Beyond the Thriller: S.A. Cosby in Conversation with Derrick Young at the Black Books Matter Festival

[00:00:01] This is the MahoganyBooks Podcast Network.

[00:00:43] Hold on, let me, let me, ahem. Derrick A. Young is a founder and co-owner of MahoganyBooks, a nationally recognized and award-winning independent bookstore based out of Washington, D.C. bout to open in Woodmore Town Center, Merlin, alright? Just right up the road. Under Derrick's leadership, MahoganyBooks has become a cultural and community enterprise that provides a space and platform for local and national authors,

[00:01:11] celebrity risers, writers, and community leaders. Over the years, MahoganyBooks has featured President Barack Obama, U.S. Representative John Lewis, April Ryan Ta-Nehisi Coates, pardon me, Jason Reynolds, right, Misty Reynolds, good goodness, good Misty Copeland, Gabrielle Union, Lord, every, any and everybody. Any and everybody, okay?

[00:01:37] He is a graduate, proud alum of Bowie State University. And he also remains an avid comic book and sneaker collector. And he's just an all-around dope brother, and a husband, and a father, and good to be in your presence, brother. Derrick Young, y'all. And S.A. Crosby. This is, for the record, this panel is called Beyond the Thriller. Dun, dun, dun.

[00:02:04] Y'all hear them saxophones getting loud? Okay. He's an award-winning American crime fiction author known for his gritty Southern noir novels set in rural Virginia. Chad, I done driven down them roads in rural Virginia. Mm-hmm. Glad I've never been part of a story.

[00:02:27] He is the best-selling author of acclaimed thrillers like Blacktop, Wasteland, and All the Sinners Bleed, exploring race, class. Oh, oh! And his newest work, King of Ashes. Welcome here, brothers, to Black Books Matter Fest. Enjoy your conversation. What's going on, everybody? How you doing? Give another round of applause for my man, S.A. Cosby.

[00:03:00] So, I'm super excited because, you know, so this festival is, number one, a dream of my wife's. Like, this has been, since we started Mahogany Books, I don't know, since in 2007, she's always wanted to do a book festival. So, you know, I stand back and my sister does a thing, right? She's awesome at this. But there's sometimes, you know, every now and then she gives me a treat, right? She's like, well, hey, Derek, what do you kind of want, what would you like to see there?

[00:03:30] She knows I love this man's books, right? I say, brother, your stuff is fantastic. Oh, man, thank you. Thank you guys for being here. Thank you all for having me. I appreciate that. I'll Venmo you later about that. No need. No need. I'm good. So, every, so we have a book club called Black Books Matter Book Club. And we meet the first Friday of every month. And, thank you, thank you. So, there you go. All right. All right.

[00:04:01] And I think for like the last four or five years, your book has been on a, like as soon as I see it, I add it to the reading list. So, like we're just that much in love with your book. Oh, man. Thank you all so much. I appreciate it. So, let's, I had some questions, but we was over there just vibing, having some good conversation. So, I think maybe we'll just kind of start there.

[00:04:24] I think, I'm excited that you guys are here because this speaks to something we were just talking about. That there are hundreds of thousands of black folks out there. Just not black folk, but people who love literature written by black authors. And the fact that you guys are showing up, being here, standing in line, coming out. It's a beautiful day to hear from this brother. It says a lot. And we're trying to get the publishers to recognize that.

[00:04:52] So, there's not just Essay Cosby, but all the other public writers who are doing great work. So, let's just do something real quick. Kind of talk about what does this type of event turnout mean for writers like yourself and you specifically? Yeah. I mean, for me, it's an incredible compliment to my work. It's an honor to be here. I was just talking to Derek over there. When I started out, you know, I'm a crime writer. There aren't a lot of black crime writers.

[00:05:22] There's not a lot of black thriller writers. And so, when you do events, a lot of times, you're kind of lonely because there's not a huge black audience in an event. I've been to many a conference up and down the East Coast where I'm the only black writer or the only black crime writer there. And sometimes you feel lost. You feel left out because there's not any of your people there. And publishers will tell you that. When I first started, it was like, you know, we really like your books, but we don't see a market for them. And I'm like, really? And I had one publisher ask me, could you make it blacker? Because we needed to speak to a more black, more urban experience.

[00:05:52] And I was like, I don't know. I'm pretty black. I don't know if we're going to get any blacker. But you heard a lot of that starting out. You know, and I got told no a lot of times. I used to get the, I call it the three-quarter rejection letter. Because the first paragraph will tell you how good your characters are. Second paragraph will tell you how good your dialogue is. Third paragraph will tell you how great your atmosphere is. And then the fourth paragraph will tell you, we don't know what to do with it, so good luck. And so I used to get those all the time. And my first book was rejected over 60 times. You know?

