Mar 15

THE END OF NICE & the cost of progress?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I was leaving my apartment to go outside. I live in the Big Apple on the top floor in an elevated building. I have an amazing view of the New Jersey shoreline, the George Washington Bridge and beyond to the Palisades. And of course, I can see freight ships, tugboats and the occasional pleasure craft on the Hudson River moving both south and north from my window. Anyway, the elevator stopped one floor below me to pick up passengers. Three young men stepped on the elevator and nodded at me. They looked to be in their early twenties. Two of the men were engaged in a conversation while the third was into his cellphone, poking and swiping and staring at the screen. The other two young men stopped talking to pull out their cell phones to do the same thing. This wasn’t the first time I’d ridden from the top floor to the first floor in nearly total silence with my new neighbors. I say new neighbors because my building along with hundreds of buildings in my Hamilton Heights neighborhood are undergoing substantial changes. It’s not so much the new construction as the reimagining of my neighborhoods that I see. […]
Mar 08

ACTIVISTS: WHO IS KENDALL JENNER ANYWAY?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I had time to waste so I was roaming the internet, looking at random videos. I finally saw the famous Pepsi commercial starring the one and the only Kendall Jenner who is part of the Kardashian clan. I started thinking about what it means to be an activist. When I was around Kendall’s age, I was sophomore at Ohio State University. I volunteered to help the Robert Kennedy campaign for president at Ohio State University. I believed in the things he said he would do for young people, old people, poor people, Black, Brown, and white people. Mainly, I thought he would get us out of the Viet Nam War. Along with multitudes of other young people, I went on trips across America to encourage people to register and vote in the presidential primary and then the election in November 1968. The people I met during the campaign lived in tarpaper shacks with tin roofs. I couldn’t believe that in 1968, people lived in the kind of housing I’d only seen in history books 100 years ago. The things I saw led me to believe America was great for some people. For most poor people, living in America was sheer […]
Mar 01

DUTCH CHOCOLATE1, The Vice President is missing

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
A chance meeting in a public school bathroom rekindles old feelings in PI Yolanda “Dutch” Riggins for her former college friend Judith Kerson. Forbidden to Dutch twenty years ago, as Vice President of the United States, Judith is now completely taboo. Regardless, the two make a tentative dinner date, but fate intervenes and Judith goes missing. With one Secret Service person killed and another in critical condition, witnesses are scarce and Dutch and her crew take up the reins of the investigation. Why would anyone abduct the Vice President? Is it for money, fame, or something more sinister? Whatever the reason, it is up to Dutch to find her old friend in the first novel of the action-packed, suspenseful Dutch Chocolate Series: Dutch Chocolate1: The Vice President is Missing. Available for pre-order 1/17/20. The release date is 2/02/20. ASIN: B083Z5XWMB (Kindle Version $2.99) ISBN-13: 9781661886233 (Print Version $10.99) ISBN-10: 166188623X (Print Version $10.99) Here are the links for: Dutch Chocolate1: The Vice President is missing Kindle USA : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083Z5XWMB Kindle UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B083Z5XWMB Kindle Print: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/166188623X Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1000587 Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/g16HxtlL98A Ask David: http://askdavid.com/books/10892 Connect with BL Wilson at these links: Blog: https://wilsonbluez.com FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/patchworkbluezpress Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1BDmrjJ Twitter: http://bit.ly/11fAPxR Amazon […]
Feb 23

WHY I WROTE: DUTCH CHOCOLATE1, The Vice President is missing

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. Wonder Woman made to the movies and even Oprah was impressed enough to sponsor the ultimate “Wonder Woman themed party. While I liked the idea of a powerful, heroic female star, something was still missing. I didn’t see me when I watched WW. When Marvel brought Luke Cage to Netflix and […]
Feb 16

MY BLACK HAIR IS PERSONAL & POLITICAL?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I just read some trolls’ tweets about how Michelle Obama was disappointing Black women everywhere because her hair wasn’t permed or relaxed. She was wearing it natural. At first, I thought, What? Since when did Black hairstyles become anybody’s business but the wearer’s? Or at least that’s what I first thought until I started reading women’s tweets and remembering way back when I first started wearing an Afro in college in 1966. When I was a kid, there two huge things I hated about being a Black girl in the Baby Boomer generation. I absolutely hated wearing dresses. I hated getting my hair straightened, combed, and braided every day. My mother decided her girls, meaning my sister and me, should dress like little ladies every day. The frillier or trimmed in lace, the better the dress was for “her girls.” My mother somehow managed to find socks trimmed in lace and hair ribbons to match our dresses. Oh, how I hated going to school looking like that. The only saving grace for me was that everybody’s mother dressed her girls exactly like my mother did with us. My mother decided that her girls better wear neatly braided hair every day […]
Feb 09

