Oct 20

WHAT DOES PLEDGING ALLEGIANCE MEAN?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
When I was a kid living in Ohio, I could count on two or three things always happening to me. If it was summertime and school was out, my mother would send my siblings and me outside. We played outside all day after we finished our daily chores which included weeding my mother’s flower garden planted by our house and the large patch of vegetable garden, growing yards away from our lawn. If it was the fall and school was in session, I knew two things. The school’s cafeteria would serve the slimy, nasty-tasting olive-green canned peas I hated. I’d ended up missing lunch recess because the lunchroom teacher believed in the motto “eat everything on your plate” and I didn’t. The second thing that was a guarantee was that I’d start my day just as the other children in my class did, by pledging allegiance. I never thought about the words. I just memorized them. I stood up and faced the American flag hanging in the corner of the classroom every morning. Then I placed my right hand over my heart and repeated the memorized words about the flag and the republic. I knew what a flag was because […]
Oct 13

My mom & the Big C

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Whenever I changed doctors and had to fill out new medical forms, I was always proud of my family’s health history. You know the forms I mean. The ones that have you check off any surgery you’ve ever had and when you had it. I don’t know about you but as I’ve grown older, I can’t remember all my surgeries. Or when I had them. I’m much better at answering questions about all the diseases I’ve ever had. Or whether my parents and siblings had them too. On the health history part of the forms, I was proud to say that I didn’t have diabetes, or heart problems or high blood pressure but I did have arthritis and I was missing a gall bladder. My parents had their gall bladders along with high blood pressure and heart issues. They didn’t have diabetes. My father had prostate cancer by the time he died at 85. I wasn’t worried because I’d read somewhere that a high number of men had some evidence of prostate cancer after 75 or 80-years old. Neither of my sisters or I showed any evidence of breast cancer. Us sisters shared dense breast tissue which we inherited from […]
Oct 01

DUTCH CHOCOLATE9: Where is Vita Louise Kane?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
In the 9th novel of the action series Dutch Chocolate, rookie detective Tanya Dodge (from Forever Woman8) searches for Vita Kane, who has simply disappeared. When Tanya’s mother, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Maybelline Dodge, tells her that Vita mentioned a cousin that lived in Wickwire, New York, she takes a leave of absence from the police department. She decides to go in search of the one woman she met that didn’t make her feel less than and listened to her opinions no matter how naïve. She wants to ask Vita why she left the city and would she consider returning to the city with her. Will Tanya find Vita and convince her to be hers, forever? Find out in Dutch Chocolate9, where is Vita Louise Kane? Dutch Chocolate9: Where is Vita Louise Kane? Is now available for order. ASIN: B0DDJGHF3K (Kindle Version $3.99) ASIN: B0DDQ24S14 (Print Version $12.99) Here are the links for: Dutch Chocolate9: Where is Vita Louise Kane? Kindle USA: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DDJGHF3K Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0DDJGHF3K Kindle Print: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DDQ24S14 Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1605295 Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/irTI4_QB6Yc Connect with BL Wilson at these links: My blog: https://wilsonbluez.com/ FB page: https://www.facebook.com/patchworkbluezpress Facebook: https://on.fb.me/1zvTAcl Linked-in: https://linkd.in/1ui0iRu Amazon author page: https://amzn.to/1y7Ncar Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10787497.B_L_Wilson Twitter: https://twitter.com/wilsonbluez Smashwords Interview: […]
Sep 22

WHY I WROTE: Dutch Chocolate9: Where is Vita Louise Kane?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Years ago, long before the girl power, Black Girl Magic and the Me-Too movements, I watched Angela Jolie in the movie Laura Croft Tomb Raider. I was in love with movies again. I thought. Wow! Finally, an attractive woman in a lead role where she carries everything. She played the role of an adventurer, normally inhabited by a man. Think Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones series or Nicholas Cage in the National Treasure series, both men played adventurer roles. Their movies were quite popular with moviegoers. While watching Tomb Raider, years later, I thought to myself. How come there aren’t more action movies like this with women or minorities in main roles? Why aren’t they the stars of show? Is it because nobody would pay to see movies like this? Then I thought. I’d go see it. I bet I could find plenty of other folks would too. I decided I’d write a series of books about a Black lesbian with code name Dutch Chocolate. She has a background in NYPD as a sergeant in East Harlem, before joining the army and going to the Middle East to work in Intel. She returns to work in one of NYPD’s […]
Sep 15

STAY WOKED UP & VOTE!

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
As a writer, I couldn’t let President-elect Trump’s inauguration pass without comment and so I pose this question to all of us. When will we working Americans get “woke up” to the fact that Trump’s Cabinet represents the final, end game for the very wealthy? We will soon see Trump’s wealthy cabinet taking over public arenas we once thought safe from harm. His people will privatize, privatize and privatize some more so their fellow 1 percenters & billionaires can make even more money than they can ever possibly spend. Trust me, they won’t spend their ill-gotten gains either. Instead, Trump’s cronies will put their loot into offshore accounts to keep it safe for their heirs just as their ancestors did for them. It will the biggest transfer of wealth from the middle class, working poor and the poor to the 1% that we have ever seen. Trump’s cabinet is set to gut all programs that average, God-fearing Americans need to survive including government programs in intel, agriculture, energy, defense, education, labor and health & human services. Why else would he select unproven billionaires/millionaires for these positions? Being wealthy but unproven isn’t enough to successfully run a country and especially not […]
Sep 08

