HOW COMIC BOOKS SAVED MY LIFE

FLASHBACK: Brownsville, Brooklyn circa the late 70s

I grew up in a hard place at a hard. I grew up in one of the most violent ghettos in New York at a time when New York City was ranked the murder capitol of America. It was the kind of place where there were only two ways out:

College through an academic or sports scholarship...

Or prison.

Most people I grew up with didn't know there was a world outside of Brownsville.

Now when I say comic books saved my life, I don't mean that I'd be dead if I hadn't discovered comics (Although, who knows). What I'm saving is comic books expanded my mind. You know how they say marijuana is a gateway drug that will lead to harder more addictive drugs like cocaine and heroine. Well comic books were my gateway drug. From comic books I started reading mythology, spy novels, horror, sci-fi, then... everything. 

It also made me want to express my creativity. It did the same thing for my two brothers who also read comic books. They both became artist (one does paintings for a gallery in Manhattan). For me, it made me want to write. 

Comic books did one other thing. 

It led me to Gymnastics. 

When I went to high school, I had to take the public bus to Canarsie, which was basically a Jewish and Italian area. Getting lost in the halls of South Shore High School during my first week, I accidentally wandered into the gym during Gymnastics practice. I didn't even know what the name of this sport was at the time, but I was hooked. This was the closest thing to being a costumed superhero there was. I could be like Spiderman, Batman, Daredevil and a whole universe of flipping, twisting, kicking badasses!

I think at that moment I even said, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life." However the gymnastics coach didn't see it that way. He wouldn't work with me. Not knowing better, I tried to go for flips on my own and ended up crashing and burning. One time the coach got so mad at me he shouted, "Why don't you just get on a motorcycle and crash into a brick wall." 

That summer I decided to branch out, I sought out every YMCA and sports facility in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan that had an open Gymnastics workout and started going to them. I still didn't have a coach, but I quickly realized there were other gym bums like me. I befriended these fellow lost souls and we began training together. I was obsessed.

When summer was over and I went back to the gym at high school, the coach was impressed with all the skills I had learned over the summer. He went from being my main detractor to being my number one supporter. He even held me up as an example to the other gymnasts of what you can accomplish when you work hard.

After high school, I realized I would never be good enough to make the Olympics (not even close). I started when I was fifteen years old and for much of my career I was self-taught. So I hung up my gym grips and enrolled at Brooklyn College. 

But within a few months, I got the itch again. I began training and before long I found myself at the International Gymnastics Camp in Bartonsville, Pennsylvania. There, the hand of fate struck. Bruno Klaus, the owner of the camp, was also the coach of the local Gymnastics team at East Stroudsburg University. He recruited me as a Parallel Bar specialists and I spent the rest of the summer training there.

This also happened to be the Summer of 1980 when then President Jimmy Carter boycotted the Olympics in Moscow and ordered that no America athlete attend the games. 

So guess where the Mens Olympic Gymnastics team ended up? You guessed it. My coach's camp. I went from being just a nothing bum club gymnast to training alongside Olympic gymnasts and their coaches, as well as high caliber coaches and gymnasts from all over the world. 

Also weened since childhood on a steady diet of Professional Wrestling and 42nd Street movie theater Kung-Fu flicks, I would choreograph fights with my fellow teammates that combined Kung-Fu, Pro Wrestling moves and acrobatics. 

After college, not wanting to sit behind a desk or get a real job, I moved to Hollywood to become a stuntman. 

Once again the hand of fate struck. I got a job coaching Gymnastics in a local gym. Five weeks later, after Richard Pryor's stunt double was injured in a stunt doing a flip off a tractor trailer truck as it crashed into a lumber yard, Warner Brothers was desperately looking for a Black stuntman who could flip (there weren't too many back then). Someone at the WB got the bright idea to call around to gyms. The next day I was on set. I did the gag and my stunt career began. They liked the stunt so much they came up with an acrobatic martial arts dream sequence that they brought me back for.

I never in a million years dreamed I would get paid (well paid) for the same thing my friends and I did after workout in college. I would go on to double Arsenio Hall, Martin Lawrence, David Chapelle, Chris Rock, Danny Glover and many more. 

Then, I actually became a superhero (or at least a super villain). I started doing stunts on "POWER RANGERS" playing a Putty - the villainous creatures in gray that would always attack the Power Rangers.

