The Witch is Back and She Means Business

The witch is back and she means business. Solstice Macaffey, the world’s most powerful and glamorous witch, usurped the throne of the New York Coven in 1928. Now she’s set her sights on ruling the entire world. The Goddess of Light picks up where the astounding debut novel Solstice ends. Six months after killing the reigning queen of witches, Solstice finds herself embroiled in ever more scandal and intrigue. Using her favorite tools of conquest: violence, deceit and bravado, she brings her own personal brand of infamy to Jazz Age Europe. She makes new lovers, creates new enemies, sparks new friendships and is entangled with one very crafty angel. But when Solstice’s dark past roars into her life seventy years later—in present day Harlem, Newel, the young man she's sworn to protect, now thirteen may pay the ultimate sacrifice for her lifelong flirtation with evil; his eternal soul hangs in the balance.

Excerpt form The Goddess of Light

Chapter 1.
The Goddess of Light Ascending

ONE
**Harlem, 1929**

It was easier than she thought. Murder. Simple really. Effortless. Like the man she had just killed. She didn’t know him nor did she care to. He begged for mercy before he died. And, of course, she was merciful. Magnanimous. Benevolent. Magnificent. A few words spoken softly, almost like the song of a nightingale that brought great sweeping destruction in its melody. Harmonics that offered pain and death instead of dulcet invitations to comfort or sleep. The evil fell freely from her lips and would later be rumored as to be her favorite method of death. By this point, she had created variations of the original. Some would cause the victim to fall apart, literally, with limbs cascading to the floor. Others would include twisting and mangling, rending and crushing. Brutal and gleeful. They became known as the Solstice Variants of the Nkrumah-Shanmugasunduram Effect. But the original was the one she preferred. Easy, quick, bloodless. Well, not that bloodless.

As she rounded the corner and came upon the man she did not know, he cowered feebly in her presence. Obviously, he knew he was about to die. When she uttered the words “Karmino Sin Testa!” that separated his head from his body, the low moan that left his lips drifted on the air filling the small space with a cruel and piteous song. His mouth formed a perfect “o” and his eyes fluttered as if in dismay at his own lifeless body. The head cracked on the carpet with a sickening bounce and rolled into a corner under an ornate Beaux Art console. It came to rest, thankfully, with the fluttering eyes facing away from his headless body now disgorging streamers of blood across the room. Solstice stepped back from her malice, mindful of her new shoes; two-toned T-Bars in white and cordovan. She had just picked them up at Saks Fifth Avenue last week and smirked at the thought of fashion having no place in battle, but a stylish warrior she would be.

She remembered as a little girl sitting at her mother’s side in between her sisters, Babycakes and Tula, in the small, hot wood frame church hearing the triumph and conquest of the Israelites booming from Reverend Truman’s pulpit. His voice filled the room with heat and bluster. She thought of herself as a great soldier, sword in hand ready to kill every Hittite she could find. She chuckled at the memory of her makeshift weapon; a tree branch stripped of leaves prancing through the woods behind her cabin looking for King Agag. The thin switch whistled as she swept it broadly from side to side, hacking at the poison ivy, decapitating her foes. Her favorite bible verse meandered through her head. It was First Samuel verse three:

“Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

“Spare them not,” she murmured eyeing the dead body coldly. The fingers of its outstretched right arm still twitching and tapping and strumming the carpet rhythmically as if counting the items on a yet undone list of things to do before death came knocking in expensive shoes.

“Whadya say ma’chere?”

She turned to see Brasileiro. Tall, but not as tall as Delpha and slightly infirmed. He walked with a limp. Pretty in the face with long eyelashes and wispy thin lips. Fair beyond belief, too white to be black. But at least both her parents were Negro. This bastard was some exotic mix of Cherokee, Creole and something else. “I bet he can see in the dark too,” Solstice thought to herself remembering hearing Mama and Aunt Dollie talking about an old aunt of theirs who was part Indian and could see the blackest man coming down the darkest road on a moonless night at fifty paces.