[00:06:20] I told my agent at the time, because he's not my agent now, he dropped me because I just kept getting rejected. And I was like, you ain't got to keep sending me the emails. Like, you can just tell me yes or no. But you know, when I finally got a deal with Flatiron Books, I printed all those emails up and I set them on fire. I was like, I put them in a barrel and burnt them. Because it was like such a cathartic release. You know, it was almost like a ritual that I got to let that go. And you know, that agent, he dropped me. He says, you know, I think you're a really great writer. There's just no place to sell your books.

[00:06:50] And so then a year later, I got with my current agent and you know, I published Black Top Wasteland. So now whenever I see that other guy, he'll just buy me a drink. He'll come up to me and he's like, I guess I was wrong. I was like, yeah. Yes. You 100% was wrong. So I would like to, like starting from the beginning as a kid from rural Virginia, like, did you imagine yourself at this point? Is there something about... I never imagined this would happen.

[00:07:19] Like, I wanted to write, but you know, if anybody ever tells you that somebody who's a great success, they tell you they expected it, they're lying to you. You know, I wanted it. I hoped for it, but I never expected it. When I first started writing, I just wanted people other than my mother and my brother to like my stuff. You know, like, I didn't care about money. I didn't care about awards. I just wanted somebody who wasn't related to me, who didn't have to be nice to me, tell me they liked my books. And that was such a great feeling when I finally got that.

[00:07:48] But I grew up in a house full of readers. My mom, we lived with my grandmother after my parents split up. And so everybody in the house read. My grandmother read romance novels. My mom read historical novels and biographies. My aunt who lived next door read, she did my first Stephen King book when I was 12. And my uncle read old mystery novels. So he turned me on to Chester Himes and, you know, Raymond Carver and Darrell Goins, Donald Goins and people like that. So I was always around writers and, I mean, readers.

[00:08:15] And so that sort of engendered in me this idea of storytelling. And also, I grew up in a rural area. You know, my dad had 11 brothers and sisters. I got a bunch of cousins. And so, which makes dating hard because you got to leave the county if you want to get a girlfriend. I used to come up. That's a different conversation. I know, right? No, I used to come up from school and tell my mom, oh, I saw this girl and she has pretty eyes. And the first thing my mother would ask me, what's her mama name? God damn. Never mind. But I wrote my first story at seven for my mom.

[00:08:46] My mom used to read bedtime stories and fairy tales and stuff like that to me. And I would always complain about the logic in the stories because it didn't make sense to me. Like, why are the three pigs building houses out of stick and straw when they got a pile of bricks right there? And so one day my mom got mad. She said, well, write your own damn story then, all right? And I said, I will. And I wrote this story about these elves that lived in the magnolia tree in our backyard. And I remember the look on her face because she asked me who helped me with it, who helped me write it. I said, I wrote it all by myself.

[00:09:16] And she asked my aunt because I used to hang out with my aunt a lot. And then she said, I didn't have nothing to do with this. And the look on her face when she realized that I had written it all by myself, I've been chasing that look the rest of my life. So I think that takes me to my next question. Like, how do you know that the story is done? Like, is there a feeling? Is there a... Because I'm just thinking about, like, you know, all the different books, all the different stories.

[00:09:42] And I got to say, like, you blew our minds at the end when we realized... Who... Has everyone read every book? Look, look, look, look. I don't care. This is spoilers, okay? Look, look, look. Spoiler alert. When we realized that there was a character showing up in King of Ashes, we was like, oh, my God. Okay, what's going on here? Like, give me the next damn book right now. Hurry up. I don't care what the publishers want. I need the book. What's going on?

[00:10:12] Well, you know, it's funny. I've been lucky enough to meet writers who were my heroes, who have become my colleagues, which is such an incredibly surreal moment. You know, you grow up reading Walter Moseley, Dennis Lehane, Jessamyn Ward, Terry McMillan. And then you go, you become a writer, you're lucky enough to have a little success, and then you go to like the LA Times Book Awards, and you're having dinner with Walter Moseley.

[00:10:37] And you're having drinks with Dennis Lehane, or Terry McMillan comes enjoying your table in the green room. And so what I learned from these folks is, to me, a book is just a snapshot of a character's life, right? It's three years, 30 years, five days, two months, whatever in this character's life. There's a lot of stuff that happened before the book, and there's a lot of stuff that's going to happen after the book. For me, the story ends when I feel like the character has made this journey emotionally, that they're different at the end than they are at the beginning.

[00:11:07] So if you read like Razorblade Tears, obviously Ike and Buddy Lee in the beginning are homophobic. They're very full of toxic masculinity. They're also very emotionally fragile. They're full of grief. And by the end of the book, you know, they've changed. They haven't become perfect, but they've become better. And so for me, every character, I want them to experience that journey of change. Titus, in All the Sinners Bleed, at the beginning, is very rigid, very focused, got a little bit of OCD. But by the end of it, he's kind of let go of that.

