She later won the award for Best Supporting Actress, saying in her speech that she would “dedicate this to the downtrodden, the under-served, the underprivileged, overtaxed, whether emotionally, physically, or financially." Spencer said she would also dedicate her award to civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, whose murder is portrayed in the movie. Backstage, she talked to E! reporter Ted Casablanca, about the challenges women face with their weight.

"Women would be much happier if they ate. I know I sure get a headache when I don’ t eat!"

"But, you know what?" Octavia said, picking up her heavy SAG trophy, "I’m just gonna lift this baby a few times to lose that little bit of weight I need to!"

Viola Davis shined as well, in an embroidered Marchesa gown. I barely recognized her! Her hair was gorgeous and the short curls frame her face well.

She won Best Actress, and thanked actresses Cecily Tyson and Meryl Streep for inspiring her to become an actress. She also went on to say how much she loved working with the cast.

"The ensemble is just a group effort, brought together to create a singular effect, and all these actors on the stage gave up their ego and were able to just work. And it’s been such a joy to be a part of this cast."

I think all three women glowed on-stage, and loved Emma Stone’s black Alexander McQueen gown against her pale skin. And I loved the fact that it was short!

I normally snore through the Oscars, but maybe this year I’ll watch to see if Viola and Octavia “clean up” there as well. The Oscars are live on February 26th. Are you watching?

Don’t look at that title and think it’s a diss, if you’ve read Eleanor’s book, The Weird Sisters then you know it’s a huge compliment. Eleanor’s book has done extremely well, and the reviews for the book have been phenomenal. The Miami Herald called it, “Delightful . . . That’s Brown’s gift: She draws you in and makes you believe her weird sisters aren’t so weird after all.”

If you haven’t read The Weird Sisters then you can pick up a copy when it comes out in paperback on February 7th. And if you can’t wait until then…well hardback books look great on nightstands! The Weird Sisters follows the tale of three sisters, who have returned home to the small college town where they grew up – partly because their mother is ill, but mostly because their lives are falling apart and they don’t know where to go next. Rose, a staid mathematics professor, has the chance to break away from her quiet life and join her devoted fiancé in England, if she could only summon up the courage to do more than she’s thought she could. Bean left home as soon as she could, running to the glamour of New York City, only to come back ashamed of the person she has become. And Cordy, who has been wandering the country for years, has been brought back to earth with a resounding thud, realizing it’s finally time for her to grow up. The sisters never thought they would find the answers to their problems in each other, but over the course of one long summer, they find that everything they’ve been running from – each other, their histories, and their small hometown – might offer more than they ever expected.

You’ve had an amazing year! Your debut novel, The Weird Sisters has gotten wonderful praise and great reviews. Has it helped build your confidence as a writer, or did you decide before the novel came out to not pay much attention to the reviews, good or bad?

I have been very lucky – I didn’t expect the book to be embraced by so many people and it’s been a delight! But confidence is internal, so I can’t say that its success has affected me one way or the other. I am proud of what I’ve done, but I also beat myself up for my mistakes, just like anyone else. The very early reviews (from trade publications like Library Journal and Publishers Weekly) were helpful in that they gave me an idea of how the book would be received in general. Beyond that, however, I learned pretty quickly not to read reviews – professional or reader. It’s a dangerous thing to have other people’s opinions in your head when you’re trying to write. In On Writing, Stephen King talks about writing with the door closed (just you) and the door open (other people’s opinions). I think writers should be selective about whom they open that door for.

You wrote your novel in first-person plural, which is a tricky thing to do! How did you do it in such a way that a way that it wasn’t disruptive to the reader?

The voice came naturally when I started to tell this story, and there were only a few sections I struggled over with that voice. But, like any story, I devised rules: two sisters had to be in a room in order to use ‘we’ for action, and so on. Making it a smooth read was more important to me than adhering slavishly to the first-person plural narrator when it didn’t feel right.

I know you had to research extensively on Shakespeare and his work for the novel. Do you love research? Or do you find it a necessary evil?

Research is tremendous fun! I love the way researching details can lead me down all kinds of unexpected paths: in the past week I’ve read about carnival sideshows and the invention of sippy cups. True story. The best part for me is that if some piece of information doesn’t make it into one project, it might come in handy in another. There’s a bunch of great material on dude ranches that I cut from The Weird Sisters – I’d love to see that appear somewhere else someday!

What’s your writing style? Do you outline extensively? Where and when do you like to write?

