Vocal Expressions

This novel involved a very dark and interesting storyline set against a backdrop of a small town in Serenity, Michigan. Shelby Alexander, the protagonist is a divorced, aging (nearing sixty) former professional and retired fixer who teeters sometimes on the wrong side of the law. He’s got a young girlfriend almost half his age (same age of his daughter) and he’s happy.  This lasted for a while until he gets embroiled in solving the murder of Jenny, a developmentally disabled woman who he found near the barn on his property. Jenny also happens to be a member of the often-hated Ellises clan who runs drugs within the town.  Things get more complicated when Harper Ellis, one of Jenny’s brothers pays Shelby ten thousand dollars to look into Jenny’s death because there is “new law” in town that would prevent the Ellises from taking matters into their own hands. The Ellises also have to be careful because there is new competition peddling higher quality drugs and messing with their...

Author’s Bio: Born in the Year of the Dragon, Vonnie Winslow Crist is author of The Enchanted Dagger , Beneath Raven's Wing , Owl Light , The Greener Forest , Murder on Marawa Prime , and other books. Her fantasy, horror, and science fiction appear in publications in Japan, Australia, India, Pakistan, Spain, Italy, Germany, Finland, Canada, the UK and USA. Believing the world is still filled with mystery, miracles, and magic, Vonnie strives to celebrate the power of myth in her writing.   Deliah Lawrence: What inspired you to write your book? Vonnie Winslow Crist: Believing stories help us learn from the past, embrace the complexities of the present, and prepare for the future, I write lots of stories. Believing myths, legends, folklore, and fairy tales are important in understanding people and their fears, familiar network, societal structure, and core values, I use them as inspiration. This is the beginning place for all of my fiction. Beneath Raven's Wing is my third coll...

Author’s Bio: Sandra Lynn Manigault spent her childhood studying music, and attended New York City’s esteemed High School of Music and Art, where she played the cello and continued her extensive piano training.  Sandra chose to major in mathematics and received her B.S. and M.A. degrees by the age of 22 from Long Island University and Penn State University respectively. She taught high school and community college in New York City and Fairfax County, VA.  Along with her husband, Donald, she formed The Manigault Institute which afforded them the opportunity to transform the lives of thousands of teens and children over the decades through its varied educational programs. With inspiration from Colorado’s Teaching for a Change conference and the transformative book , The Artist’s Way , by Julia Cameron, she published The Book for Math Empowerment followed by The Children’s Book for Math Empowerment .  In a creative writing course, her acclaimed memoir Fragments of a Woman...

It’s taken me a few days to absorb that you have left us far too soon on January 3, 2021. I remembered meeting you for the first time at a book signing event in the DMV area on May 11, 2005, but even before then you were my writer crush. I remembered how warm and encouraging you were to me when I talked about my writing endeavors. You told me to simply start and the rest would come. I then met you two more times on April 17, 2006 and then on August 8, 2007 and you were just as warm, kind and engaging.  With your addictive fiction formula, your novels have taken us all over the globe with such diverse settings from the streets of L.A. to the West Indies to the UK. So, thanks for blessing us with such an awesome body of work. Thanks for blessing us with storylines about sexy, smart, sassy, affluent and not so affluent, badass and memorable Black characters. Thanks for blessing us with insights about Black love, pleasure, pain, and self-awareness.   I will treasure the way y...