[00:11:35] And he let go of the things that he thought gave his life purpose. So there's this journey that my characters take. There's a lot of stuff that happens to Titus after the book closes, which I may or may not write about one day. But to me, that story is just a snapshot of a character's life. So it doesn't have to feel like this momentous, epic ending. You just have to come to the end of the journey that they're on during the book. Okay. So I was trying to be prepared, right? I'm trying to be a great host. I was trying to do some research. I think I have this right.

[00:12:04] Like, my understanding is that you have a, basically like a biography for your main characters? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So one, we need those. Like, just give us the biography. I don't want to see those. Yes, we do. Yes, we do. But go ahead. So my question is, is there something, like you talked about the emotional journey. Are there parts of this biography that you wrote for these characters? Hey, y'all.

[00:12:29] It's Nakara, host of Dot Dot Dot, But Make It Books, a podcast where we're bookishly healing through life. In this podcast, we use fiction and nonfiction as a doorway into the deeper parts of life. Think ambition, healing identity, the questions you didn't even know you were carrying. Every episode, we let the book lead us somewhere real. Because the best stories don't just entertain you. They help you understand yourself. So go ahead and find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Subscribe now and bring your whole self to the conversation.

[00:12:59] Peace, y'all. Like, is there something that you can share with us? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'll use Titus as an example, right? So all my characters, my main characters, I write them biographies for myself. What their favorite color is. What their favorite ice cream is. Who's their first kiss. The things that they're, like with Titus, his biography starts when he's born. It talks about him winning the state football championship with his friends. It talks about his mother passing. It talks about his fears. He has a phobia. This is what I use it for.

[00:13:28] He has a phobia of snakes, right? But nobody in the book knows that. But if you've read the book, there's a scene, very particular scene, where he's investigating a body and a snake comes out the body's mouth. And he does this thing where he doesn't move. Now, if you're reading, you think, well, he's tough like that. No, he's afraid of snakes, but he doesn't want his men to know it. And so that informs the choices he might make. With Ike and all the sinners bleed, I mean, with Ike and Razorblade, there's a lot of stuff that happened to Ike in prison that we don't know. But I know from the biography, I know that somebody tried to assault him in prison.

[00:13:57] I know that that influenced his homophobia. I know that he trained and got better at being a gardener because he liked being outside. Took him out of the cell. All these things inform his decisions and direction in the story. I don't ever put a lot of that stuff, 95% of that stuff doesn't make it in the actual text of the book, but it's rattling around in my head. And so I use it to make these characters work within their psychological framework. See, so I'm a sci-fi nerd, right?

[00:14:25] So I've been a Star Wars fan. Like, I love mythology, all these type of universe-type building epics. So that always interests me, the backstory of these individuals. Like, what got you to the place that that was a necessity? I love reading. I've been a big reader all my life. And a lot of times you read a book, say, for instance, like, there's a writer named Donald Westlake who wrote the Parker series.

[00:14:55] And Parker series is about this thief who's like this real, just old-school 1950s, 1940s tough thief, right? But you never learn anything about him. Anything. You don't even know his real name because Parker's not his real name. So you're in it for the action and the plot. But I started thinking, like, well, what is this guy like when he's at home, when he's not robbing a bank or a jewelry store or whatever? What is he like when there's no big heist on the horizon? What does he do on the weekend? Does he watch football? Does he garden? Does he grill? And those ideas started getting in my head.

[00:15:24] So when I started writing my own books, I just wanted to have some kind of launching pad that I could use to pull from when we get into the book. Because a lot of times you read a book that sometimes characters do things you don't understand why they're doing them. You know? Sometimes an author will make a character do something because the, not because the character would do it, but because they need the character to do it to advance the plot in a certain way. I don't like writing like that. I'm not criticizing anybody. But I don't want a book where you making a character, like when you watch a horror movie,

[00:15:52] characters have to do dumb shit or the horror movie doesn't go on. You know what I mean? And that's the conceit that you go in when you see Friday the 13th or Halloween or whatever. It's like, you know, why are you going in that house, you know, where everybody's been murdered in the last six years? Well, if you don't go in the house, then the story of the movie doesn't move forward. Right. I wanted to sort of circumvent that with my characters. So you understand, like there's a scene in Razorblade a lot of people complain about. It's halfway through the book. Buddy Lee is with Ike's wife, Maya. They're at Buddy Lee's trailer.

[00:16:22] They get a call from Maya's neighbor, Maya and Ike's neighbor. Your house is on fire. And Buddy Lee tells her, he's like, I'm not a smart man, but that's obviously a trap. That's got to be a trap. And she's like, I don't care. My son's baby shoes are in the house. And if you can't understand that, yes, she's doing something that looks dumb. But if there's even a chance that she can save those baby shoes, because that's all she has of Isaiah now. Yes, it's a dumb move. It's a stupid thing to do. Anybody Lee calls him on it. But he also goes with her. He's not going to let her go by herself.

