gave me that hmmm-ing pause again — which this time, gave rise to a book.

What do you hope readers will get from your book?

A sizzling mouthful of 21st-century social and political justice — that marries a dramatic shift in socioeconomic status due to national/international fiscal downturn, multicultural gender norms, gender disparity in marriage, domestic violence, multiculturalism and multiracialism, religion, and more, in one zinging, lingering, provocateur of a bite.

How do you keep your narrative exciting?

I allow the characters to utter, gesture, amble, intake, forsake as they please, without hand-smacking (self-)censorship — such that hopefully, the person in fictional print is as quirky, engaging, and real-deal as they would be, were they actually walking amongst the living, nonpaginateds.

What was your publishing process like?

Quick and rough for various and sundry reasons, like a lot of other indie pubs. The flash-to-print part felt like a marshmallow blessing — a sweet, fluffy condition that was, being able to zip from file to finished publication with 24-hour keystroke ease. Doing it all alone in the dark, however, without a Daddy Warbucks and a sherpa — as industry guide and publication assistant, respectively — made that little indie sugar shop well a bit more sticky to operate.

Do you have a website or blog where readers can find out more about your work?

My book blog resides here and currently dishes out heaping excerpts and hopefully a tasty more, regarding my recent work.

Where is your book available?

At Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Target.com, iBookstore, and other yummy, select online book retailers.