Blog
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A Quiet Riot
First, congratulations to the Jackie Robinson West team for winning the 2014 US Little League Championship!!
They hail from Chicago, so go Chi-town! Next up is a formidable team from South Korea. All the teams should be proud of their sportsmanship, parental and fan support, and love for the game which was on full display.
I think this pic shows what else I’ve been up to:
This will be a continuing serial on my blog, but it won’t be set in Ferguson. It’ll be in a fictional town where everyone believes race is no problem, until it is.
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Free download of Sneak Peek: The Player
I’ve got a free three day download (June 28th, 29th and 30th) featuring multiple chapters of Sneak Peek: The Player on Amazon.com. Just click the photo to be re-directed to Amazon:
I worked on another GIF for The Stone Boy:
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Funkin’ for Jamaica
An excerpt from Game.Set.Love
will be up this weekend. It’s been posted, so just click the photo to read it:And since the heroine, Sinead Landon hails from Jamaica, I thought I’d add this old skol video with the song by Tom Browne:
A new chapter of The Men of Hilton Hall will be up shortly, and I’m also putting up an excerpt from Make Me Yours, a spin-off from RUSH, featuring a group of Somali Bantu refugees. I hope to
have that up tonight. It’s already up, please click the photo to be redirected to the page.I’ve been busy working my nine to five and also editing a number of books (Gaijin, Razher II, The Player, Queensrealm and Furies). I don’t release a book until I’m satisfied that I’ve done the very best I can, and since I’m up against a deadline with The Player, I’m off to do more editing!
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Aaliyah from RUSH
One of the reasons I create picture representations of my characters is so that they feel more real to me when I give them a voice. I’ll search for just the right stock photo so I can edit it to fit scenes in the book or as a promo.
The first time Aiden meets Aaliyah, I decided he’d hear her voice, and not see her. There’s a joyfulness about Aaliyah that intrigues him, and challenges his preconceived notions about her culture and her faith.
“I’m not some . . . some ‘thing’ that needs to be pitied. And I’m not someone who needs to be saved. Go look at your own life if you need to change someone.” – Aaliyah from RUSH
Excerpt from RUSH:
Fatuma is my closest friend. We attend high school together. She is very beautiful and she knows it. When we are in the presence of our elders she behaves like a good muslima. But once we are alone she tells me all the gossip. She knows many things and much of the American culture, especially the words they say in school that I don’t understand. Fatuma can speak several languages. When she talks, she goes from Maay-Maay to Somali, to Arabic and to English, and even Swahili. I’m learning a great many things from her.
“Stay away from Batool,” Fatuma warned as we walked to the bus stop. “She’s nothing but a dhilo. She only likes ajanabi boys, the foreigners like the blacks and the whites and the Spanish guys. She’s making zina with anything with a dick. I do not want her with my brother.”
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March Madness! More Free Downloads this month
Download December was such a success, it’s being repeated with our own romance March Madness! Starting March 18th to March 20th, free downloads of several ebook excerpts will be available.
Multi-chapter excerpts that are called SNEAK PEEKS (these excerpts are much larger than the free views available on this site) will be up at Amazon. Get a first look at several released and soon to be released books:
Please spread the word as WSC spreads the love this March!
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Waiting on the World to Change
If someone questions why there’s a need for more diverse representation (for example book covers and content) but also in other forms of media besides publishing, please refer them to this heartfelt speech by recent Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o. Nyong’o spoke at Essence magazine’s Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon, after winning the Best Breakthrough Performance award. She recalls a letter she got from a young girl, and how she could relate:
“ . . . I too remember a time when I would turn on the TV and only see pale skin. I got teased and taunted about my night shaded skin. And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter skinned.
“The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself before I was in front of a mirror, because I wanted to see my fair face first. And every day I experienced just the same disappointment at being just as dark as I had been the day before.
“I tried to negotiate with God. I told him I would stop stealing sugar cubes at night if he gave me what I wanted. I would listen to my mother’s every word and never lose my school sweater again if he just made me a little lighter. But, I guess God was unimpressed with my bargaining chips because I never woke up lighter.”
“ . . . And then Alek Wek came on the scene. A celebrated model, she was dark as night,” she said, adding: “I couldn’t believe that people were embracing a woman that looked so much like me as beautiful. Now I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen, more appreciated by the far-away gatekeepers of beauty.”
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BLACK is the new black
Oh how I love the look of black and white photos. I even love old black and white movies.
Here’s a GIF I created that (hopefully) shows what’s so special and rich about black and white pics:
Here’s the finished ad (minus the dissolve):
Another GIF I created (link is now active):
The male photos are on the book covers I’ve created:
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Site is being updated
Pardon the interruption, but I’m updating my site (theme update and wordpress update)
I hope to have everything back up shortly.