But then my creativity re-emerged (or maybe I just grew tired of landing on my head for a living). I began to try my hand at writing screenplays. After a lot of trial and error, I sold my script "BRIDGE OF DRAGONS" to Millennium (the people behind "THE EXPENDABLES"). My movie would star Dolph Lundgren and become an HBO World Premiere movie.

After that I wrote an episode of "Power Rangers" that the producers later expanded into a straight-to-video movie called "POWER RANGERS LOST GALAXY: RETURN OF THE MAGNA DEFENDER." 

So I guess you can say my life has come full circle. From creative to athlete back to creative.

Maybe the title of this post should be "HOW COMIC BOOKS GAVE ME A LIFE."

PUTTY PATROL from "POWER RANGERS"

A New Era of Black Entertainment - JetMag.com

A New Era of Black Entertainment - JetMag.com

JAMES BOND BY ANY OTHER NAME

I have a confession to make. I grew up on James Bond Movies. Sean Connery was always my favorite. There seemed to be two types of Bonds: the tough Bond and the foppish Bond. The tough Bonds were Connery, Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby, Daniel Craig. The foppish Bonds were: Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and David Niven.

I always leaned more to the tough bonds (although Brosnan's last couple of Bond movies were very good). Even though most people didn't resonate to Dalton as Bond, I thought he was great. His tough, realistic portrayal of Bond just came at the wrong time. 

When they rebooted Bond with "CASINO ROYALE," I was blown away by the screenplay, direction, action and acting. Although I never pictured Craig as a Bond, I was immediately drawn in my his taunt portrayal. 

Now there is a big brouhaha about the possible casting of a Black man as James Bond. Though that may be moot now. Idris Elba says all the public debate has killed off his chances of playing Bond. 

To make matters worse, actor Yaphet Kotto who played a Bond baddie way back in "LIVE AND LET DIE" came out publicly and said James Bond cannot be Black. Which to me seemed a silly statement on his part. How many novels and screenplays which originally had Black or Ethnic protagonists have been white-washed by casting Caucasian actors in the starring roles?

That being said, Yaphet Kotto is correct. Ian Fleming created James Bond as a White man of Scottish ancestry.  

Some people are trying to get around this by saying James Bond 007 is a mantle that many men have worn throughout history. While that is an interesting interpretation, it is not true.

Ian Fleming wrote James Bond as one man. And that man is White.

Although I would like to see Idris Elba play James Bond, I would rather see him cast as a spy who lives the Black experience. 

If it weren't for the fact that the character John Henry in my novel "SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY" is in his early twenties, I would absolutely love someone of Idris Elba's caliber of acting to play him.

However, an interesting thought has come to me. The series of novels I plan to write, will take John Henry through the Cold War from 1961 to 1989 (his character goes off the grid and underground at that point).

My thought is to write the series out of sequence. What do you mean that's crazy? I'm the author. I can do anything I want. One book can be in the 60s, the very next book can be in 89 set during the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1989, John Henry would be in his mid-forties.

WAIT A MINUTE! THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!

Okay, I'm going to end this post right now.

I've got to get Idris Elba on the phone!

Idris... call me!

                        

                       

SIXTH 5 STAR REVIEW ON AMAZON

So I just got my sixth 5 STAR REVIEW on Amazon for my novel "SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY." I'm extremely grateful and very excited that people are reading and enjoying something of mine that I put so much heart and soul into.

I am feeling the pressure to write the sequel (I'm planning at least 10 SPOOK novels). I'm in the middle of a YA now. After that, I'm writing two NA novels (New Adult). Then I will write the sequel to SPOOK, which will find our hero John embroiled in the JFK assassination. Please be patient.

BUY HERE

NEW ERA OF BLACK ENTERTAINMENT

With the recent critical success of “Selma” and the commercial successes of the animated feature “Home” (starring a Black lead voiced by Rihanna) and TV series “Empire,” is Hollywood going to have to rethink its position on Black entertainment having limited appeal? I think so.

Is Hollywood’s sudden consideration of Black actors in film hero roles typically played by white actors enough (Anthony Mackie possibly taking over the role of Captain America, Idris Elba maybe taking on the persona of James Bond)? I don’t think so.