[00:16:49] And you have to understand why that character is doing it, because that's all she has for her son. You know, she doesn't have anything else. And so she makes that decision. Buddy Lee is doing his best as a hero to try to protect her. I didn't want to leave this. But people complain. I've done signs where people complain to me. Why is she going to get baby shoes? And I'm like, if you don't understand that, then you don't have a little child in your life that you care about. You know? And so that's the thing that I'm, again, trying to circumvent the bad decision by trying to explain it and how it makes sense to the person or the character in that moment. Okay.

[00:17:19] So, personal question. Listen, I'm assuming what I thought were just individual stories, that there's now this connected universe. Can we talk about this? I'm interested in knowing this. How about you guys? I do like doing the S.A. Cosby shared universe. I like having characters pop up or names being mentioned. There's a character in my first book, my very, very first book called My Darkest Prayer. There's this crazy white boy named Skunk, right? And he's the main character's best friend.

[00:17:48] And I referenced him in Blacktop Wasteland. You know? Then you take Blacktop Wasteland. I reference, you know, you go into Razor Blade Tears. I reference Blacktop Wasteland. Right? And then in All the Sinners Bleed, I reference Razor Blade Tears and the gang, the motorcycle gang from Razor Blade. It's in reference in that. I like that. King of Ashes. If you read it, you might have caught it. There's a reference to Bug from Blacktop Wasteland in there. Right? There's a reference, you know, of course, the cameo. I guess we can say who it was.

[00:18:17] Ike makes a cameo appearance in King of Ashes. And I did that because of two things. I like Ike. And I thought he would be a good counterpoint to Dante in the book. Because he's been through what Dante is going through. And he's learned a lesson from it. Dante hasn't. But he's trying his best to help him out. And also, I had a lot of people that asked me, like, how is Ike doing? Like, he's a real person. I mean, like, you know, they just got Roku. You know? Yeah, him and Maya just got their Roku hooked up. So they're doing great.

[00:18:47] But people, it made me realize, and it's the best compliment you can have as a writer, people love him. People love Ike. They want the best for him. They want him to be okay. Okay. So getting to see him for a minute, you get to see him, you know? And if you notice, this is after Raised by Tears because he has a tattoo on his arm. You know? He has a tattoo of his son and his daughter, his granddaughter. And he has a tattoo of the song lyric that Buddy Lee liked. So this is after. So he's doing all right. And I like seeing it as a writer, that he's okay.

[00:19:14] I mean, he'll still, you know, fuck you up, but he's doing all right. So I'm imagining there's going to be, like, some kind of Vinders kind of mashup happening here when, like, these people are all coming together in one book. Like, that's... I don't know if they'll let me do it in a book, but I've been thinking about doing a short story, like a long short story. Whatever you got. You take it. Something. Come on now. Well, I'm working on... This is a little early in the conversation. The book I'm working on now is a prequel to Black Top Wasteland.

[00:19:42] And it's about Bugs' father in 1981. And I've been having fun writing that. Okay. The people like it. The people like it. Okay. Okay. So I don't know. I had some questions. But the next one was going to be, like, a little bit more serious. But I'm enjoying what we're having now. I think I do kind of want to kind of talk to... Again, this is the Black Books Matter Festival, right?

[00:20:11] And we came up with that line. Actually, it was soon after the murder of Trayvon Martin. And I recall that I was reading some article about... You know, it was a history article. Mm-hmm. And it was... The issue was that they weren't talking, telling our story. And it came to my mind that this is why Black Books Matter.

[00:20:40] Because we now get to own our voice. Yeah. And tell the story. So kind of going back to the story you were talking about with the 12 crime fiction. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was just talking to him before we came on. Like I said before, being a Black or... I wouldn't even say just Black. Just a person of color who's a crime writer. It can be very lonely. Because you go to an event, and it's like all old white lady cozy writers. And you're there by yourself. And, you know, like, what do you write? People get shot in the face a lot of my books.

[00:21:09] And then you go to a more upscale, more... I've been to, like, quote-unquote literary fest. Where these are the nasty, the most bitter people in the world. Forgetting all these Pulisers and stuff. They are so angry and so mean. And it's like, y'all need a hug. But there was a writer named Kelly Garrett who wrote Missing White Woman, Like a Sister. Great writer out of New Jersey. And she put together a group with Walter Mosley and an Indian writer from Delhi named Gigi Padian.

[00:21:38] And they created this group called Crime Writers of Color. And when it started, it was just 12 of us back in 2015. We were just the only 12 people of color and one gay guy, P.J. Vernon. And we were just the only ones that were outside the norm of regular crime fiction. We didn't get invited to the conferences. We didn't get, you know, the featured guest of honor posts and stuff like that. So we kind of looked out for ourselves. And the last count, I think it's up to 300 now. Yeah. And it's such a beautiful thing because it's a family, you know.