She hated it when he called her “ma’chere” but because it made Delpha somewhat jealous she tolerated it. Brasil, as he liked to be called, paraded around as if he was some suave Negro from Nor’leans. Truth be told, he was just another high-yella geechee running from the sticks of Virginia into the arms of magic in New York City. He grew up fatherless on rotting porches, tending chickens and eating polk salad plucked from the earth. But she didn’t hold his humble beginnings against him; hers too were dirt poor. She couldn’t even begrudge him for his pretense now. How could she? Not with her running around killing people in her flamboyantly hideous Elsa Schiaparelli lobster-printed dress. Salvador Dalí personally created the fabric for the designer and Solstice had accompanied it with agate gemstones about her wrist and throat. She didn’t like Brasil because he openly fawned over her and practically gushed compliments whenever she was around, tacking on ma’chere as if it were supposed to bring her to orgasm every time she heard it. He was just too damned available. Men should never be that easy.

Lingus approached with the head of what looked like a cross between an old woman and a cat and tossed it alongside the other head under the console. They had finished purging yet another safe house of Vivica’s loyalists. Normally, Solstice would have dispatched Brasil or Lingus for this task. Especially Lingus. He loved it so. He stood by shifting—almost bouncing—from one foot to another, dressed in an aubergine, the word he used to describe the awful purple color of his doubled breasted suit, looking greatly like a hungry animal ready to kill.

“Whadaya want me t’der wit ‘em?” he said motioning his chin with a feral chuckle at the bodiless heads. “The res'is upstairs. Back bedrum.” His eyes flicked upward. This group was exceedingly vocal and defiant of Solstice’s rule. In the near six months since she had killed Vivica and usurped her throne, she had been bringing to heel any and everyone that defied her.

“Burn this place down. Let’s go. I have a party to throw,” she said coldly. She turned to walk away and found her eyes resting on the crumpled heads by the baseboard. She squinted at the receding and mottled hairline of the man she had just killed. Instantly, fire engulfed the head quickly spreading to the cat-looking woman’s head beside it. The fire brooded there with such intensity that soon the man’s skull exploded. Solstice turned nonchalantly and walked straight towards the door whispering under her breath as Lingus brought down the rafters “Spare them not.”

The Journey Continues!

I’m so excited. I’ve just completed the book cover for The Goddess of Light. It’s so interesting wearing many hats when you take control of your own artistic life. I have been allowed to oversee the art direction of my own book so coming up with a design that is both marketable and true to the story has been difficult to say the least. Moving from idea to completion is just like writing the book itself. You conceptualize. You begin the preliminary work. You edit. You edit again. You edit even more. You edit to the point of regurgitation and when you finally say screw I’m done. Something wonderful happens. You let the work lead you and it takes you in a direction that you could have never imagined and then you bring forth something beautiful.

I believe artwork is an integral part of my books. I’ve had the immense pleasure of working with two great artists. Narcisa Jovic and Justin LaRocca Hansen, have both been singularly professional and gifted. And of course I can’t forget Pepper Kaminski my own personal art director who has “jazzed up” both my covers. The Goddess of Light is the exciting continuation of Solstice. It contains intrigue, infamy, violence, sex, drugs, magic and hot jazz. What more could you ask for from a novel about a Harlem witch that scandalizes pre-war Europe.

Look for it soon on sale everywhere in late August.

I am the sum of many parts

I just finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I was impressed by his work and research. At first I was a bit put off because I must admit that I too was a follower of that American Cult of Personality—and after speaking with many friends from many cultures realizing that the entire world had been duped— believing in the “Self-Made Man.” That unique individual who through no help from anyone else rose from the deeps of miserable poverty to achieve superstardom in whatever field he chose. Mr. Gladwell dispels this myth with extensive data collection and good old common sense. Mother Wit is the name my mother gave it.