I believe this wave will and should be helmed by Black creators. As a Black screenwriter and novelist, I am devoted to creating cross-media titles for a multicultural audience I feel is the more accurate depiction of America today than what is currently portrayed in books, TV and movies. To that end I have created “SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy.”

Here is an excerpt from the book’s back cover: “In 1961, during the hottest days of the Cold War, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, in a time when the Superpowers are deploying psychic spies behind the Iron Curtain to engage in intrigue and espionage, the CIA discovers a man who just may be the most powerful remote viewer of them all: a Black prison convict named John. Although they hate him because of the color of his skin, although they fear him because of his unnatural abilities, the CIA secretly ‘baptizes’ John into the world of espionage. From Montgomery, Alabama to Istanbul, Turkey, from the Orient Express to Washington, D.C., from Marilyn Monroe’s final moments to the Cuban Missile Crisis countdown, John walks unseen through the annals of history, in its shadow.”

“Spook,” a novel about an African American remote viewer for the CIA during the Cold War and Civil Rights movement, is the first in a series of books that will take the character through the Kennedy assassinations, the shooting of Martin Luther King, the Birmingham riots, Vietnam and other grand historical events. 

As an independent screenwriter in Los Angeles, I have struggled with the industry’s lack of interest in diversity in entertainment. According to the 2014 Hollywood Diversity Report, despite minorities making up more than 36 percent of the U.S. population, out of 172 movies only 11 percent of the films had a minority lead and more than half the films had casts that were 10 percent minority or less.

When I decided to finally write this novel - and several people in Hollywood advised me not to - I knew it was going to be controversial. I wanted a title that reflected the book’s nature. Spook, which is the slang term for a spy and the derogatory slang term for a Black person, was my intended double entendre. This isn’t just a spy thriller. It’s social commentary. The duality of the title is also reflective of the main character John, who ironically enjoys more freedoms in the European countries he is spying in, than in America where he has to sit in the back of the bus or eat at a diner with no restroom for Coloreds.

The relevance of the racial themes in “Spook” can be seen in headlines across America today where young Black men are being killed by law enforcement officials such as in the Michael Brown case in Ferguson.

I am promoting my novel to the African American community and shopping a screenplay adaptation to Hollywood, where I already have interest.

SEE SPOOK HERE

Either way, I'm going to keep pushing and keep creating.

PASS IT ON

My novel "SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY" has been out for a few months now and it's exciting to see everything that is happening with it. 

In the past, I would have just written it as a spec script and gone through the traditional channels to try and sell it to a studio or studio level company. The company buying my script would have complete control over how it was produced. They could bring in other writers and change anything they wanted. My biggest concern would be they would change the lead character from African American to White. In initial pitches where I talked about how pivotal the Civil Rights movement was to the story I was telling, I actually got statements like, "I really like the whole Cold War spy/Civil Rights dynamics. But is there a way we can do that and have the lead character be White?  Just for sales' sake."

Or, equally as bad, I shop my script and it doesn't sell. Hollywood gatekeepers have their own agenda and it has nothing to do with finding the best script. It's about deal making, making the most money possible and nepotism. 

Without the backing of a studio or studio level company, my spec scripts that don't sell inevitably end up in the back of my sock drawer.

That's why I'm still excited about going straight to the audience for my novels without a traditional printing house. I don't think a traditional printing house would get it anyway. It's not traditional enough.

Also, by printing and building my own audience, I own the project. It is an intellectual property. I can still license a screenplay adaptation to a studio. Only now, they be would less likely to change anything of major importance in the story.

That being said, I am pleased to find out that people who have read my book are passing it on to other people after they are finished. To me that's the greatest compliment (other than giving me a positive review on my Amazon page).

So, whether you bought my book Online, at Book Soup on Sunset in Los Angeles, Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena or if I've given you a free copy (I carry copies around with me and give a copy to anyone who expresses a true interest in reading it), please pass it on once you're done.

There are a billion books being sold Online. I believe that even with those odds, a good book will eventually find an audience. And I wrote this from the heart.

Thanks.

CHECK IT OUT HERE

SPOOK LIVES

This won't be a very long post. I've been on a very tight schedule between working on the new book and trying to promote the two books I already have out.

GAME

It's too early to say too much, but there is interest in SPOOK as a video game from an award winning filmmaker who has been involved in producing video games for Ubisoft ("Assassin's Creed") for the last few years. We should be meeting soon to discuss the possibility. I never thought of SPOOK as a video game, but once I wrapped my head around it, I had a lot of great ideas including how to visually show a mind being remote viewed (cool). I see it as a story-driven, decision based game with an exotic cast of characters. I'll find out soon if the producer is on the same page as I am.

