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Q.
Pitch your latest work, Fever
In The Blood, in 50 words or less.
Eddie Stevens, a tragic victim of a
drug crime involving his entire family, is adopted by a Harlem
congressman and his glamorous wife to boost his election victory.
The young man, like so many black youth, is neglected and used as
a pawn to further the politician’s clout, but with various
emotional problems, he embarks on a bloody crime spree that pits
him against his cruel stepfather and the law.
Q.
How did you come about the idea for FITB?
The novel was created out of an idea
for a non-fiction book about juvenile killers, their urges and
motives. As I was completing the first draft, some families
decided to not let me publish the book, so I chose to fictionalize
some of the material into a cautionary crime novel that would
stress how our society and communities ignore, abandon, and then
criminalize our young black men.
Q.
What is your favorite thing about FITB?
It addresses one of the most pressing
problems in our black community, that of our young black men and
the demoralizing future that they embrace when they go the
criminal route. More of our young men are in prison than in our
colleges. They
can’t vote. Many of the significant jobs in our society are
closed to them. As a
crime reporter at the New York Daily News, I reported on them. As
an educator, I taught them and found poverty and want can be very
seductive to our youth.
Q.
You have written for and edited several books that are in the
horror and erotic genres. What is it that draws you to these
genres?
I guess when I wrote and edited these
books that they were almost unexplored territory. I love to write
in these genres, but I want to widen my scope. There are so many
areas we, as black writers, have not explored. I love a challenge.
Q.
What drives you as a writer?
I want to be an effective,
imaginative writer, doing some very fine work. There are others
who will sell more books, gained more acclaim, but if my writing
is read, than I will be happy. I love fiction as well as
non-fiction.
Q.
How do you spend your time when you’re not writing?
Well, my lady, an actress, has turned
me on to plays, musicals, and cabarets. I was always a film buff
and a habitual reader. We go to sport events, baseball and
basketball games, even the track. We go to museums and concerts
and for drives in the city and country. She’s a great woman,
intellectually astute, very fashionable, hilariously witty, and
classically beautiful. Southern gal. I’m glad to have her.
Q.
At TNC, we strive to offer advice to aspiring-to-be publishing
writers.
What
are the best pieces of advice you have received from people within
the publishing
industry?
One of my friends, an editor, always
says that you must read to be a good, or even great, writer, and
get your craft under control so you can go with the flow of the
industry, and vary the types of thing you write. All of this is
very sound advice. The writers who have long careers do many
genres and categories of writing.
Q.
If you were not a writer,
what would be your dream career?
At a luncheon
four years ago, I told Gordon Parks if I could come back from
the beyond, I would love to be him. Mr. Parks had a long,
productive life.
Q.
What projects are you working on now? Any conferences or book
signings in the near future (July 20 – October 13)?
My career is in flux, but I’m working with some people to
reclaim it. I was under the weather for a time, but now I have
three projects, a romance, a collection of short fiction similar
to Havoc After Dark, and a non-fiction on the U.S. troops
returning from Iraq, morally and physically in need of repair.
I’m working on a play as well. It will be read in late fall.
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