[00:22:06] Writing is the world's loneliest team sport, you know. It's you in the chair, but there's your spouse, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your friends, your family, your other writing friends that support you. This group does that for us in a way that I don't think a group not made up of people of color could do. We appreciate that response there. So I think, let me see if I've got some time for questions.

[00:22:33] What I'm curious about, though, is as you are developing this group of writers, these 300 writers, like, what is the, like, from the publishing industry side, what have you seen some of the advances that has been made to allow you to keep? I will tell you this. A couple years ago, about five years ago maybe, there was a trend on Twitter, on social media, but it started on Twitter, called What Publishing Paid Me, right?

[00:23:01] There were a couple white writers who realized the disparity between what they were getting paid and what black and other people of color were getting paid. And one of the things that Crime Writers of Color did is that we couldn't, actually, Kelly did it. She collected all those tweets in a document and put it on our website, and she said, if you're a crime writer of color and you have the same credentials, look for your name and see if you have the same credentials as a writer who got more of an advance than you did.

[00:23:29] So when you go back to your next contract, your next publisher, you tell them, no, I want what that person got. I deserve that. And to tell you a true story about that, you can applaud that. There was a friend of mine, a white woman writer named Allison Dickinson. We have similar sort of credentials. Neither one of us have college degrees. Both of us made our start in short story writing, and we both had a previous novel on an independent publisher.

[00:23:57] Mine was My Darkest Prayer got published by Intrigue Publishing, which is run by Austin and Denise Camacho out of Columbia, Maryland. And then she was on a smaller independent thing. So we both made the jump to, like, the big publisher at the same time. She wrote a debut domestic suspense thriller called The Other Mrs. Miller. She got $100,000 for that. I wrote Black Top Wasteland. I got $5,000. Yeah. And they don't like for you to tell that, the publisher. They don't want you to talk to each other because they don't want you to share that information.

[00:24:27] But I say it all the time. I say it 50 times a day. Make my teeth white because I want people to know. You have to know what the floor is so you don't think that the ceiling is above you. You have to know where the bottom starts and how high you can go up. And so, in the end, it was kind of a blessing in disguise because when you get an advance from a publisher, you don't start earning royalties until you pay the advance back, right? Over the summer of 2020, I paid that advance back quick. So, like, I didn't realize it either.

[00:24:58] Thank you. My agent called me that following year and was like, hey, I got your first royalty check. I need your banking information, your accounting number, your routing number. He had sent me the $5,000 check on paper. So, I was like, well, just send me the check, man. He was like, I cannot send you this check. And I was like, send me the check. And he said, Sean, I have to wire it to you. I was like, well, why not? Why can't you? I was getting irritated, you know? And he said, it's $112,000.

[00:25:27] And I was like, I was like, I'll come get it. I will ride a unicycle. I will jump on a horse. I'm there in 15 minutes. I will be there. You stay right there. I'm coming. But seriously, there is this great disparity in both what you get paid as a writer. Well, I shouldn't say paid. What you get as an advance as a writer of color. But also, the biggest thing is, how much marketing money are they putting behind you? There are so many. Because here's the reality, just for a second. Here's the reality.

[00:25:56] We don't get as many bites at the apple as anybody else. Everybody else gets three strikes, right? We get one. There's a writer I know right now, a guy who he had wrote this one book. It came out, did really well. He wrote a second one. It didn't do as well. Then the New Yorker wrote an expose on him. He got a new contract. He's got a new book. We don't get those chances. We come out the gate, and it ain't a success off the top. It's very hard to get a second deal. It's very hard to get the two-book deal after that.

[00:26:23] And when you go into these meetings, if anybody's an aspiring writer here, and you get a chance to go into a meeting with a publisher, ask them how much money are you putting on behind the marketing for this? Because they'll tell you black books don't make it and then won't advertise them. They won't support them. They won't do anything to promote them. So ask what's your advertising budget, and what this compares to people that are in the same level that I'm on. I'm trying not to go onto my soapbox. I really want to get on my soapbox right now, guys.

[00:26:49] I do not understand how difficult it is to even sometimes to get authors, publishers to send authors to us as black bookstores. That becomes an issue. When we first opened in 2007, no, I'm sorry, 2017 in Anacostia, I was weekly emailing publishers trying to get them out there to us. And I'm like, we're in Washington, D.C.

[00:27:18] Like the number of bookstores out here. It's funny because the way they do that, there's two ways they do it. I learned this on my last tour. Some bookstores, it's almost like they make you bid. Like how many books are you going to buy? And then it's like, so let's say for instance, Mahogany says we'll buy 50 copies of Sean S.A. Cosby. Then you'll turn around and they'll tell you, well, you know, poets and prose, they said they'd buy 100. So we're going to send you to poets and prose and not to Mahogany. I don't understand why you can't do both.

