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Two 惠 Hui 후이
I’ve got two spellings of the name Hui (pronounced Hway) One is Korean 후이 and the other is Chinese 惠
There’s a reason for this in the novel.
As I researched harrowing tales of men, women and children who’ve escaped from North Korea, I was moved not only by their courage, but with each real life story, their hopeful resilience reminded me of those who lived to tell about reaching freedom during the Holocaust and the slaves who were aided by the Underground Railroad. In each case, a network of individuals did what they could to help others escape.*
*While there are religious organizations helping some N. Koreans with their escape and resettlement, there are also individuals who take advantage of the new refugees.
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Digital Art Imitates Life
I looked for just the right photo to portray Imani’s dream finally coming true:
Imani’s dream comes true as she performs the lead in The Sleeping Beauty at the Royal Ballet*. Original photo by scillystuff from UK *Digitally edited photo of Alexandra Ansanelli as Princess Aurora and David Makhateli as Prince Florimund in a Royal Ballet production of Sleeping Beauty, 29 April 2008. Photo taken by – Sleeping Beauty (Edited via limited copyright permission per Wikipedia.com)
Original photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleeping_Beauty_(ballet)#mediaviewer/File:Sleeping_Beauty_Royal_Ballet_2008.jpg
Here’s another Hui GIF promo:
The interracial romance set among the world of ballet, HUI I cannot lie. I love a man in tights. and Carlos Acosta has some of the best legs in ballet:
Carlos Acosta photo found at http://www.mif.co.uk/event/carlos-acosta/ I found a few other male danseurs with great gams:
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Love me some Hui
Another promo for At Last
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Material Girls
Since making the switch from YA/NA to Adult romance (including erotic) I’ve worked on creating female protagonists who are in different phases in their lives. Both Hui and At Last will be out this month (December). The Player is also scheduled for release in late December.
For Imani, the chance to show the world that she is truly a Prima ballerina means making a heartbreaking decision:
African american ballerina falls for North Korean ballet dancer in the ebook HUI 
Imani takes flight on stage, in a scene from the ebook HUI For Victoria “Torii” Theas, falling for a paraplegic male ends up blurring the line between being in a romantic relationship and becoming a caregiver, in the May/December, adult erotic contemporary At Last
Ethan and Torii, the lead characters of AT LAST -
Another delay on the ebook HUI
I’ve made a decision not to release HUI until this month (Dec), so I must apologize for the delay.
African American ballerina falls for North Korean ballet dancer in the ebook HUI 
I just think I need to do more, or basically push myself to do better with this important story line. Yes, at it’s core HUI is a romance. But there are other pressing issues that I must balance in addition to telling this tale of a black ballerina. To that end, I don’t know how I missed this article and the beautiful, inspiring cover:
From left to right: Ashley Murphy, Ebony Williams and Misty Copeland Beyond Role Models Straight talk from Ashley Murphy, Ebony Williams and Misty Copeland
Published in the June/July 2014 Pointe Magazine
Link to the full article: http://www.pointemagazine.com/issues/junejuly-2014/beyond-role-models
Take a good look at their pointe shoes, because hues that are closer to the skin tone of a dancer of color are just one change ushered in by diverse students and performers in the world of ballet. I have a scene on the process of re-coloring a ballet shoe in the book.
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Long Story Short
I need to get out of this funky mood (the footage from Ferguson and also the interviews of young people explaining why they’re upset are on repeat in my mind). So besides my rant post, I’m listing a few more things I’ve been doing.
Short reads in the adult erotic romance department but packed with emotion are coming next month. Click to view an excerpt of a romance between a paraplegic male and his upstairs neighbor:
Click image to read an excerpt:
Make Me Yours. African American divorcee falls for her Somali Bantu college professor. Spin off novella from the RUSH: Suicide Kings series This is a new cover I’d created for Rory (a character introduced in the ebook RUSH) who’s paired with an exotic dancer named Roxie. I wasn’t as comfortable with my original cover, so I created this one about a month ago. Click the image for an excerpt:
Anatomy of a Seduction – Rory and Roxie’s erotic romance. This is another spin off of the RUSH:Suicide Kings series Much like with my writing, I tend to create lots of covers and then whittle them down to the ones that I like the best. Another example is this one I did for HUI by editing two different photos:
But I decided to go with this one instead:
Oh, and one more thing:
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My Kind of Diversity
I’m going to repost this 2013 link from BUZZFEED, because it lists a number of Asian leading men who may not be familiar to American audiences:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mattortile/asian-leading-men-who-deserve-more-airtime
I’m still cleaning up a number of books (reviewing sentence structure, getting rid of overdone or purple prose, checking for typos). I have to oversee every aspect of self-pubbing and I re-write scenes like crazy. Sometimes I’ll write a scene several times over, only to cut the whole dang thing and use just a couple of sentences.
Just a few more promos to post, because creating them helps me visualize characters and their traits:
Imani and Hui, from the contemporary romance set in the world of ballet, HUI 
Werewolf Andre Santana, Gargoyle Karnage Xian and the Other -
Black Swan
I’m not going to put too many words to the promo photos I’ve created for the novel Hui. Hopefully they convey a bit of the love the two characters share in the upcoming ebook:
Korean ballet dancer falls for African American ballerina in the ebbok Hui 
Imani and Hui in ballet practice 
Korean ballet dancer falls for African American ballerina in the ebbok Hui