MOVIE
On the other front, the screenplay adaptation of SPOOK is already out to one studio producer and my manager will be getting it to two other studio companies in the coming weeks.

BOOK
I'm working on new deals for the novel.

I should begin work on the sequel to SPOOK in another six months (I have a couple of other novels that I'm working on first). I'm brainstorming on the title for the new book.

That's it for now. Or in the words of the immortal James Brown, "SAY IT LOUD, I'M BLACK AND I'M PROUD!"

SPOOK NOW IN VROMAN'S

My novel "SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY" is now in VROMAN'S BOOKSTORE in Pasadena, CA.

It is also in BOOK SOUP on Sunset in Los Angeles.

I want to thank all 5,000 plus of you who downloaded SPOOK over my three day free book promotion in honor of MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

I'm now setting my sights on getting SPOOK into the number one book chain in America: BARNES & NOBLE (it's already in their Online store and you can order it at any B&N).

I don't know if I will be successful, but I'm certainly going to try. Or as MLK once said, "If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward."

Have a happy 2015!

FREE COPY OF MY NOVEL

Now through Monday, you can download a copy of my novel "SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY" for FREE at Amazon, in honor of MLK Day.


FREE COPY HERE

BOOK GIVEAWAY TO CELEBRATE MLK DAY

I've already posted the news in Facebook about copies of "SPOOK:  CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY" now being available for purchase at BOOK SOUP on Sunset in Los Angeles.

Well, it looks like I have another bookstore that will be carrying copies of my novel in a couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Next, I'm beginning my campaign to try and get SPOOK in Barnes & Noble bookstores nation-wide. It's currently offered in their Online store. You can also order it at a B&N store. However, I'm hoping to get the book physically into their stores.

In other news... 

Starting this Friday January 16th through Monday the 19th, you can download SPOOK for FREE at Amazon for your Kindle or other electronic device. 

All that I ask is, if you like the book, please give a review on the Amazon page where it is sold. 

I'm offering my book free for four days in honor of MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY.

SPOOK is a book series that will traverse the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement in America. My main character JOHN HENRY (yes, John Henry) deals with historical milestones of the time. In the second book in the series, John will be embroiled in the JFK assassination. In the third novel, he will be unwittingly involved in the the MLK and Robert Kennedy assassinations.

I have three other novels to write before I get back to the SPOOK series. 

But I am very excited about what's to come.  

BROOKLYN APACHE PRESS

Martin Luther King Jr.

Book Soup on Sunset

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

I know I've touched on the Cold War espionage and racial themes of my novel "SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY." But I haven't really touched on the conspiracy theory element of my book.

What makes me think of this is I was contacted on Christmas day by someone who had purchased my novel on line. The individual claimed to have studied REMOTE VIEWING (a central element of my book) with the army. This person even mentioned having met the late INGO SWANN, a renown psychic who I believe had worked for the CIA's STARGATE PROGRAM (psychic spies). 

The interesting thing is this person lives in Los Angeles (where I currently reside). 

Originally, it was after talking to someone I knew who had been a CIA agent, that I decided to move forward and write my book. My contact assured me that the CIA's psychic spy program had been real and that some of the operators they had working for them were downright spooky.

While I was writing my book, I tried to contact people who had been involved with government psychic spy programs during the Cold War. A former Interpol agent who had been stationed in Munich during the old days, was even trying to put me in contact with a former member of the STASI (the East German Secret Police). I finally put out a posting worldwide on Craigslist of all places. I was contacted by a number of interesting people. Some I suspected were spying on me (they wanted to know if anyone else had contacted me and, if so, who).

It was a very paranoid phase for me during the development of my book. 

So... I'd like to go on the record and say here and now...

I BELIEVE JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY WAS KILLED BY A JOINT CIA/ MAFIA TASK FORCE KNOWN AS PROJECT MONGOOSE, AFTER JFK SAID HE WOULD NO LONGER TRY TO OVERTHROW CASTRO (THE OBJECTIVE OF PROJECT MONGOOSE). LEE HARVEY OSWALD DID NOT ACT ALONE (IF AT ALL). 

