A Secret Agent Diva with Crown Heights Flair

By C. Zawadi Morris 

Quick: Name the most recent, bad-arse, female superhero you can think of! 

If your answer is either She-Ra, Wonder Woman, Cleopatra Jones (or *blank stare*), then you – like most people – have not known a modern, kick-butt femme fatale since at least the 70s… And that's 40 years ago… A very long time ago.

L.B. Bates wants to change all of that. From her Sterling Place apartment in Crown Heights, she has been writing furiously for the past two years. And on May 1, 2013, Bates finally proudly debuted the novel, “Benita: The Adventures of a Diva Secret Agent.”

Orphaned at a young age and raised in a somewhat sheltered environment by her grandmother in Central Brooklyn, 25-year-old Benita is the spunky girl you see every day on your way to work, at the local gym or grabbing a coffee at the local bodega.

In the novel, Benita Rene Jenkins works full-time as a hairdresser and is a part-time student. She’s sassy, smart, pretty, and she’s a third-degree black belt.

“She knows of the streets, but she’s not from the streets,” said Bates of her character Benita. “She’s a little rough around the edges, but she wants more out of life. And luckily, she comes in contact with other people in the story who help her blossom into this amazing woman.

“So she gets into some trouble, and she is given the choice to either go to jail or work for a secret organization. And she chooses the secret organization, but at the cost of not being able to communicate with her family.”

Benita’s urban genesis – a relatively quick read of 348 pages –unfolds with all the drama, danger, seduction and triumph the reader could ever ask for, as Benita proves herself to be quite the cagy, kick-a$$ secret agent.

“She’s my voice – I mean, the voice-- for the voiceless,” said Bates in a subtle, Freudian slip.

And yes, Bates says she sees some of herself in the character, admitting Benita shares her same drive and ambition to do more, to speak out for other people. 

Bates, a writer and v.p. of programming at a major television network, first developed the story of Benita ten years ago, with plans to sell it as a screenplay. But outside of her full-time work responsibilities, she couldn’t find the time to pull it off. So she set it to the side.

Then one day a decade later, she woke up and thought, This story is needed; we have not seen any current Cleopatra Jones or Foxy Browns of the world.

“I felt like it was absolutely time to bring this character back to life,” said Bates. So she committed to writing 1-2 chapters a day, every day until she finished, which was six months later. Then there was the edits – eleven re-writes/drafts – to be exact.

She hired a professional book editor, Monica O’Rourke. And for 18 months, the two went back and forth with draft after draft until Bates's Benita finally was complete. Bates self-published the book under Southern Girl Publishing, a company she hopes will serve as a springboard for more stories that feature strong female characters.

And that also includes more Benita stories…

“There are definitely many, many more Benita stories coming. And eventually, I hope to turn it into a television or web series,” said Bates.

“I wrote this book for young women who, in those times when they may get down on themselves, can look up to Benita and say ‘I want to be like her. I want to do more with my life.’”