[00:27:48] And that happened to me on my tour. Somebody called me out for that and I said, I didn't know because I didn't know that's how it worked. So you have to ask questions. And I asked and then I did like two stops at Charm City Books and then I did one at a black bookstore in Manassas. So it's again, you have to ask these questions. I think one thing I wanted to say real quick, a lot of times as a writer, when you get in a contract, you're so grateful. And you should be. It's an accomplishment. But don't let your gratefulness hide your self-respect.

[00:28:17] Have self-respect. Ask questions. Push and ask questions. Because then a closed mouth doesn't get fed. And again, I just want to make sure that I commend all you, everyone here that came to this event, that's going to all the other festivals throughout the country this summer season.

[00:28:40] Because what it means when you buy the book, either from a Mahogany Books, from another black bookstore or regular bookstore, or you go into the library to check it out. That stuff is being tracked. Exactly. And it says something to the publishers because now they'll call us and say, hey, do you want this person? Right. I'll tell you a funny story real quick. I know we got to take questions in a minute. I was on tour last year for King of Ashes and I went to Cumberland County, which is outside Atlanta, at that Barnes & Noble there.

[00:29:09] And I got there and they had 50 chairs set up. And I said, I'm not trying to be high on the hog. I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal. You're going to need more than 50 chairs. And the lady was there. She's like, no, we've done this before. We know how many people come out. I said, I'm telling you, you're going to need more than 50 chairs. And it got closer to the time and people started coming in and coming in. And if you go online, it's on TikTok.

[00:29:37] You can see there's like 180 people there. And there's 130 people standing up. And so I got up my chair because I felt bad sitting down. But that's the thing. Seeing this crowd, seeing this festival, there's this idea in publishing. They'll tell you, well, black people don't read or black people don't do this. And it's like, I don't know what house y'all was in growing up in. But when I grew up, my mama read everything. Ebony, Jet, Alex Haley, Essence. Every book that had black enterprise.

[00:30:07] And I hate math. But every book that had black people on it, my mother had it. You got to like math now. I know, right? But that's the thing. They'll tell you that. And I saw on my tour last year, that was the only place that that happened. Every other place I went to, the most people I spoke in front of was in St. Louis, Missouri. I spoke in front of 387 people. I saw people that drove from Chicago to come down there. So don't let anybody tell you that black people don't read. Yeah, yeah.

[00:30:34] And I mean, again, that is genre fiction, right? Like, again, there are so many different areas, whether it's sci-fi, like epic, high fantasy. There's so many different subgenres that we need to get more black writers into. Oh, yeah. N.K. Jemisin can't do it all by herself. You know? And she's great. Yeah, yeah. She's fantastic. So do we... Nina just want to check. Is it Q&A time or... Hmm? Okay, okay.

[00:31:04] All right. So we got 10 minutes. So... Your ancestor's story is proof that strength and dignity endure even when everything else is taken away. When it comes to honoring that legacy, your privacy should never be in question. At AfricanAncestry.com, your story and your information belong to you. We destroy every DNA sample and never sell or share your data with anyone.

[00:31:30] Discover where in Africa your story began accurately and safely with AfricanAncestry.com. Okay. Tell a story. I don't know. I do. No, no, no, no. I have a question here. Okay. Okay. So, one of my... So my other research was I think you don't start a book until you have a title. That's my superstition. Okay. So go tell the folk. Okay. So I have a... Okay. So I don't start writing...

[00:31:59] I'll get an idea, right? But I don't start writing that idea down until I get a title that I feel is worthy of the idea. And it can take a minute. That King of Ashes took me three months. I had the idea in May of last year. No, I mean May of 24. And then I couldn't come up with a title for like three months. And I just couldn't do it. I have this superstition. If I do it, it won't work out because I've done it with all the other books. And then it was funny. I was sitting there. I was frustrated. My wife was in the kitchen. And she had come home from work. And I was sitting in the office. And I was just so frustrated.

[00:32:30] And she came in. She says, what's wrong? I said, I can't start this damn book because I can't think of a title. And she said, what's the book about? And it's so funny because she doesn't read my book because she don't like violence. But I said... And she's a mortician, which is crazy. And so we were sitting there talking. And I said, it's about this family that owns a crematory. But these gangsters get involved. And we went back and forth. And then she said something about... She said something about a song that she likes, right? She liked a song called The Rain King.

[00:33:00] And she was like, yeah, that sounds sad, like The Rain King. And then when she said that, I was like, that's it, King of Astros. And it clicked. And then I wrote the book. And so she's demanding credit for that now. She's the co-writer now. Name up top. Okay. So has it happened in reverse where you came up with a title but didn't have the concept for the book? Yes. All the Sinners Bleed. I had that title in the back of my pocket for years.

