New Book Announcement!

Plus, Stuntin: Jay-Z and The Great Gatsby

Happy Holidays! A hearty welcome to all, including new premium subscribers. I hope this post finds you well.

Boy, do I have a scoop for you. I sold my third book! The announcement below says it all.

Those who have followed me for a while on Twitter will recognize that I was working on this book when I was at John Grisham's house back in 2021. I was live tweeting my daily word totals. I wrote like 6,000 words (or 22 pages!) once. That’s how excited I’ve been about this story. The novel has flourished in ways I couldn't have imagined when I started. I’ll talk more about this project in future posts. The main character is Ady. She is a remarkable person in every respect. I can't wait for you allto meet her.

As for Sitting in Silence, I started this newsletter a year ago as a way to work through my thoughts on writing and life. I never had any intention of this being a burden. Much to my delight, it’s no burden at all. I’ve enjoyed every post. It’s been a bonus to know that you read this and get something from it. Thank you for participating. Feel free to peruse the archive. You’ll find interesting essays and interviews with amazing writers. Much more to come!

Regulars know that I share in this premium subscriber space writing I produced for other venues. Sometimes, the pieces are oldies from the era in my life before I declared myself a writer (or I had only just declared such). Or writing that is hard to find. Today’s essay falls in the latter category. I have worked with a wonderful organization called Narrative 4, co-founded by the great Colum McCann. They support diverse students in their creative endeavors. I was asked to write about several classic American books with an eye towards broadening the analysis for the student readers.  Sometimes you don’t know what you think until you write about it. I’ve liked The Great Gatsby since I read it in school, but I wanted to go a bit deeper. To explore some thoughts I hadn’t had a chance to express. This piece was written 19 months ago and, formerly, only available to young people in Narrative 4’s program. I’m happy to share it here with you.    

As always, thank you to the premium subscribers who make this newsletter possible, especially those who just signed up. I appreciate your support. This would be much harder to do without your help.

Without further ado, here is my “Stuntin’: Jay-Z and The Great Gatsby have a lot in common”…

“He who controls images controls everything.” – Robert Townsend

Every job I’ve ever had, I was hired under the false pretenses related to racial attitudes in America. For example, I was a corporate lawyer for about 16 years in New Orleans. During that time, I worked for five major law firms. Major because they kept offices in the city’s priciest real estate: the upper floors of the tallest skyscrapers. In the garage, I saw the luxury cars of the people I needed to swindle into hiring me.