Yikes. I wish. However, I’m a youngest child, so planning anything is not my strong suit. I write down ideas as they come to me so I can jump into those scenes when I’m ready, and at a certain point in the project I can start to plan out a few scenes or chapters ahead, but for the most part, I write in whatever order the ideas come to me and worry about cleaning it up later. I like to write at home – I’m not good with distractions, so I hole myself up in my office and turn on some instrumental music. Lyrics make me want to sing along! As for when, right now I’m writing in the morning because that’s worked out for my schedule. I think trying to come up with an ideal situation can be an excuse not to write, so I have always just tried to plan writing time into my schedule whenever it works.

Because of how well The Weird Sisters has been received do you feel pressure as you work on your second novel?

Definitely. It’s like being asked to capture lightning in a bottle…twice!

You’re on Twitter, Facebook, and have a blog. How do you juggle all three? Which do you like the most?

I like Twitter because there’s such a large community of book people there – authors, editors, bloggers, readers. But on Facebook, people have chosen to “like” my page, which means there’s an incredibly supportive group of people there. I try to stop in every day, but they feel like fun places to go, not duties. I’m not a natural blogger – I’m too long-winded! I used to put a lot of pressure on myself to blog, but now I just update it when I’ve got news or something to say, rather than trying to force myself to write. I’d rather use my creative mojo for my book.

How important do you think social media is for an author’s career?

It depends on what your goals are. I think if you want some degree of commercial success, it never hurts to have lots of folks in your corner, and social media is a great way to meet them. But if you watch what authors who are successful in social media to, it’s not publicizing their book. It’s interacting with people as a person. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that (and it’s fine if you don’t!), social media is not the place for you. It’s ended up that I don’t log in to Facebook or Twitter to promote my book – I go to hang out with people I enjoy, and if they end up checking out my book because of it, I’m thrilled.

Did you hire an outside publicist? How much of the marketing did you tackle on your own?

I did not hire an outside publicist; I was lucky to have a great team at Penguin going to bat for me. But I did do as much as I could outside of their efforts – participating in social media, joining a group blog, doing guest posts on others’ blogs, and doing some in-person events when I could. My goal was that if the book failed, I wanted to feel like I had done everything I personally could have to make it a success. Ultimately, this is my career and my life, so why would I not invest in it?

Now let’s get to the hair! In your author photo, it’s a lovely shoulder-length style with lighter blond highlights throughout. Is this your go-to style?

It is! I have been super-blonde and redheaded, but this is where I keep returning. But I had a hairdresser that day, so in real life, my hair never looks as good as it does in that picture! I moved to Denver (very dry) from Florida (very humid) a little over a year ago, and I still have no idea how to deal with my hair in this climate. It’s naturally very wavy with random ringlets underneath, and I tend to get triangle-head, so most of the time it’s up in a ponytail/bun. However, all this may change, because on the urging of my friend and fellow author, curly girl Sarah Ockler, I have an appointment for a Deva cut next week. I figure I might as well try something that embraces the curl instead of trying to work around it. Wish me luck!

Now the question that you’ve had much time to think about—which celebrity would you switch hair with? Why?

I will admit to having the Rachel in the 90s, so I should probably say Jennifer Aniston, but honestly, Julianna Margulies. I have always wanted beautiful curls like that, which led to lots of ill-advised perms in the 80s.

Tell us your biggest hair disaster.

Though I am probably one of the perkiest people you will meet, I spent a lot of high school trying to be deep and angsty, and at one point I dyed my hair blue-black. Not only did I neglect to dye my very blonde eyebrows to match, I am very fair, with very pink skin. It looked ridiculous. My sister and I tried to wash it out, but it didn’t work, so after a few months, when my roots began to grow back in, I spent $200 of babysitting savings to have it stripped and re-dyed to match my natural color. However, the most important lesson I learned from that experience is that hair is forgiving. Whatever you do to it, it’ll grow back!

I want to give a big cyber-hug to Eleanor Brown for stopping by Curl Up and Write! To learn more about Eleanor, check out her website, follow her on Twitter or like her on Facebook. If you haven’t already read her bestselling novel The Weird Sisters, make sure you catch it in paperback on February 7th. Can’t wait ‘til February? Then pick up a hardcover today!

It can be a good quality at times, but definitely not all the time. I also suffer from TMIS (Too Much Information Syndrome). I often have to ask the Hubby before I blurt out something.

“Can I tell people that I shave off the hair on my knuckles?”

“Um…no. TMI, Trina.”

Oh well. At least I know these things about myself. So knowing that, I had to use the Hubby as my filter for my tweets, updates on Facebook, and even for my blog posts. I’ll send him a quick text and he’ll let me know if it’s okay to send.

“Burned dinner. Tweet about it?”