If you’ve never heard of Horatio Alger I’m sure you've heard his
philosophy (many would now say myth) about how any any person working hard and long enough can attain great wealth in the United States. The modern Republican social platform is built around it. Mr. Alger was the writer who espoused the rags to riches story of America. He wrote over 100 books during the 19th century mostly aimed at boys and young men. “By leading exemplary lives, struggling valiantly against poverty and adversity,” Alger’s protagonists gain both wealth and honor, ultimately realizing the American Dream. Now I know for years I used to ram my head against that dream and wonder what’s wrong with me. If Oprah can start life impoverished in a one-room shack and rise to the pinnacle of running a billion dollar empire then why couldn’t I? As I read in Outliers the conventional wisdom of her fighting like a Roman gladiator to secure the legacy she now enjoys was not so much a singular event but a culmination of many milestones. Now to be honest Mr. Gladwell didn’t profile Oprah Winfrey in his book (he did profile the Beatles, Bill Gates, Joe Flom, Canadian Junior Hockey leagues, Korean Airlines, Southeast China and the peasants who work in rice paddies). I just took his formula and applied it to Oprah and indeed it worked.  Here is a quick bulleted list of the basic ingredients that goes into making a successful
person:

Opportunity
Birth
Practice/ Preparation
Intelligence
Ethnicity
Luck

Legacy
Culture
Family Support
Communications
Work Ethic
Education
Access

He says no man is built all alone; that you must practice and prepare (at least 10,000 hours to become an expert.) You’ve got to be smart. Your ethnicity can also be a powerful attribute and not just a hindrance in most cases. If your family is super upportive it will help you communicate better and therefore be more confident in going after what you want. You must have a tremendous work ethic and a good education. Now read Oprah’s biography using the above list as a filter and you will see that even she didn’t spring forth from the head of Zeus as the Oprah we’ve come to know and love.

Now after reading his book I would like to reexamine my own life and take time to reflect upon and thank all the people that helped me strive to be as successful as I am now. First I was born in a time when African-American children were being integrated into the greater society. Unlike my older cousins I grew up with diversity. My high school graduating class was the first to go through all 12 grades in an integrated school system in Winston-Salem, NC. I never felt whites were alien or foreign or less or better. They were just classmates, friends, normal people. That ease around people from all walks of life has helped me tremendously. I’ve prepared myself by writing and being creative since I was six years old making up my own stories with my G.I Joe and Planet of the Apes dolls. Being black in America has made me proud of the heritage my people have brought to the world and given me a vast stockpile of experiences to pull from.

Growing up in the South has enriched my life with the importance of honor and being a man of his word. The south was at one time racially intolerant but by confronting the evils of segregation America was made better and that helped me too. My mother put me in private art classes and took me cultural events growing up. Being a musician and an essayist herself she knew the importance of opening up the mind to divergent and sometime disparate ideas. When I was kid and asked her why there weren’t any black superheroes in my comic books she told me to create my own. I invented 77 characters: mutants, super-heroes, super-villains, aliens, demons you name it. I had many mentors all throughout school: Mr. Humphries that brought me science fiction books when I was in his 7th grade English class, Mr. Whooley and Mrs. Spaugh (two white teachers that had me switched to the more advanced literature classes after I had been put in remedial English twice by the school system even though my test scores showed a stronger aptitude), Mrs. Gerotha (G-dot G-dot) Gentry who inspired me to love everything from African folklore, Chinese proverbs to Dante’s Inferno, Dr. Peter Radcliffe whose guidance during my college years still resonates with me. My father passed his incredible willpower/ work ethic on to me. A man who was born in 1908 and had to leave school in the third grade to work on a farm but taught himself how to read and insisted on me being well educated. My mother still tells me of the days he would come home from work and implore her to help me with my homework because he could not. Recently when I saw the movie Precious the abuse and horror didn't make me cry, but when she made that first step in learning how to read I thought of my father and that made me emotional. He started working at R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1942 as a part-time laborer, carrying huge bales of tobacco to the auction floor to be sold. He retired 28-years later as a machine inspection supervisor for an entire department. He is the reason I am passionate about literacy.