MY ‘LOVE’ STORY

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Back in 1982, contacting our marriage counselor was something I felt I had to do. I figured I should speak with him because I needed to know if my husband directly or indirectly mentioned his assault plans during any of his one-on-sessions. My husband had stopped attending our joint and his individual sessions with the counselor two weeks before the assault. I figured the counselor owed me the truth because I was still his patient, while my husband wasn’t so I called him. The counselor claimed that he couldn’t betray my husband’s confidence to confirm or deny my suspicions. I stopped attending his sessions after that phone call. I missed my husband at night when I was feeling particularly lonesome and didn’t have a warm body to snuggle against. I shared a fourteen-year history with my husband; but it was certainly over now. My husband saw to that the minute he let his fists do the talking for his heart. Looking back on that time, I’d love to tell you that I’ve found the most wonderful person in the world and that we’re happy. I can’t. I had a series of bad relationships after my divorce. Although none of them […]
Feb 01

DUTCH CHOCOLATE1, The Vice President is missing

by B.L. in Latest Novels 0 comments
A chance meeting in a public school bathroom rekindles old feelings in PI Yolanda “Dutch” Riggins for her former college friend Judith Kerson. Forbidden to Dutch twenty years ago, as Vice President of the United States, Judith is now completely taboo. Regardless, the two make a tentative dinner date, but fate intervenes and Judith goes missing. With one Secret Service person killed and another in critical condition, witnesses are scarce and Dutch and her crew take up the reins of the investigation. Why would anyone abduct the Vice President? Is it for money, fame, or something more sinister? Whatever the reason, it is up to Dutch to find her old friend in the first novel of the action-packed, suspenseful Dutch Chocolate Series: Dutch Chocolate1: The Vice President is Missing. Available for pre-order 1/17/20. The release date is 2/02/20. ASIN: B083Z5XWMB (Kindle Version $2.99) ISBN-13: 9781661886233 (Print Version $10.99) ISBN-10: 166188623X (Print Version $10.99) Here are the links for: Dutch Chocolate1: The Vice President is missing Kindle USA : http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083Z5XWMB Kindle UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B083Z5XWMB Kindle Print: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/166188623X Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1000587 Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/g16HxtlL98A Ask David: http://askdavid.com/books/10892 Connect with BL Wilson at these links: Blog: https://wilsonbluez.com FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/patchworkbluezpress Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1BDmrjJ Twitter: http://bit.ly/11fAPxR Amazon […]
Jan 26

Why I wrote Me & Mrs. Jones

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
AVAILABLE FOR THE HOLIDAYS ON AMAZON FOR $2.99, Me & Mrs. Jones, a love story This is my second book in the newly minted series “SONGBOOKS.” I give older popular songs, modern viewpoints that turn into novels. I always loved the song “Me and Mrs. Jones.” It was a ballad sung by smooth, jazzy Billy Paul in 1972. The ballad told the tale of a man committing adultery with a married woman. He knows she knows that it’s wrong. He knows it’s wrong to keep seeing her; but he can’t stop. She can’t stop the affair either. The two of them have a favorite meeting place where nobody knows them so nobody can tell their respective spouses about their affair. They can listen to their favorite songs and share their favorite meals together at this special meeting spot. By the end of the song, I understood how difficult it was to stop doing something that was so very wrong but felt oh, so-o-o very good. After hearing this song recently on a long drive to visit my mother and my sister in Ohio, I thought. Whoa! Wouldn’t it be interesting to write a novel based on the tale that I […]
Jan 19

Why I wrote What’s Love Got To Do With It

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
AVAILABLE FOR THE HOLIDAYS ON AMAZON FOR $2.99, What’s Love Got to do with it? In this age of social media, short-term relationships and instant gratification, I wondered what a long-term, lesbian friendship of twenty years looked like. How did the women meet? What would the women involved be like? Would they be saint-like women? Once these saints were engaged or married, they never ever looked at another woman and thought. “I want me some of that!” Or would the two friends be devilish women who wanted to sleep with every woman they saw? And tried to do so. What attracted the two women to each other in the first place. Why did they decide to become friends? The two women in question dated twenty years ago. They became friends when the dating thing didn’t work out for them. One of the women, Bianca was an attractive, charming single philanderer who loved women and lots of them. She dated Ernestine who later became her best friend and several other women simultaneously. Bianca’s unfaithful behavior hurt Ernestine who believed Bianca was the marrying kind. When Ernestine discovered Bianca’s infidelities, she decided she couldn’t trust another partner ever again. She became lucky […]
Jan 12

Why I wrote Ava & Patience

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
AVAILABLE FOR THE HOLIDAYS ON AMAZON FOR $2.99, AVA & PATIENCE, a purple love story. As I was writing another novel, “Me and Mrs. Jones,” I introduced two characters I really liked a lot. In fact, I liked them so much, I stopped writing “Me and Mrs. Jones” to begin creating “Ava and Patience, a purple love story.” I usually wait until I’m further along in one novel before I begin writing a new novel. If it’s a sequel or one of a series of reoccurring characters novels, I usually wait at least a year or longer before I begin. I don’t know why I do that. I just know that I do. A bit of self-analysis and an educated guess says, I needed time to step away from the primary characters to get a feel for the secondary characters. I needed to hear the two secondaries talking to me and telling me their stories. Yes, I admit it. My characters do talk to me and I do listen. Enough of my confessions, I wondered if I could create two female characters whose common love of purple was their first connection. Once my characters discovered they shared a commonality for […]
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