WE BE TRYING TO FIND COMMON GROUND

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
When Walter Scott’s murderer might be set free, I was horrified. I knew something funny was going on when I heard a juror, I believe the same person who hung the jury, wrote a letter to the judge. In the letter to the judge, this juror claimed he or she was feeling pressured to change their vote. Keep in mind in this state, communication between a sitting judge and a juror who is not the foreperson is not allowed. I’m not sure what the judge said to the letter writing juror, I do know the jury foreperson told the judge they were deadlocked but that the jury wanted go back and try to reach a unanimous decision. In South Carolina, a judge cannot legally send the jury back a third time decide a defendant’s fate but if the jury volunteers to continue, apparently a judge can allow them to go back and try to reach a decision. I just pray the officer who murdered Walter Scott doesn’t go free because one person said he or she couldn’t make up his mind. Meanwhile, his or her eleven fellow jurors felt there was enough evidence to find for a guilty verdict. A […]
Sep 01

DUTCH CHOCOLATE9: Where is Vita Louise Kane?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
In the 9th novel of the action series Dutch Chocolate, rookie detective Tanya Dodge (from Forever Woman8) searches for Vita Kane, who has simply disappeared. When Tanya’s mother, NYPD Deputy Commissioner Maybelline Dodge, tells her that Vita mentioned a cousin that lived in Wickwire, New York, she takes a leave of absence from the police department. She decides to go in search of the one woman she met that didn’t make her feel less than and listened to her opinions no matter how naïve. She wants to ask Vita why she left the city and would she consider returning to the city with her. Will Tanya find Vita and convince her to be hers, forever? Find out in Dutch Chocolate9, where is Vita Louise Kane? Dutch Chocolate9: Where is Vita Louise Kane? Is available for pre-order 8/20/24. The release date is 9/02/24. ASIN: B0DDJGHF3K (Kindle Version $3.99) ASIN: B0DDQ24S14 (Print Version $12.99) Here are the links for: Dutch Chocolate9: Where is Vita Louise Kane? Kindle USA: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DDJGHF3K Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0DDJGHF3K Kindle Print: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DDQ24S14 Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1605295 Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/irTI4_QB6Yc Connect with BL Wilson at these links: My blog: https://wilsonbluez.com/ FB page: https://www.facebook.com/patchworkbluezpress Facebook: https://on.fb.me/1zvTAcl Linked-in: https://linkd.in/1ui0iRu Amazon author page: https://amzn.to/1y7Ncar Goodreads: […]
Aug 25

WHY I WROTE: WHAT YOU SEE AIN’T WHAT YOU GET, a story of abandonment, loyalty and love.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I wrote this novel in 2010. I knew it contained a story of child abuse worth telling. I just wasn’t sure when the time was ripe to tell it. That was because the abusers were members of a well-connected religious community. While their victims were essentially orphans of color who had no support systems in place to protect them. I worried that the acts of abuse and molestation might be too lewd to tell. Or worse when I described the acts, my book would be placed in the X-rated category. This story would never get to the people I wanted to reach. I also thought it was a story worth telling because I met several women and at least one man who went through something like this when they were kids. Their adult abusers were respected members in their communities and were believed. The child victims were blamed for what happened, if they were believed. If they weren’t believed, the children were left to suffer in silence. Either way the children were shunned by their communities. They had no caring adults help them through a difficult time. They had nobody to lean on and so they were forced to help […]
Aug 18

THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
When I was still working for city government, I formed a great friendship with a female co-worker. We used to talk about everything. She knew I was gay and accepted that fact. She also knew years ago that I’d been through a nasty divorce just as she was going through one currently. We exchanged notes about how bad my ex-husband or her soon-to-be former husband were. We spoke about our husbands’ idiocy about misusing our children’s affections or playing games with child support, hoping if things were bad enough for us, we’d come running back to them. We shared the difficulties of raising children as single working mothers. On the job, we also wondered why this unqualified, lazy so and so was promoted or given a raise when we had more qualifications and better service records, but we were not considered promotable. We had typical girl talks. While I liked all the things I had in common with my good friend, what really fascinated me was our weekly discussions about televisions programs we watched, which sometimes led to political discussions. My friend convinced me to watch Sleepy Hollow. I truly loved idea of a young Black as a romantic interest […]
Aug 11

HISTORY & WHO TELLS IT

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The picture above was taken in 2015 around Thanksgiving. The shadows you see are my mother and me. We’re watching what’s left of our home being torn down. It’s a complete surprise to us. We both thought when she sold it to a nice young white couple for a great deal less than she imagined, the house … our house would be there forever. It just wouldn’t belong to us any longer. Two other unique houses built by the first Black families to live in this township, just outside of Akron, Ohio, were gone too. My home and my history as well as the homes and histories of the two other Black doctors had been torn down and buried in the in the grassy earth. Permit me to explain by going a bit backwards. My mother sold our home eight years ago in 2010. She’d been trying to sell the ranch-style home for years. She couldn’t get the asking price for it. Since the area my mother lived in had been zoned for commercial as well as residential use, she thought it would be easier to sell her house. Unfortunately for my mother, Ohio was one of those states that […]
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