So upon the shoulders of these people am I hoisted. Lifted and moved. Thank you all for the incalculable help and support. For the first time I feel like a success. Not because I have a private jet or drive a Maybach or wear Gucci (ok Universe I'm not saying I would turn any of that down!) but because of all the enriching experiences and people I have interacted with in life. Good luck and God bless.

What is the nature of happiness?

If you were to sit down right now and enumerate the things you were happy about I be the vast majority of us could only come up with a few things. We westerners are sullen and ungrateful creatures by nature. I think the frown is the national symbol of European faces. We think being unhappy is erudite. We make movies about unhappy marriages and disturbing claustrophobic homogeneous suburbs. I recently saw a movie entitled “Precious” which was about an African-American obese teen who life was unraveling by the minute. Her mother alternated between physical/ mental and sexual abuse. Her father raped her and bore two children for him (one with down syndrome whom she named Mongo—short for mongoloid), she was angry, bitter, illiterate and boxed into a corner that was drawn for her before she was born. But yet somewhere along the way she found something to laugh about. Something to call her very own and that was her children. They put a smile on her face and a purpose in her heart.

Now back to me of course. I think our (westerners) happiness is tied to control. Financial, physical, relational, you name it. They more we can control it the happier we are. If I could safely say that I would not have to worry about paying my bills, keeping my lights on and cable on and insurance paid and gym membership paid and my mother’s bills (which have recently become my bills) paid I would be immensely happy. If I could say I have complete control over my love life where I liked whomever I wanted and was guaranteed they would like me back I would immensely happy. If I knew tomorrow upon my waking up that I would have a New York Times Bestseller I would be immensely happy. Unfortunately I don’t have control over any of those things so therefore I am not happy.

Now here’s a radical theory. I must give up notions of control in order to be happy. When I learn that not all my bills are going to be paid and that I should be smart but not rigid then maybe I will be happy. If I stop looking for love then it will find me. If I say I will never think about my book selling then it will and I will be happy. I say ballocks! That is an inhuman task. Of course if I have a computer that I used to run my fledgling writing career breaks down for six weeks I am going to worry. Of course if they cut my hours on my job to the point I can barely have enough money to eat after my paycheck I am going to worry. If I find some one that I like and there is an inkling that it is not reciprocal I am going to worry. Of course if I send out email blasts, do interviews get my book reviewed contact booksellers directly and still the books don’t fly off the shelves I am going to worry. That’s just the way life is. That’s the rub.

Bare with me. I’m bringing it home. What we have to learn is the following. As cold and insensitive as it may be its true. Sometimes things happen. Its random and majestic. But its still bad. There’s no deeper meaning or purpose. Now that doesn’t mean we should just sit back and let life wash over us. We can ink out a modicum of success. If we have too many people devise a plan to either get rid of them or make more money. If the person you like don’t like you back accept it and move on. If my book isn’t selling write another book. It may sell. That’s it. The great treatise of life. The secret to happiness IS you’re not going to be happy all the time. There are going to be times you are overwhelmed by bills and finances and bounced checks and parents getting older that you have to step in and help fix. There are going to be people you meet and really like and fantasize about going to the beach and holding hands and laughing to jokes only you two find funny. Or wanting to fornicate with that person all over God’s green earth and they simple don’t feel the same about you. And let’s not get started about writing because everybody who reads your book will have an onion. Good, bad or indifferent. So the best advice that can be followed is…feel happy when you’re happy. Feel sad when you’re sad. Try to enjoy the happy to the fullest and hold on tight during the sad. The good thing is that a new day and new emotion is waiting for you just around the corner. Remember you have no control over it whatsoever!

First times a charm

I think beginnings are grand. They symbolize newness and altruism. Stuff that will come after the things that came before. They also signal endings and so in a way this new blog is the end of the fetid banality of my former life. Now I am reborn an artist. A writer. An author. I feel that my life's work has begun. Pretentious as that may sound its true. From the time of my seventh or eighth year I was writing stories usually on my mother's old typewriter held over from the Byzantine! My stories of monsters and natural disasters (I was a wild Irwin Allen fan). So now a mere quarter century later I am embarking on a new trail. Hopefully it will be a great one. I think it will.