Literary Tag

So I got tagged by Tayari Jones, regarding fifteen interesting facts about my writing and/or reading. Here's what I came up with:

1. In high school I wrote a play called "Stranger In Two Worlds"... a cheesy little semi- autobiographical number about a black kid who goes to summer camp every July, and is torn between hanging with the black kids and the white kids. I cringe everytime I find the play when I visit home.

2. I had every Dr. Seuss book known to human kind... until one day, when I was five and didn't clean up my play area in the basement, the basement flooded and all the books were destroyed.

3. I didn't know "proper grammar" until 9th grade... thanks to my English teacher, Ms. Thelma Dinwiddie (who also had a side gig as a jazz singer named Kris Lynn). I sometimes cringe when I think about how bad my grammar was prior to 9th grade.

4. Miss Dinwiddie made us write journals for class assignments. I still keep a personal journal to this day -- since 9th grade.

5. I'm still a newbie at this writing/publishing thing... and I still am awed when I meet "famous" authors and people I grew up reading.

6. I first read Terry McMillan and E. Lynn Harris before they "blew up" so to speak. I just randomly found their books in bookstores... no marketing toward me, no ads, no word of mouth. Kinda cool, especially since books about black gay folks like Harris' didn't get talked about anywhere in the early 90s. It was because of their books I realized me... black boy from Detroit... could write and possibly get published one day.

7. One novel that made me cry out loud was Family by J. California Cooper. So did her novel The Wake of the Wind.

8. I usually read literary blogs first thing in the morning. My general order is Alisa Valdes Rodriguez, then Tayari Jones, then Paperback Writer, then the rest that are on my long LONG list... on the left side of this page.

9. I won a Young Writers Award in 3rd grade for a poem/story (a monstrosity more like it) called "Where In The World Is Valerie?" It's published in a rare anthology the Detroit Public School system put together of the best of DPS student writers at the time.

10. I love the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Always have... since we had to read it in 10th grade English.

11. I would love to write for television. Drama/Soap/Comedy mixes would be my fave to work on. Some shows on TV-- shows that many of US watch now-- I'd love to join the writing staff for/of.

12. Prior to 1999, I'd never met any writers. Keith Boykin was the first I'd met in person, when he spoke at the organization I work with. I was assigned to pick him up at the airport.

13. And when I started writing Down For Whatever in 2001/2002, I had no contacts and no clue where this process would take me. I just started taking classes, writing, and knew I wanted to do this as a living... or for a nice side gig.

14. Among some of my L.A. writing mentors are authors like Jervey Tervalon, Denise Hamilton, Kerry Madden, and Leslie Schwartz. I have others now, but these were some of the first to really support my potential when I knew nobody.

15. But... I have many friends who don't read and who haven't read my book. As well, most of my friends have nothing to do with writing or publishing. But I don't bug them about it. It's just who they are.

Tag... whoever would like to take this on... :-)
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