“Sure.”

“Burned the dog. Tweet about it?”

“Absolutely not.” (I’m a writer folks, no dogs were harmed during the previous sentence. But I can’t speak for the dinner…)

It may not be as spontaneous as I would like, but I’d rather put a little more thought on what kind of messages I’m sending out, instead of tweeting something I’ll regret later. I do wish I had an inner filter, and I’m training myself to really think about the consequences, that sometimes what seems like a harmless joke can really hurt people in the long run.

So until I learn to keep my mouth shut, the Hubby screens everything. Trust me, he knows he’s covering his interests as well as mine, TMIS also affects the people you love too.

In 2009 I started work on my fourth novel. (I’ve written three, published two…) In April of 2010, I finished it and began revisions. In August of 2010 I finished my first set of revisions. I started another round of revisions, and then in May of 2011 decided to scrap most of what I’d written and start over.

Completely over. I had a little over 95,000 words, and it took me two years to get there. Yet, I was starting over. I decided to listen to the advice I’d heard for so many years—that when you think you’re book is good enough it isn’t. Not even close.

I used to need another pair of eyes to tell me this. My novel, while good, was just not good enough. The action didn’t start until page 100, it had way too much backstory, and didn’t have enough character development to make anyone care how the story ended. I can say that now, (without crying) because it’s the truth. Of course, I whined and complained about the time I’d spent, anyone who writes knows 95,000 words doesn’t come easy—even if it’s horrible. I tried to patch it together, but it showed and ultimately I believed in the story enough to do it justice. And that meant starting over.

I wouldn’t have been able to do this years ago. I would have looked at the time I invested in the book and made the decision that my time was more important. That the time I spent writing the book warranted me to get the book published. Now.

How wrong I was. It’s not the time you invest in your book—it’s the quality of material that comes from that time spent. That applies to anything in life—losing weight, working in a garden, cooking a meal—it’s not the time spent that’s the important part, it’s the quality of that time spent that results in a better outcome. Drive through a neighborhood and see a beautiful yard, you don’t see the hours spent planting and pruning. You see the flowers, the green grass—you see the results.

I learned that it didn’t matter how much time it took me to write this book. But what did matter was the book—the result of my time spent.

It takes a while to get there, to realize sadly that your book is not ready. That it needs more time. But when I slowed down, stopped rushing and just kept writing, it improved. My book got better. I knew it, and I’m not so nervous to give it to my beta readers as it nears completion. And of course they’ll be edits and revisions. But I’m going in with my best work. And that is advice well taken.

ZZ Packer was quoted as saying, “A fierce, beautiful novel . . . a heroine for the ages . . . Luckett is a writer to watch and admire." And I couldn’t agree more.

You mention on your blog that you love Paris. What else inspired you to set your novel Passing Love there?

PASSING LOVE explores what it means to live an ordinary life. I wanted the novel to take place in a city internationally recognized as extraordinary and exotic. In PASSING LOVE two women, Nicole and RubyMae, believe that Paris, the city and the experience, will change their lives. Speaking from their viewpoint, I can’t see how this novel could have taken place anywhere else. Paris is a city of possibilities. It can be anonymous and intimate, daunting, and welcoming at the same time. Ruby’s story takes place after the end of World War II, but even before that war, France was known as a place where African Americans experienced racial freedom. Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes, musician Jim Europe and others went to Paris between the two World Wars to experience the liberty Paris offered. The rumors of that freedom were exciting to RubyMae, especially coming from the Deep South. In the present, Paris offered Nicole a different freedom—a change from the ordinary. So, combined with my own love of Paris and my characters’ dreams, Paris was the perfect setting.

You love to travel! How has seeing different places made you a better writer?

It wasn’t until I visited Santa Fe years ago and saw the natural rust of its mountainous landscapes and the multitude of colors in the sunset that I understood how the Southwest inspired artists and decorators. That’s my roundabout way of saying that traveling inspires and stimulates creativity. Learning about other cultures, religions, and approaches to life, seeing other parts of our country, and the world, expands the mind and gives a writer options for metaphors, comparisons, and descriptions. Taking the time to learn about other cultures, provides writers insight into different ways of thinking. For me, traveling expands my writing beyond my everyday experiences and opens my mind to the differences and the sameness between people. I feel enriched when I explore a new city. The new experiences add to my body of knowledge and my bag of tricks that I draw on for my stories and characters.

You’ve always loved to write, but put it off to work in corporate America. How hard was it for you to find the courage to write again?