I BELIEVE MARILYN MONROE WAS GIVEN A DRUG OVERDOSE FROM THE MAFIA IN A CIA CONDONED OPERATION, BECAUSE SHE KNEW TOO MUCH ABOUT THE CIA/ MAFIA OPERATIONS.

I BELIEVE MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WAS MURDERED BY THE CIA. NOTE: MLK WAS ONLY KILLED AFTER HE GAVE THE SPEECH TELLING YOUNG BLACK MEN NOT TO FIGHT IN THE WAR IN VIETNAM.

The Marilyn Monroe murder is covered in my novel. JFK and MLK's assassinations will be covered in subsequent novels in my SPOOK series.

My novel may be fiction, but I'm writing these historical events as I believe they had happened. 

To this day, the cover-up of these crimes continues to go on.

Checkpoint Charlie

     

THE GAME'S AFOOT

The game is definitely afoot as Sherlock Holmes was apt to say. 

"SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY" has been attracting a lot of interest. I know there are a few favorable reviews being written and hopefully soon I will be able to announce some good news about the novel coming to select book stores.

But right now I have something else on my mind. 

It was recently relayed to me from someone in my Hollywood circle, that I am an arrogant writer for not round-tabling "SPOOK" with other writers and taking their notes. This is a common practice in the Hollywood screenplay world. After nearly every meeting, everybody and their mother has notes for the writer. It's a form of writing by committee to make your script as commercial as humanly possible. 

I've never been a big fan of writing by committee, other than making changes for budgetary reasons or to further the director's vision. I wrote my novel with a young fresh editor because I wanted a young fresh look at a novel that, while set in the past, expounds on themes that are very relevant in America today. 

When I decided to start my company BROOKLYN APACHE PRESS I did so because I wanted to have freedom as an artist to write my novels my way. I also want my voice to be the voice of the unrepresented audiences out there. I want my lead characters to be Black or Spanish or Chinese or  Middle Easterner or female or old or Gay or young. In Hollywood, virtually every script is written for a white male lead. 

What a lot of people in Hollywood don't get is that I'M A FAN OF WHAT I WRITE! I never wrote a sci-fi script because sci-fi was in. I never wrote a horror pilot because "THE WALKING DEAD" is a runaway hit. I write my stories, whether script or novel, as a fan. I'm writing the kind of stuff I want to see. 

I think that makes me selfish more than arrogant.

I love SPOOK. I am a fan of it. Every single word is exactly the way I wanted. This is my voice. It's not going to be everybody's cup of tea. I don't expect it to be. But if you are a fan of this genre, I believe you will be entertained. 

I also hope it makes you think... and feel. 

If it does, then I've done my job.

THE SPOOK WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

Well, "SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY" is finally out in paperback on Amazon. 

Later this week, I should have it out as an ebook on Kindle as well. I'm negotiating with a number of book stores which will carry my novel on their book shelves. 

I'm also in the beginning stages of working out a deal for an audio version of the book.

Other things are in the mix, but I can't talk about any of it just yet.

All I can say is that my creation has finally come in from the cold.

My book exists. I may not have big bucks marketing revenue behind me to promote it... and there are millions of books Online nowadays... but I truly believe a well-written and unique novel will be noticed. So...

Sooner or later, it'll find it's audience.

I'm banking on the sooner part.

WHY AN AFRICAN AMERICAN SPY?

People ask me two questions about my second novel.

1) WHY DID I WRITE A NOVEL ABOUT AN AFRICAN AMERICAN SPY?

It was important to me to write a story about an African American spy because it is becoming more and more apparent to me multicultural characters are woefully unrepresented in mainstream film, television, and literary entertainment. 

When I was a kid, I read comic books and science fiction, horror, and adventure novels. I can't remember any of the heroes of these works being Black. After a time, I started to see secondary characters and sidekicks who were Black or minority. But they weren't the heroes, and in many instances, they were weak cowardly characters. I felt like much of this was lip service. I loved the James Bond series of films. But James Bond did not look like me. Could only White men and women be spies? 

Even when Marvel Comics created the Black Panther, I still didn't really connect. What did I know about Africa? I was a city kid born and raised in Brooklyn. The only jungle I knew was made of concrete.

I guess the first comic book character I read who did reflect something close to my reality was Marvel's Luke Cage: Hero for Hire. 