[00:33:28] And I said, one day I'm going to write a book titled that's All the Sinners Bleed. And then when I started writing it, I couldn't. It was... I had the wrong idea because originally it wasn't going to be a murder mystery. It was going to be about small town corruption. I started that book right after George Floyd was murdered. And I was so angry. I was too angry to write the story. And I stepped away from it. I was like 20,000 words in. And I was like, this is not working. This ain't working. And I stepped away from it. And a friend of mine was asking me about it. And he said something I'll never forget.

[00:33:57] And I was saying, yeah, man, I'm working on this book. I wanted to be as successful as Razor Blay Tears. He said, well, it ain't got to be as successful as Razor Blay Tears. It's just got to be a good book. And when he said it, it's almost like he gave me the freedom to let go of this other plot. And then I came up with the mystery plot. And, you know, it worked out. And actually, that's going to be a TV show next year. It's going to be on Netflix. So let's talk about that. Okay. Yeah. So we got some news. We got some like...

[00:34:24] Did we just release like some Comic-Con level news here for everybody? I've seen the first episode. It's amazing. It's really good. Yeah. It's incredible. I was really happy seeing it. But it's so funny. You go into these meetings, you know, you sell an option on a book to a filmmaker. Sometimes nothing ever happens with it. Sometimes something's happened with it. And we went into that meeting and we're sitting there on Zoom talking. And my agent, he had to leave for some reason. And he left. And then as soon as he left, they started talking about... They were like...

[00:34:54] The people at Netflix were like, well, you know, how much money is it going to take for us to be in business together? And I was like, I do not have an answer for that. Because my manager, my agent's gone. So I texted him under the table. I was like, hey, man, I don't know what's going on, but they asked you about money. So he says, tell him you're going to need... What did he say? Tell him you're going to need $900,000. We can't do any business with less than $900,000. He said, we'll come down. They'll come up. We'll meet in the middle. Right? So I said, well, I don't think we're going to be...

[00:35:21] You know, I don't think we're going to be able to be in business for anything less than $900,000. And the guy at Netflix was like, sold. I was like, but I should have asked a million. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm stuck on that. Like, damn. There's nothing on the table. Goddamn agent, you're fired. Okay, so can you share... Can you talk about who's in the movie? I mean, in the series? Yeah, who's in the movie?

[00:35:50] So the lead actor is a guy named Sope Dizarek. He was in a British... He's a British actor, African-American... African-British actor. He was in a show called Gangs of London. He was in a show called Slow Horses. And so he's in it. Giancarlo Esposito plays his FBI mentor. There's a... Who else is in it? A lot of people aren't, like, known people. They got, like, a new up-and-coming cast. Amy Madigan plays a character in it.

[00:36:19] She just won an Oscar. And the showrunner, the executive producer, Joe Robert Cole, he co-wrote Black Panther with Ryan Coogler. He did the People vs. O.J. Simpson. And, like I said, I've seen the first episode. It's amazing. They sent it to me at, like, 7.30 in the morning. And, like, I got the alert on my phone. I jumped right up to go watch it. And I was like, please don't let it be bad. Please don't let it be bad. It was so good. It was so intense.

[00:36:45] And that first scene, you know, it's so surreal to see something that you live with in your head for two years come to life on screen. You know? And I wasn't... Don't tell Sobe. I wasn't really sold on him as Titus. Because I didn't think he had the aura that, like, Titus has. No, he's amazing in the show. He's amazing. His delivery... There's a scene, if you've read, all of a sudden it's blamed as a scene between Titus and his brother after his brother beats up some guys in a bar.

[00:37:13] And him and the guy who plays Marquise is such a powerful scene, you know? And watching it... And I wrote it when he says, you know, why are you fighting those guys in a bar? And he said, they kept talking shit about my brother, you know? And it just got me in my chest, you know? Because I don't know if my brother would fight for me like that. So, like, he's like... But, no, it's coming out April 2027. Then the new book, How We Fall of Night, will be out in the fall of next year. I'm working on her. So, real quick, that's a... Like I said, that's a prequel.

[00:37:42] It's no secret. It's about Bug's father, Anthony. It's before he had Bug. It's when he was a young man in his early 20s. And he does a job. He does a job in D.C. In D.C. And it goes bad, so he has to leave Virginia. And he jumps in the car with a buddy of his who's going to California to be a musician. So, you got this southern country boy in Cali in the 80s trying to navigate his way through that. And he, you know, gets in some trouble. Some stuff happens. But, hopefully, he'll make it out. How is that process?

[00:38:12] Like, are you involved in the writing of the adaptation of it? No. No, I tried it. But writing a script based on your own book is like Solomon trying to split the baby in half. You don't know what to take out. And you've got to take stuff out. There's stuff that can't be in it. Even though it's an eight-episode miniseries, I didn't know what to cut. So, I was like, I'll let y'all do that. You know, just get my money. So, got more money on it. Okay. Okay.