Courage is exactly what it took for me to start writing again. Not the courage to break away from corporate America, but to explore my passion and to eventually share my work. As a teenager, I was chief babysitter and storyteller for my younger cousins. I kept them entertained with my stories—complete with sound effects. I never lost my love of story. I simple buried it beneath a lot of other things.

After triple-daring myself around 1999, I took a writing class and released the stories that had been simmering inside of me for so long. I took a few classes at a local university. Sharing my work with fellow writers was difficult and, to some extent, impersonal. The feedback made me feel vulnerable and, to say the least, inept. It was easier to take the critiques personally than to look at how they might help improve my work. It wasn’t until I started attending the VONA writing workshops that I really blossomed as a writer. The entire atmosphere of VONA was nurturing and supportive. It was there that I learned to let go of my fear and just write.

You were active in Voices of Our Nation (VONA) workshops and have worked with many noted authors. How valuable are writing workshops and critique partners to an author?

VONA helped me gain confidence about my writing. The workshop leaders were helpful and generous. I’ve found writing workshops to be invaluable. That’s where I learned craft.

I believe writers must be careful about sharing work. Not because someone might steal an idea, but because when we share our work, we let someone else’s voice into our heads and sometimes our stories. We’re very vulnerable. If you’re not a writer, think of it as a meal you’ve slaved over, and when you ask your guests how they enjoyed it, each tells you, not that it was great, but rather how you could have made it better. You’d be crushed. Right? Each word, sentence, paragraph, comma and period comes out of a writer’s imagination. So, we have to consider who is critiquing our work and their intentions. Some writers/critique partners, feel the need to show off what they believe is their knowledge of craft and often those comments are not helpful or worse yet, they hurt. If any writer finds herself in that situation, s/he should run, very fast, out of that room and that workshop.

I believe in feedback/critiques by writing partners. Don’t settle. Take your time and test the waters before committing to a writing partner or a writing group. It takes a while to find fellow writers who understand what you’re trying to accomplish, value your efforts and are supportive of your work and your talent (and vice versa). I have a handful of writers I trust with reading my work. Trust and our relationships have developed over time. If you’ve find the right writer(s) and reader(s), feedback can be invaluable. For me, another set of eyes helps to take a step back from my work and consider what’s missing and how to make my work better. Good comments make me realize what is and isn’t working for my story.

When and where do you write? Do you outline extensively or are you a pantser?

Most of the time I write at home. For a little over a year, I leased an office while I finished the final draft of SEARCHING FOR TINA TURNER. That worked well because I felt compelled to “go to work.” But, I also had to deal with a man in the next office who talked so loud, that I knew more than I wanted to about his personal business. I let my office go shortly after I began PASSING LOVE, and I’m back to writing at home again. Occasionally, I meet a friend and we write “together” for a couple of hours. That works best when I’m unfocused or unclear about where my story is going—being away from home eliminates distractions (what needs answering, washing, watering, cleaning, or eating).

With both PASSING LOVE and SEARCHING FOR TINA TURNER, I knew where I wanted the main characters to go and how I wanted each woman to approach her journey. For both of my novels, my first step was to write a paragraph or two about the story. Then, I wrote characters biographies. I like to have an idea of who they are and what they want. More often than not, I know where they’ll end up, but I also like to be surprised. Typically, I don’t know the middle of my story. Once I’m done with a first draft, I write an outline to understand better the mechanics of the story and what scenes/chapters I need to move forward. An outline was really important for PASSING LOVE since there are two stories that eventually converge. I didn’t want one story to reveal what was going on in the other since there are a few secrets I wanted each character to hold on to.

So, I guess you could say I’m a semi-pantser. I outline after the first draft and keep changing it as I go along.

Let’s talk social media. Do you like Twitter and Facebook? Do you think they are imperative to an author’s career?

I’m always at a loss for what to say on Twitter and Facebook. So I stick to neutral territory. I post my blogs and I try to share articles, books, analyses, or other interesting information. It often seems that people watch posts like hawks circling newly found prey. After I post, I might not return for hours and, consequently, sometimes hundreds of updates and messages have passed me by. I find it hard to keep up.

Author Carleen Brice (Orange Mint and Honey) offered a great suggestion: engage in conversations with individual people on Twitter or Facebook instead of trying to respond to the world. When I reduced my interactions to simple one-on-one communications, social networking felt better.

My editor and publicist both stress the importance of social media. Many writers argue that social media is another way to get one’s name in the public’s eye. If readers don’t know who we are, then they’re reluctant to consider buying our books. Most people don’t enjoy posts that constantly hawk books. I recently blocked a Twitter follower, because she tweeted at least 30 times an hour and her Tweets were nothing more than sales pitches. For me, social networking is another way for readers to connect with me as a person, and maybe get a little insight into a few of my likes and dislikes.