I loved reading about characters, time periods, and worlds wildly outside my frame of consciousness when I was a kid. But I would have also liked to have read about characters who I could identify more heavily with. Characters who looked like me, came from my experience.

I would love for children of color growing up in America today to be able to read books that have characters in it that reflect their race and heritage. Part of African American's disenfranchisement with America today I believe comes from us feeling left out.

Amazingly enough the first character I really related to in cinema, was Ben (played by Duane Jones) in the 1968 "Night of the Living Dead." He was a strong Black man who didn't lose his head in the face of the zombie apocalypse. More importantly, I loved the fact that his race was never mentioned and was never even a factor in the film. He was simply a hero who happened to be Black. The brilliance of filmmaker George Romero was not in his creation of the modern day zombie, but in the brutal irony of Ben surviving the zombie onslaught, only to be shot dead by a redneck hick who thought Ben was a mindless zombie. The statement this made about our our society - which was only three years into equal rights for African Americans - was extremely powerful. 

The second question I receive on my book is: WHY THE TITLE SPOOK?

My answer is complex and reflects the duality of my novel. In 1964, discrimination based on race was banned in the United States (at least on paper). In 1965, a bill giving African Americans the power and protection to vote, was signed. Five scant years later we had uber-macho Black male anti-heroes spouting, "Honky pig" as they pummeled racist corrupt White cops in Blaxploitation movies like Shaft and Superfly. And Hollywood found box office gold as not only Black Americans, but also White Americans flocked to these films. 

Since my spy John Henry was a product of both the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement, I wanted him to reflect both. As a spy, John is a spook. As an African American man - in the eyes of the prevailing establishment of the day - he is also a spook. 

To me the double entendre is a central part of the theme of this work.

Whether I have failed or succeeded, "SPOOK: CONFESSIONS OF A PSYCHIC SPY" is meant to be a genre spy thriller that transcends its genre, segueing into important social commentary. 

Maybe even the statement I make about racism and race relationships will be as powerful as the one George Romero made in 1968, when he cast a Black man as a hero, without the need for his character to be Black.

Richard Roundtree as Shaft. As a young stuntman 

I had the pleasure of working with him.

    

 

HAPPY OCTOBER

October isn't just the month of my very favorite holiday HALLOWEEN, it's also BLACK SPECULATIVE FICTION MONTH!

HURRAY!

So, instead of just watching horror movies all month long (like I usually do), I'm going to surf the Web for science fiction, fantasy, and horror with diversity (I'm tired of seeing the token Black guy in the horror film get killed off first anyway). I'm also going to bone up on my reading in light of this dark month. Instead of reading Steam Punk, I'll read Steam Funk. Instead of reading Sword & Sorcery, I'll read some Sword & Soul.

Because it's a fact, Black and Multicultural Speculative Fiction (as well as Street Lit) is gaining in popularity, perhaps to reflect today's true ethnic landscape of America and the world beyond (Hollywood take note).

Also, on October 17th I will be the guest blog for Alicia McCalla's insightful blog:

MULTICULTURAL SPECULATIVE FICTION WITH HEROINES WHO FIGHT BACK

Don't miss it! I won't!

Boo!

SCHEDULE

Even though the weather in LA doesn't reflect it, Summer is over.

I've got one and a half months left to promote the hell out of (get it) "THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story." I'm also busy promoting "SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy" my upcoming novel (out November 17th). I would rather just write, but what good does it do you to write a book if no one knows it exists (it's like a tree falling in the woods). So I've got to market these little gems.

On an artistic note, I am very excited to have cracked a brand new storyline for my next novel "THE MOON BEAM RIDER." This is being adapted from a screenplay of mine that I was originally taking out with some people from the animated world. They wanted to produce it as a 3D animation movie. It was very PG, which isn't me. But now, I'm planning on turning it into a novel. MY first YA (young adult) book. This should appeal to tween and teen girls first and foremost. It's a novel about an overweight fangirl who transforms into a streamline heroine (the first book of this kind that I know of). I don't really like saying it's in the vein of "The Hunger Games," because it's totally different. But it should definitely appeal to that demographic and touch on some of the same themes. Plus, it will feature a very different kind of love story.

