Vocal Expressions

This is the first time I’ve read John McPartland’s work and I simply loved it. In this novel, readers are introduced to Jim Work who has just returned from Korea and driving around Carmel. He gets into a fender bender with Buddy Brown who beats him up. While this is happening, Jim gets smitten by Wild Kearny, Buddy’s girlfriend who watched the fight. If that wasn’t enough, Jim follows them up to Wild’s place, called the Zoo and meets her rich friends. Jim then challenges Buddy again and gets the brunt of Buddy’s knuckles. Buddy leaves to get his car fixed and that’s when Wild makes a proposal to Jim. She wants him to act as her boyfriend and to meet her father, Big Red Kearny. Unbeknownst to her Big Red wants to her get married immediately and all hell broke loose when Big Red realizes that Buddy was his daughter’s boyfriend and not Jim. But Jim is on a mission to make Wild his girl and the only way to do that would be to get Buddy out of the way. Things then went all kinds of left...

Author’s Bio: Norwood Holland is a freelance writer, lawyer, and author of the Drew Smith legal thriller series based on the capers of a bon vivant DC trial attorney. Holland is a graduate of Howard University School of Law and earned his degree in English from Fisk University where he studied under the renowned Harlem Renaissance author Arna Bontemps. He has served in several government agencies including the National Labor Relations Board and several top Washington law firms. In the mid-90s he began freelance writing with bylines in The Writer Magazine and the Examiner. He blogs at editorialindependence.com . Material Witness is third in the series launched with Sleepless Nights , followed by the prequel Minus One . Private Number the fourth series installment will be released in early 2019. DL: What inspired you to write your book? NH: Material Witness is my third book and it’s a legal thriller. I wanted to write about a flawed hero with mental health problems. I wanted to w...

Author’s Bio: Victoria Kennedy is a fiction writer whose stories range from fun and romantic to insightful explorations of cultural and societal challenges. Sometimes all these elements are combined to create stories of Black love and woe. Victoria’s work is included in The Dating Game anthology and the self-published collection, Where Love Goes , which includes “The Uninvited Guest,” adapted into an eponymous stage play.   Victoria is the founder of Zora’s Den, a writing group for Black women writers that entails a closed Facebook group, a series of writing workshops, and a monthly reading series based in Baltimore. Her debut novel, Sometimes Love was published by Brown Girls Books in August 2017. Her next novel, Don’t Walk Away , will be released in February 2019. DL: What inspired you to write your book? VK: Insomnia inspired me to write my first book. I don’t sleep very much and I fill those sleepless hours with all things creative – from writing, to playing music, o...