When promoting your first novel, Searching for Tina Turner, did you hire an outside publicist? What marketing techniques did you feel really helped get your book in the hands of readers?

Hachette has an in-house publicist who did a great job of exposing SEARCHING FOR TINA TURNER. Because of her efforts, the novel was chosen as an Essence Magazine Book selection (January 2010). I hired two outside publicists: one was nearly a complete disaster; the other secured interviews on local TV shows. I had several parties across the country to promote the book. The parties gave the novel exposure, but I learned that I needed to think on a larger scale.

I’ve learned a few lessons about working with a publicist. Here’s the biggest one: expect and demand people live up to their commitments. Get everything in writing. Don’t pay for everything up front. Fire whomever, if they’re not meeting your expectations.

I hired a different publicist for PASSING LOVE with whom I’m very pleased. Rather than conduct a massive campaign, I chose a focused program that included a couple of giveaway contests and exposure to nationwide book clubs. Book clubs are the best marketing asset that any a writer can have! PASSING LOVE will be a featured selection for Black Expressions Book Club and a book pick in Good Housekeeping (February). Those two selections will, hopefully, provide nationwide exposure for the novel.

Now let’s get to the hair! When I met you last year your hair was beautifully styled! Do you style it yourself or do you leave it to the professionals?

My mother was a beautician. I have a great picture of her from the 40s pressing a customer’s hair. My sister and I never had to worry about our hair because our mother kept our hair looking great. I don’t think I went to a salon until I was in my twenties! My mother taught us to do our own hair, but I do so love to have someone else take care of it. I’ve been going to the same stylist for years. There’s nothing better than a good shampoo and scalp massage. About six years ago, I let my relaxer grow out. Now I wear my hair straight (that’s the way it was when we met) or in an Afro (the style in my publicity photos). I love the versatility, and the reactions to the two styles are quite interesting. But, let me tell you, both styles require a lot of maintenance and conditioning and I love my stylist for taking such good care of my hair. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a relaxer, but I plan to color my hair forever. I love my highlights and I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of them.

What celebrity would you switch hair with?

I’m happy with my hair, but if you twisted my arm I’d say . . . Vanessa Williams for color, Halle Berry for her short cut . . . oh, and Oprah for volume and because she has someone to do her hair every day!

Name your biggest hair disaster. (Bad color, horrible haircut, etc.)

After my mother stopped working as a beautician, she went to work for the government, She didn’t keep up with industry changes, but she could press hair like nobody else. Mine always looked great. When perms/relaxers came out, my mother was eager to give them a try. That was around the time that asymmetrical haircuts were all the rage and I decided to change my hairstyle from pageboy to pixie. Eager to save a few bucks, I made an appointment for a hair cut and my mother agreed to “give me a perm.”

To be fair, I should mention that my love of hair color goes way back. In my twenties, I was a do-it-yourself queen of Lady Clairol—the permanent, peroxide kind because I didn’t have any chemicals in my hair. The Friday night before I went to the salon, my mother sat me in a kitchen chair, opened a box of “permanent” (that’s what we called in back in the day) and began. I don’t know how the box was labeled, but at the time we were all under the impression that a stronger formula equaled straighter hair. Oops. I had to trust my mother. Right? Especially, because she was a beautician. Right? Even though she once cut my bangs so short that they stuck out from my forehead like a bushel of straw. Right?

The stove’s timer ticked away the minutes, while my mother slathered the stinky, white cream on my hair. Tick, tick, tick the timer went on and on. When it finally rang, we rushed to the sink and she rinsed the goop out of my hair. Down the drain went the relaxer. Down the drain went the shampoo. Down the drain went half the length of my hair. I groped at the blonde peroxided strands floating in the shallow basin. I know I yelled. I probably swore. My hair was a ragged half the shoulder length it was when we began.

To my mother’s credit, she didn’t panic. She towel dried my hair and cleaned up the mess. The only thing that saved me, the only thing that kept me from freaking out was my two o’clock appointment the following afternoon. Needless to say, I went to that appointment wearing a hat. And my mother, who years later seems to be proficient in applying relaxers? I love her, but she hasn’t touched a hair on my head since.

I want to give a big cyber hug to Jacqueline for stopping by! Pre-order Passing Love today, or run to your local bookstore on January 25th and pick up a copy for yourself. Want to learn more about Jacqueline? Visit her website, read her blog, or follow her on Twitter and Facebook!

Can’t wait until February 25th? Watch the trailer below to get a sneak peek of everything Passing Love has to offer.