Anyway, I'm very happy to begin work on it. I'm hoping to have it finished by early 2015!

http://www.brooklynapachepress.com/spook.html

FREAK KING REVIEW OF SPOOK

Below is a review of my novel "SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy" by my colleague Beauregard Freidkin of the Midnite Review. I was counting on a good review from him by virtue of the fact he had read and endorsed my book. However, when I read the very first sentence of the review, I got a little queasy. Then it turned into my best review ever. Very glad. I worked hard on this.

BOOK REVIEW

By Beauregard Freidkin



While at first glance of the book cover - an angry Black man holding a smoking gun behind the title Spook - you may gasp at the political incorrectness and dismiss it as a blaxploitation version of a genre thriller. But if you did, you would be so wrong. "SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy" is so much more than just a spy novel with a paranormal twist. It's a meditation on racism, the duality of man, and lose of innocence. This novel is social commentary at its highest level disguised as science fiction.

The protagonist, John, is an African American who is a powerful remote viewer. He is also a tragic creation of the author's in that John, although used by the CIA as a psychic spy, is despised and hated by the men he works for. At the same time, because of John's clandestine alliance with the government, Black men and women of the period - shoeshine boys, maids, bathroom attendants, the labor force of America - sensing his difference, fear him. John is an outcast at every turn whose only acceptance ironically comes from the foreign psychic spies he is pitted against across Europe and behind the Iron Curtain. Conjointly, this Cold War era is also the decade of the Civil Rights and Peace movements, as well as the Women's Liberation movement, adding to the unpredictable powder keg of a setting.

The author, Carlton Holder, promises a series of books taking our tormented hero through the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties, right up to the end of the cold War. I can't wait to see how John changes and is changed by an America in upheaval. Thanks for something different.

http://www.brooklynapachepress.com/spook.html

ON SALE NOVEMBER 17TH!

COMING SOON

POWER TO THE PEOPLE! 

Check out my novel in November. 

Don't be no jive ass turkey!

http://www.brooklynapachepress.com/spook.html

BACK ON THE BLOG

Summer is over, my world sojourns - or at least nationwide travels - are over for the moment (sadness).

AND...

I'm back behind my laptop again - like a mad scientist in his laboratory - (happiness).

In other words, I'M BACK ON THE BLOG!

I'm putting the finishing touches on the SPOOK TV PILOT script and will be going out to Networks with it, as well as directors.

The SPOOK novel will be released NOVEMBER 17TH 2014 and will be available on both the Internet and in SELECT STORES IN LOS ANGELES.

There are a few other things in the works, but I can't talk about them just yet.

On HALLOWEEN I'll officially release the SPOOK BOOK COVER SPREAD.

I'll also soon begin work on my third novel and first YA: "THE MOON BEAM RIDER." So I'm very excited about that.

ONE LAST NOTE...

I'M MAKING ADVANCE COPIES OF MY NOVEL AVAILABLE TO PUBLICATION BOOK REVIEWERS AND BOOK REVIEW BLOGGERS! So let me know if you're interested in reading it. I'm also going to be setting up interviews regarding the book.

TO ALL YOU OTHER CREATIVES OUT THERE... HAPPY PITCHING!!!

BACK ON THE BLOG

It's been awhile.

A little over two months to be exact.

My excuse is that I've been traveling: Orlando, Palm Springs, Vegas, and next month New York City. I've also been doing pre-promotion for my upcoming novel "SPOOK: Confessions of a Psychic Spy." The book drops November 17th and I'm getting advance copies to bloggers and book reviewers. I'm also doing an adaptation of it for the screen (big or small, I'm keeping my options open). In addition to that, I'm taking meetings with various movie types regarding the project (can't say much about that yet).

I'm also in the beginning stages of shooting a documentary (I'll cover that under my other blog).

Even though it'll be awhile before the book goes on sale, if you had been lucky enough :) to read my first book "THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story," I'll send you a free advance copy of my new book. All ya gotta do is ask.

I've been intentionally keeping any visuals regarding the cover for SPOOK under wraps, due to the sensationalistic ramifications it will likely have (although my editor Solange, bless her soul, did leak a photo of the cover on FB).

I'm still reaching out to newspaper and magazine book reviewers as well as TV show hosts to review and/or do a news piece on the novel. If you know any reviewers, I'd love to get them a copy of SPOOK.

I'll be in touch.

And next time I won't be away for so long.

                                      I am the great and mighty Thor the God of Thunder!