Baltimore Book Festival Weekend

I'm excited to say I will be participating in the Baltimore Book Festival this weekend!

Taking place down at the Inner Harbor from Friday, September 25 - Sunday September 27, it will feature local authors and authors from around the country. There will be forums, activities for the kids, and food galore.

I will be in the Author's Tent on Friday all day, and in the Black Writers Guild tent between 3 p.m. - 7 p.m. on Saturday. Stop on by and grab a copy of Fate's Destiny or just drop in and say hi!

Hope to see you this weekend!

Awesome advice from Jim Carrey

Jim Carrey spoke to a graduating class at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa a few years back, and gave the dopest life advice ever to the audience. He told them to chase their dreams and to never settle because of fear. He told them how he learned this from his father, who had to ability to be a successful comedian as well, but instead settled for a secure job. The family had to struggle, however, when his father was laid off from that secure job.

Check out the short video below to see his inspiring message:

Latest Writing Project

I wanted to try something different before fully investing my time in working on my second novel, so I plan on publishing a few short stories until then.

First one up is "The Water of Life," about an archaeologist searching for the fabled Fountain of Youth. Click the tab above to learn more about it and find out where you can download it!

Hurricane Katrina Remembered and Local Church Helps Baltimore Recover

A number of articles I wrote, including the feature article, were published in the Summer 2015 edition of the Josephite Harvest magazine, the official magazine of the Josephite order of priests. Many of them are about the upcoming 10 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. 

I interviewed priests and residents who were in the area at the time and got firsthand accounts of what it was like experiencing one of the worst natural disasters on U.S. soil, the chaos in the days following it, and what the city of New Orleans is like now. The fallout from the disaster has been mostly forgotten by most of the country since then quite frankly, and the city is in fact still recovering from it.

    

The feature article, however, is about the unrest that happened here in Baltimore following the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody. St. Peter Claver Church, located in the Sandtown neighborhood where Gray lived, became an instrumental location for the clean up and recovery efforts in the immediate days following the unrest. In the piece, the parish's pastor Father Ray Bomberger recounts what he saw that day and recalled his personal memories of the riots he witnessed in Washington D.C. following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

   

Check out the articles by clicking on this link to the Josephite Harvest! The articles I wrote regarding the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina can be found on pages 14, 17, 18 and 19. The feature article about the  Baltimore unrest starts on page 24. Enjoy!

Speaking at the Academy's Sponsors Luncheon

Last week I got the honor of speaking at my old middle school's annual Scholarship Sponsors Luncheon. I was able to say what that school, St. Ignatius Loyola Academy, has meant to me over the course of my life. So many of us that went there are like family to one another, whether they be former classmates or teachers.

The recent events taking place in my city has only made me further appreciate how lucky I am to have gone to St. Ignatius. All of us that were fortunate enough to attend the school were given opportunities that many kids in the city don't get. Many of us were able to go to some of the best private high schools in Baltimore such as Loyola Blakefield, Gilman, Mount Saint Joseph, and Boys Latin, get a quality education, and further our education by earning our degrees at different colleges across the country.

Please believe that it wasn't always fun and games however, and nothing was handed to us. Just like how many of us were not used to be surrounded by white kids, they weren't used to being around black kids from the city. Though it was rare, I sometimes heard white students saying we were only there on scholarship "because we were black." That made me personally want to earn my stripes and prove I belonged at Loyola and was as smart as everyone there, if not smarter.

Father William Watters, founding president of SILA and a parent.

But without St. Ignatius there's no way I would've even gotten such an opportunity. Most kids in the inner city simply are not given those same opportunities for success as their counterparts in more affluent areas--they're just not. I have a lot of people to thank for that but I'm not going to name them all because I'm sure I'll forget someone! So many people gave me hope and the encouragement I needed to keep going when I wanted to take the easy route and just coast by or simply give up and quit. I just hope that I was able to be a positive example to the kids at the luncheon by telling them of my accomplishments since graduating from the school, and letting them know the importance of the school in my life.

A Successful Event!!

Thanks to everyone who showed up to my first ever book signing for Fate's Destiny!! It was definitely a successful event. Special thanks to my alma mater St. Ignatius Loyola Academy for hosting it and to MTD Bakery for providing the food!

Click the link below to see all the photos from the event. Thanks again to all of you who came and and made that day special...

YOU'RE THE REAL MVP!!   

Fate's Destiny Book Signing Photo Album

Mark Your Calendars!!

Meet me at St. Ignatius Loyola Academy for my first book signing! Get your signed copy of Fate's Destiny and be sure to bring someone with you who may want a copy as well! Looking forward to seeing you :)