She’s revving up her career as an author

Bryans Road woman fires up her literary engines

Friday, Sept. 19, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by SARA K. TAYLOR Local author Tyrenna Tolbert of Bryans Road has been riding motorcycles since 2000. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo

The bauble that outshone all others was not platinum, not a diamond — it was chrome and acid green, just as attention-grabbing as a piece of jewelry but a whole lot more fun.

The Kawasaki 6R sports bike Tolbert still rides inspired the single mother of Brandi, 10, to return to another of her passions — writing — to pen ‘‘Who’s Got Skills” a fictional story about a motorcycle-riding woman torn between two vastly different men.

‘‘I started it about four years ago,” said Tolbert, a reservist in the U.S. Army who works at the Pentagon. ‘‘It started as a girlish romance story.”

However, the more she wrote, the more the story developed into a mystery of sorts and the characters took on various traits Tolbert observed in those around her.

‘‘The characters told me what they wanted to do,” she said.

The Bronx, N.Y., native founded BranChrystine Publishing to distribute the novel, the first of a possible trilogy. The book, which will be available through the under-construction publisher Web site, will be released in late October or early November.

Tolbert will sign copies of the novel later this year at the Post Exchange on Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. She is also trying to line up some local signing events.

While women motorcycle ridership has increased in the past years (about 18 percent of the 23.5 million motorcycle operators are female, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council), Tolbert said ridership is still a male-dominated world.

‘‘There is more than being a girl, a mother, a sister,” Tolbert said.

‘‘We have things we want to do too. We like big toys and we like to play too.

‘‘I’ve always been a tomboy,” she continued. ‘‘I dated someone who rode a bike and I got tired of being a passenger.”

If she had the money, she would add a chopper and a cruiser to her garage; for now the sports bike is her only motorcycle.

‘‘I always liked a sports bike ... they have a sexy look to them,” Tolbert said. She learned to ride on a dirt bike before graduating to the Kawasaki, which was involved in a 2003 crash.

‘‘I was in New Jersey ... concrete definitely hurts,” said Tolbert adding that she was making a right turn when a driver in an automobile struck her.

‘‘I had cracked ribs, a walking concussion. ... I don’t think I ever told my mother about it,” she said.

The experience caused Tolbert to drive even more defensively on her motorcycle, something she wishes other drivers would respect.

‘‘Men are always trying to flirt with women on bikes,” she said.

‘‘I don’t flirt back. ... It’s a safety issue. I am driving 60 mph. I need to concentrate on the road.”

Among her favorite places to ride is the Baltimore Harbor, although riding anywhere gives her a buzz.

‘‘It’s very therapeutic. When you ride a motorcycle, you have to have confidence, common sense ... the feel of the wind,” she said about the benefits of riding.‘‘You see things in a way you wouldn’t see them. It’s a great way to clear your head.”

She also gets encouragement from women motorists.

‘‘Women of all ages cheer you on,” she said. ‘‘They’ll say, ‘Go ’head, honey. I wish I could do it.’”

Tolbert, who earned a bachelor’s degree from the New York Institute of Technology for business economics and an MBA from the University of Maryland University College, moved to Bryans Road from New York to offer her daughter better opportunities.

Brandi, a student at Southern Maryland Christian Academy, is indifferent to her mother’s obsession with motorcycles, even though her father also rides.

‘‘It’s OK,” Brandi said.

But Tolbert believes riding as well as writing and publishing her work will make a lasting impression on her only child.

‘‘She’s very stoked,” Tolbert said of Brandi. ‘‘She is seeing more doors opening and I can she her dreams get larger.

‘‘As a single parent, I can be independent without being angry,” she continued. ‘‘I can dream big and I don’t have to accept limitations but still be a lady.”