M.C. “Nika” Beamon doesn’t really know how she became the office manager for Channel 7 WABC-TV’s prestigious and acclaimed Eyewitness News team. It just sort of evolved from her roots in writing television commercials after graduating from Boston College six years ago. “I just wanted to have a job,” Beamon said. “It sort of fell into a career.” Beamon is the one who assigns the on-air reporters to cover certain stories. So she’s the person who sends Doug Johnson into the storms on Long Island, David Novarro to a four-alarm fire in Newark and Tappy Phillips to a Rudy Giuliani press conference. “I send them where they have to go,” Beamon said. “The reporters all love me, but they have no choice.” It’s a tough grind, sometimes working involving 14 hours of work per day, like earlier this week, when the Concorde crashed in France. Many of the passengers on that ill-fated flight had been scheduled to take a cruise to Ecuador that was set to begin in New York harbor. “You can never predict days like that,” Beamon said. “It can be a long day. On a good day, I’m home by seven. But there aren’t a lot of the good days.” While most busy, high-pressured people would want to come home and totally unwind on the couch, Beamon finds solace in another way – fiction writing. “When I come home, I write,” said Beamon, who has called Weehawken home for the last three years. “I think of things I want to write about while on the bus. I spend a lot of time on weekends writing as well. It takes a lot of understanding from family and friends, but they know I want to write. It costs a lot to find the time.” And writing has always been Beamon’s true passion, ever since she was in high school. “I always wanted to write, but I guess I just really started,” Beamon said. Beamon has just published her first novel, entitled Dark Recesses, published by Writers Club Press and distributed by Ingram Book Group. It is a tale of a promising young attorney who travels to Virginia for a family reunion and becomes entangled in a web of betrayal that has been hidden within his family tree. The attorney uncovers a tale of love, murder and cover-up from generations past that threatens to rip the family apart. Beamon got the inspiration from attending a family reunion with an ex-boyfriend a few years back. “While we were at the reunion, he discovered he was adopted and he never knew,” Beamon said. “I go to family reunions all the time and things like that come out, deep secrets that no one ever knew. That’s how it came about.” Beamon added, “I knew that writing a novel was something I always wanted to do. I thought I always had it in me.” Obviously, readers believe that Beamon had that talent in her as well, because the book is selling very well. In the last month, Beamon has gone on a book signing tour, traveling to New Hampshire, Philadelphia and King of Prussia, Pa. Last week, she conducted a book signing at Barnes and Noble in Edgewater and the Harlem Book Fair in New York. This weekend, Beamon is headed to Denver, with stops planned for Delaware, Georgia, Massachusetts and Trenton (August 19) already booked. She has also appeared on Channel 7’s Eyewitness News Sunday, and the show made Dark Recesses the No. 1 book on their summer reading list. And it had nothing to do with her connection with the show. “It’s totally different to be interviewed by the people I work with,” Beamon said. “I’ve been talking about the book over the years and they decided to put me on. It was amazing.” She also appeared on “Visions” on Channel 6 in Philadelphia, which also spurred some interest. Since the appearances on the two television shows, Beamon’s book has gone from No. 1,677,000 on the Amazon.com list to No. 74,000. “Last weekend, the book actually sold out at the signing I did,” Beamon said. “It’s really been amazing, how things have gone. I actually thought it would take a lot longer. But now, I have people like Random House interested in publishing my work. It’s not anything you can imagine. It really has taken off.” Added Beamon: “I’m thrilled with the way things are going. I just hope it keeps going.” Beamon also loves the book signings. “It’s a way to say ‘Thank you,’ directly to readers,” Beamon said. “It’s a great thing. It’s great to meet the people, who stay and ask questions. I’m so impressed that I give them my e-mail address and let them contact me. Getting the feedback is so great. It’s part of the whole process. I love that.” While Dark Recesses continues to do so well in bookstores, Beamon is preparing her second novel and hopes to publish it very shortly. Beamon is also doing something special for charity in relation to sales of Dark Recesses. Approximately 10 percent of the profit from the sale of the book will go to several charities, like The Doe Fund, United Negro College Fund, Sickle Cell Foundation of New York, Cancer Cares and A Better Chance, which provides minority education and training. “Part of working at ABC is the volunteer initiative,” Beamon said. “I’ve always been willing to give time and money in many ways. I thought it was real important for me to have this built into the sales.” While her writing career blossoms, Beamon has no intention of leaving her position with Eyewitness News. “I love working in television and I love doing what I do,” Beamon said. “I can’t imagine not working. I have to be doing something in broadcasting. There’s just no way. It’s funny, but when I was growing up (on Long Island), I used to watch Eyewitness News and Bill Beutel all the time. Now, he’s just another guy I work with. Working in TV has its perks.” So does writing novels, as the people in Denver will find out this weekend. Dark Recesses is available in many local bookstores, including Barnes and Noble, and also available through several websites, like www.barnesandnoble.com, www.amazon.com, www.borders.com, www.booksamillion.com, and www.chapter11.com.
Our Digital Archive from 2000 – 2016
