JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Antwan Floyd, author of Crew Love
(Bleeding Pen Publishing)
(One of the first ten people to comment will win a copy of Antwan Floyd’s Crew Love.)
(Congratulations to Dapharoah69 The King of Erotica for winning the FREE COPY of Antwan Floyd’s Crew Love.)
Phil-Good Trenton is caring, charismatic, and passionate – traits that get buried underneath his kill-or-be-killed mentality in an attempt to pay rent. Jermaine Lloyd is a casino operator at an illegal after-hours joint. He lives the ideal life of a bachelor, but will a gambling addiction threaten to take that all away?
Blue Ball has always cared for himself and his younger brother, but bailing his brother out of trouble one time too many may prove fatal. Short Stack was a hustler all his life, always about the dollar, but will he change his attitude for the love of a woman?
When the lives of these four men with different circumstances and agendas collide, they set the streets of Chicago on fire! In this gritty and compelling drama of crime, compassion and consequence, will they become victims of their own desires? Or will they conquer their differences and find Crew Love?
Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write Crew Love?
Antwan Floyd: I have been an avid reader every since a child. My favorite books to read were always about history. As I got older, I became more attracted to books about crime, more specifically African-American crime. I was always a fan of the history of crime syndicates like the Italian crime families, but I always wondered where our stories were?
So I started researching and found this book called African American Organized Crime written by Francis Iaani. Although vague, it was a start. Years later never letting this fascination go, I googled “policy runners” and found an author from Chicago by the name of Nathan Thompson who had written Kings: The True Story of Chicago’s Policy Kings and Numbers Racketeers.
Thus Crew Love was born: the first in a trilogy of my vision of a Black crime family that spans of several generations.
JP: What sets Crew Love apart from other novels in its genre?
AF: The thing that sets Crew Love apart from other novels in its genre is the fact that I’ve tackled the subject matter from a different point of view. I’ve done quite a bit of research to stay true to the time setting that the story takes place in.
Also, few authors of the Urban Lit genre take this point of view as far as story telling. I thought it was important to show where we came from. I also tried to keep it entertaining.
JP: As an author, what are the keys to your success that lead to Crew Love getting out to the public?
AF: Research…research….research. I had to take a chance. I had self-doubt in the beginning. The more I researched authors and the type of genre I wanted to become apart of, I found countless amounts of authors doing this whom I’ve never even heard of.
I read some of these authors work and found that I was, in my opinion, just as good as they were. If they could do it, why not me? So I jumped out there put the proper actions in motion, and here I am.
JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take for you to start and finish Crew Love?
AF: My writing process starts out with an idea or a title. It might seem seem strange to most but a catchy title pops into my head and that sparks a story line. A story line sparks ideas for characters and characters names Their names develop into the backgrounds of their lives and what makes them who they are.
Every character that I ever dream of, their name tells something about them who they are, what they are about or what their goals are in the story. Crew Love was an idea for many years, but the actual writing and becoming serious about doing this for real took maybe eight months.
JP: What’s next for Antwan Floyd?
AF: More writing, perfecting my craft and perhaps take some writing courses. More reading, find out what my peers are doing. I learn from all writers of all genres. Travel to different states and sell my book at different book fairs in the United States. I am also currently putting the finishing touches on my nest book the sequel to Crew Love, Crew Love II “The Black Mob”.
http://www.bleedingpenpublishing.com/
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