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5 minutes 5 questions with, african american author, african american authors, african american book, african american books, amazon.com, interview

5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… The Pathfinder, author of Fair Game

July 25, 2009 Joey Pinkney 15 Comments

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
The Pathfinder, author of Fair Game
(Babygirl Publishing)

Nineteen-year-old Dana Estick flees her privileged lifestyle for the bright lights and big city promises of New York in search of a new beginning and to bury a past filled with physical and sexual violence. What she finds instead is the beginning of a downward spiral filled with recruitment on the internet, drugs, sex for hire, and betrayal at every turn.

Confronted with her own sexuality, trust, friendship, love, remorse, death and her inevitable confrontation with her molester after five long years, Danaâ€™s decision making will expose the readers to her plight and the side of a young woman battling a myriad of inner demons.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write Fair Game?

The Pathfinder: The main character Dana was initially one of three characters from a short story I had written several years ago. I was looking through some of my old materials when I picked it up and began reading. There was something about Dana and some of the choices that she made which had a lasting impression on me.

The many risks she took in order to survive displayed a lot of qualities which so many of us wouldn’t dare take. I wanted to show that sometimes when we are confronted with adversity depending on how we approach it, it can make us stronger if we have a plan and stick to it. So I thought, why not give her a voice. Her story was compelling. Her character had a lot of potential for growth.

Once I began writing I couldn’t stop. I can’t explain to you how that felt but it was a wonderful feeling. I also wanted to highlight the fact that sexual abuse is something that some of us do not like to talk about, especially when the perpetrator is a family member.

The hurt, pain, shame and guilt that come with this stigma have ruined many young lives. However, I wanted to not only highlight the mind set of the victim but the perpetrator as well. Danaâ€™s journey is one that I felt needed to be heard, but I wanted to do it with an urban twist.

JP: What sets Fair Game apart from other novels that feature a “good girl gone bad”?

TP: She wasn’t complacent in her â€œgood girl gone badâ€ situation. She understood that it would take some time before she could ever become the person she was before the abuse. Most â€œgood girls gone badâ€ aren’t from a prominent family where both parents are well educated and a staple within the community. Most urban fiction books that I have read the main characters are from low income backgrounds and uneducated.

I wanted to take the genre in a different direction. I wanted to bring both worlds together and see how it would play out. Moreover, I wanted the readers get their monies worth. This is not a novel that glorifies any of the situations and circumstances that Dana experienced, but the novel is a means by which numerous lessons can be learned.

JP: As an author, what are the keys to your success that lead to Fair Game getting out to the public?

TP: Marketing, word of mouth, talking to people and going to places and putting up with situations that you wouldn’t normally put up with. Itâ€™s about getting on the grind twenty-four eight.

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take for you to start and finish Fair Game?

TP: First, I decide on who my main character is, and then I go from there. Every other character or characters are given life depending on where my main character takes me.

I always allow my main character to dictate each sentence, paragraph and page based on what the other characters bring to the table. Honestly, I completed Fair Game in a month, maybe that was an aberration. I don’t know but I wrote every day for a month.

JP: What’s next for The Pathfinder?

TP: Well, my latest release Deadly Consequences will be out later this year. I recently completed the sequel to Fair Game entitled False Pretense. I also have three completed manuscripts, A Rainy Affair, Cruel Shame and City of No Return.

I self-published Fair Game, and I guess I will do the same for Deadly Consequences. Hopefully, the readers will love my work as I continue to grow. I see great things ahead in 2009 and beyond. My faith and belief in God are what keeps me going.

http://www.myspace.com/babygirlpublishing
http://www.blackplanet.com/booksta

I can be contacted at (718) 724-3766 and babygpub@aol.com

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5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Christopher Newman, author of Uprising

July 23, 2009 Joey Pinkney 1 Comment

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Christopher Newman, author of Uprising
(Dark Roast Press)

Imagine a world where the undead have been conquered and are now just another resource to be utilized. You go into your local DMV to renew your drivers’ license. The clerk asks, “What do you want marked for your Undead Clause?” A No answer means upon your reanimation a specialized government team will capture and terminate you. A Yes response directs them to transport you instead go to a factory where you are prepared for entrance into the Reanimated Working Class (RWC).

Due to the Outbreak of 2015, the United States population has sunk dangerously low and the illegal immigrants are gone. There just aren’t enough people to do all the jobs that are necessary. The average American hardly notices them–the red masked members of a new lower caste who walk rich people’s dogs, collect errant grocery carts, pick up litter and shove snow or rake leaves. They go about their mundane tasks faceless and with clamped jaws, apparently harmless to the general public. RWCs are just another humdrum fact of the aftermath of Supernatural Act of 2018.

But an RWC’s existence isn’t what most people think it is. How long can something so hungry – and angry– be kept in check? With protest groups moving through the halls of Congress, these creatures have become a political hot topic. How far will these lobbyists go to see justice done and the dead interned into American soil? What would happen if they are finally freed to prove a point? They can only do what zombies do best…feed on human flesh.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write Uprising?

