Vocal Expressions

On Sunday, January 18, 2019 I saw the musical play Fun Home based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel and directed by Hana S. Sharif. It chronicled Bechdel’s family life as a child and then as a college student with parts narrated by Andrea Prestinario as the adult/cartoonist Alison. The story and Alison’s emotional journey unfold between the Bechdel house and family owned funeral home in Beech Creek, Pennsylvania, Oberlin College in Ohio and her contemporary studio space. Alison takes the audience across time when she was a child in awe of her father, to when she had her first lesbian experience in college to recent times at her studio. The audience got to see her father, Bruce Bechdel (played by Jeffry Denman) as the perfectionist that he was and how he struggled with his sexuality. It also showed her mother, Helen Bechdel, (played by Michelle Dawson) and how she struggled and coped by drinking. And in the midst of it all, how Alison as a college student (played by ...

On Saturday, February 2, 2019, I participated in the Black Writers’ Guild Members’ Showcase. I had a great time talking about what inspired me to write romantic suspense novels. I also read an excerpt from my newly released novel, Gotta Get It Back where my protagonist, Deidre Hunter is caught snooping around at a masquerade ball only to bump into her ex-husband, Kyle. And as always, Kyle will be Kyle, flirting as if Deidre is still his to play with. I then sat back and enjoyed my fellow author presenters wow the audience by sharing excerpts from your current WIP, new releases as well as poetry that left us snapping our fingers. It was indeed a great afternoon!

This is my first time reading anything by Millner and Chiles. However, I became immediately drawn to the main characters, Nina Andrews and Aaron Simmons whose love story grew from their first meeting as kids and spanned into adulthood. Throughout the years, there were tears, fears, drama, and mistrust until they came full circle at loving each other again (twenty-six years in the making). Nina came from a family where drama was the norm. The house was cluttered, siblings would argue and her mother clung with passion to Nina’s father who had played a role in a botched robbery of a Department of Transportation parking meter collector. Aaron’s household was completely different. His mother went months without raising her voice. Calmness was the norm. The walls were bare and the carpet was worn out by excessive vacuuming. His father unlike Nina’s father was a doorman who adhered to decorum and not reacting to anything. At one point in the story, Aaron wondered whether his relations...

Author’s   Bio: Michael Irving Phillips was born in Jamaica. He left home for Howard University, Washington DC where he received a Master of Arts in Education and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry. Leave the Rat Race to the Rats is a sequel to his previous book, Boycott Money And Save Your Soul – Launching the Goodwill Revolution . The first book launched the Goodwill Revolution, while this one applies it. Previous work includes Poems for Husbands and Other Underdogs , compilation and publishing poetry books, Bitten by Bonzo and Living in Constant Spring . However, most recent years have been spent in a one-man production of Hot Calaloo, a newsletter about Caribbean news and views. From April 1992 to December 1999 it was published monthly and was transferred to the web at hotcalaloo.com since then. DL: What inspired you to write your book? MIP: This book is actually a sequel to my book, Boycott Money and Save Your Soul – Launching the Goodwill Revolution . The Goodwill Revo...

Author’s Bio: Claudette Lewis Bard’s love for writing began in her first year of college. Thanks to an English 101 professor who gave her the following advice when it came to writing: dig deep, put those thoughts into words and put them on paper. From that advice, she learned how to express herself through writing. But it wasn’t until years later, after taking creative writing courses, writing short stories for herself, writing a non-fiction narrative (that chronicled the lives of several elderly relatives) and much encouragement from her husband, Ed, Claudette decided to publish her first novel in 2016 entitled Negro Island Light. Its sequel, Negro Island Light: The Road Home followed in 2018. Claudette holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Baltimore. She is a member of both the Black Writers’ Guild of Maryland and Baltimore’s Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (BAAHGS)/Agnes Kane Callum Chapter. She is a banker by profession. ...

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...