Vocal Expressions

Author’s Bio: Arketa Williams has been writing and performing r over 15 years. She’s received numerous awards and recognitions throughout the years for her creativity. She has published 4 books, released a CD of poetry, and a poetry DVD. She is currently working on her next series of books of poetry and novels. Alongside her writing career, Arketa developed Pen2Pad Ink Writing Consultants as a way of helping others find their voice on paper and Co-Founded Infinity Empowerment & Development Corporation (IEDC), a community development and outreach organization. Arketa uses creativity to shine a light on the devastations in her life so that she can help others gain a mental freedom over the pains that bind them. She uses her escape from trials and tribulations as a ray of hope for those stranded where she used to be. She strives to let the world know that there is sunshine after the storm. What inspired you to write your book? AW:  ...

Author’s Bio:  Leon Thornton Jr.’s exposure to poetry began at the age of 12, when a teacher recommended his mother enroll him in a reading club to improve his comprehension.  His subsequent love of poetry became his outlet to cope with pain in his life, including witnessing his father’s alcoholism, his uncle’s drug addiction and resulting death, and his near death experience after his body almost succumbed to diabetes.  Thornton’s writings about these dark times in his life as well as the darkness in world events, friends’ lives, and his general observations of everyday circumstances are shared in his first book, The Shadows of My Soul .  He credits his sports and writing poetry as the catharses that helped him release and move past his emotional pain.  Thornton lives with his wife, two sons, and mother-in-law in Maryland. What inspired you to write your book? LT: My son, Jabari.  Before he went off to college, I told him to never give up on the p...

Meet Kennedy Logan, a twenty-eight-year-old educated and gorgeous woman who is in love with the wrong man (side bar – no surprise, we have all been here at some point). Anyway, she has a confession to make which she unravels slowly through writing in her diary (and yes, it’s filled with sexual escapes) after a failed suicide attempt. As I read this novel, I got to know more about the man (Drake Collins) who led Kennedy to the brink of her destruction. He had a high sexual appetite that Kennedy tried to live up to. He was a control freak who demanded that she change to suit him from the clothes she wore, not drinking sodas, changing her hair, etc. Putting back the pieces would take some time and her overbearing mother, Dorothy Logan would make sure she broke free of Drake. This was no easy task as Drake worked in the same department as Kennedy and with every turn she made he was right there to taunt and try to control her. If this pressure wasn’t enough, Kennedy wanted to find ...