Christopher C. Newman: Watching the movie “Shaun of the Dead”, I noticed at the end the zombies were being used as labor. It wasn’t realistic enough for me to swallow since they still posed a danger to the community at large. Knowing the rise of protest groups, it seemed illogical that political lobbyists wouldn’t get involved to begin to call out for these creatures rights.

JP: What sets Uprising apart from other novels in its genre?

CN: This is not your typical novel in the sense that the drive of it is more about politics, social commentary and the fact that since everyone generally knows how to kill a member of the undead, they wouldn’t take over the world.

JP: As an author, what are the keys to your success that lead to Uprising getting out to the public?

CN: I wrote this as intelligent and well researched as humanly possible. Most books about zombies seem to simply concentrate on the gore and horror of their attacks. I wanted to show the fractured Freudian mind within these creatures. Thus, I have a lot of scenes with the zombies “telling” the reader how they feel and what’s going on in their minds.

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take for you to start and finish Uprising?

CN: I lay out the basic plot, major and minor characters and their relationships to one another. Research on the subject of zombies came next along with regional statistics and a lot of math.

I started Uprising and finished in about two months. I have been accused by several editors for being a “maniac behind a keyboard” since I can pump out massive amounts of quality work.

JP: What’s next for Christopher C. Newman?

CN: I’m about 40k in word count into the prelude to Uprising titled Of Blood and Politics which is about the vampire side of the Outbreak of 2015. However, these creatures are tightly patterned after the Desmondus Rotundus or common vampire bat. Also they are living, breathing creatures not simply undead monsters.

This book is geared to debate the pros and cons of the supposed “elitist” ideal of vampires as the top of the food chain. I intend to dispel many common and overly published myths about vampires in general.

http://www.darkroastpress.com/index.php
http://christophercnewman.wordpress.com/

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5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Jeremy Williams, author of Detroit’s Black Bottom Community

July 21, 2009 Joey Pinkney 2 Comments

JoeyPinkney.com Exclusive Interview
5 Minutes, 5 Questions With…
Jeremy Williams, author of Detroit’s Black Bottom Community
(Arcadia Publishing)

Local historian Jeremy Williams combines careful research with archived photographs for an insightful look at Black Bottomâ€™s early beginnings, its racial transformation, the building of a socioeconomically solvent community through various processes of institution building and networking, and its ultimate demise and the dislocation of its residents.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the idea and inspiration to write Detroit’s Black Bottom Community?

Jeremy Williams: It started many years ago when, as a child growing up in Detroit, I often heard stories about the glorious days Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. I really took interest in learning about the history of this small black community when a friend took me to an Eastside neighborhood bar called Black Bottom.

When I entered college several years later, I took a Detroit African American history seminar with Dr. Richard Thomas where the idea took shape and form. I eventually entered graduate school hoping to turn my research essay into an MA thesis.

JP: What sets Detroit’s Black Bottom Community apart from other biographies of African-American communities of the past?

JW: I think it connects the history of black American struggle to the larger one (even at the diaspora level) rather than separate. There were many Black Bottom communities throughout the nation which were connected by origin, racial and economic structural similarities.

One of the interesting things I learned about Detroitâ€™s Black Bottom community is that originally the name had nothing to do with color. The name was given by French settlers in relation to its rich soil, just as the many other Black Bottom communities were given their names under the same circumstances. Thatâ€™s why I decided to dedicate the first chapter to the communityâ€™s first inhabitants â€“ European immigrants.

The thing that might perhaps set this book aside from others is that it is the first book on Detroitâ€™s Black Bottom community, and it is loaded with great archival photos depicting black and white life in Black Bottom. There certainly are other books on Detroit history that looks at black Detroit history from various angles. Richard Thomas, Elaine Latzman, Herbert Metoyer and Peggy Moore, Ernest Borden, Thomas Sugrue, and many others have written extensively on Detroitâ€™s black history.

I think David M. Katzmanâ€™s book, Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century is perhaps the first critical work on black Detroit history, but I could be wrong. All of these books looked at the black community as a whole rather than study Black Bottom as a black community. I think that is what sets this book aside from other attempts.

JP: What did you learn as a historian that made you a better author while writing Detroit’s Black Bottom Community?

JW: Well, my old college professor, Dr. Christine Daniels, once told me, â€œIf you want to understand history, follow the money.â€ To really understand what happened to Black Bottom and the constant shifts and changes occurring in the lives of those living in Black Bottom, I had to understand the complex economic interplay between race and politics. Even the violent Jim Crow racism that the Black Bottom community experienced was somehow inextricably tied to money.

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take for you to start and finish Detroit’s Black Bottom Community?

JW: I researched this book for about 3-4 months. I wrote it in about 3 months. After spending about 2 months in Detroit conducting research, I went to Arizona and began the arduous task of sifting through notes, images, and notepad drafts. I found a nice little cafÃ©, loaded up my laptop and went to work.

JP: What’s next for Jeremy Williams?

JW: I am going to finish writing a historical novel titled A Tunica Sunset, and Iâ€™m working on another novel tentatively titled, Denicio Barbier is a Lesbian. And Iâ€™m going to go to San Francisco!

http://www.pushnevahda.com/books.html

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