[00:38:41] So, I do want to, I had an earlier question I forgot. Three minutes? For Q&A or? Hmm? For Q&A? Okay. All right. Okay. All right. So, one of the things that I, there's a bunch of stuff I love about your book. But one of the things that I really, really appreciate is the fact that you're talking about black folk in small town America. Yeah. Because a lot of people think we don't live there. Yeah. You know?

[00:39:09] I had a, I don't know if Maryland considers itself the South, but I always consider parts of Maryland. We are. So, I had a lady, I had an African American journalist from Chicago. I won't say her name. And she said to me, she's like, I love your book. I just, I don't know how you make it down there. How do you survive down there? You know, like, you know, it ain't Roswell every five minutes. I mean, like, you know. And so, I told her, I said, well, here's the thing. I live an hour from Richmond, which was the capital of the Confederacy.

[00:39:37] You can't, you can't be a black Southern and be no punk. You can't. You know, I've been called the N-word to my face three times and I whooped their ass all three times. You know? So, like, but there's this idea that there's some people that think the South belongs to Confederate apologists and racists and Trump supporters. And nothing could be further from the truth. Every scrap of ground that a good old boy who weighs a Confederate flag walks on, someone who looks like us has lived there and died there and loved there.

[00:40:05] It belongs to us even much more than it belongs to anyone else because it's our blood that built it. So, don't tell me. I had somebody ask me, like, why are you writing about the South so much? Because I'm from the damn South. You know? I still go to the church my great-great-grandfather founded in my hometown. The South does not belong to these people that celebrate a four-year hissy fit. You know? It's so much more than that. And it's art, blues, gospel, bluegrass, music, art.

[00:40:32] The South produces the breadbasket of American culture comes from the South. You know? Like, that's the thing. People don't understand that the Delta Blues become the Chicago Blues. You know? Southern black gospel becomes Hezekiah Walker. It's this place that is the site of America's first great sin and America's first great ability to overcome that sin. So, that's why I write about the South.

[00:41:01] So, we got time for two questions. Raise your hand or come on up. Ma'am, right here? How do you want to get it? Where is she? Yes. I've had this question since the beginning. I'm a writer of my own, currently working on a couple stories. One that I see is mostly related to yours is a book I'm working on called Midnight Ensemble,

[00:41:30] which is about a murder mystery. In a town with people who are half human and half fawn. And I was wondering if you had any tips for books where you can actually make them more extended instead of being, like, summarized within a few pages. Yeah. I think the thing you have to make sure is don't allow your characterization or your description of your character or things of that nature to take away from your main story. Right? Use your freedom in the book form judiciously.

[00:42:00] You know? So if your character is half person, half fawn, and you're talking about what they look like and how they establish your bona fides first. Like, establish that all the fawn, half fawn people have horns. Or all the half fawn people are like pan and they have a lower half that has hooves on it. Once you establish that as the baseline, then you can expand on it. You don't have to explain it every time you introduce a new person. That kind of answer your question? Yeah. Okay, cool. Good question.

[00:42:30] It's more of appreciation. Oh, thank you. So all the places that you mention in your book, like, I recognize. And I just love your love for the South. And I appreciate you bringing that part to mainstream. We always hear about Atlanta. We always hear about New York. We always hear about, you know, these big places. So when I'm reading your books, I just appreciate that I can be like, oh, I've been to Patrick Henry Mall. I've been to Riverside Hospital. You know what I'm saying? So I can recognize that. Or Staple Mills Road is one I've always seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just.

[00:42:59] Nettles Drive in New Panoot. Yeah, like you said, people always are saying like, oh, Virginia is barely the South. No, we're the South. I'll tell you, it's funny. I had a, I go on TikTok sometimes and I'll see what people are saying about me. And I'll just search, I'll search the book titles. And there was some dude from New York that read King of Ashes. He was like, you know what, man? I don't believe there's no gangsters like that in Virginia. I was like, bruh, bruh. There's a bunch of crab pots that got people in them. Don't get it twisted. Like the clips say, you know, we from Virginia.

[00:43:31] It ain't called bad news for nothing. Okay. Brothers, thank you so much. Did you have something you want to add? All right. Y'all give it up for Derek and S.A. Cosby. Thank y'all so much. Thank you so much. Word to the 757. I got a little 757 in me. I can't. Different nations.

[00:44:02] This is Derek Young. And Ramonda Young. Owners of both Mahogany Books and the Mahogany Books Podcast Network. We really want to thank each and every one of you for listening to this episode. And if you enjoyed what you just heard, drop us a review and rate us on whatever platform you download podcasts on. We truly appreciate each and every one of you for supporting us and making us your go-to for Black books. And we look forward to connecting with you all sometime in the future. Thank you again, fam. And always remember, Black Books.