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June 2001 Issue |
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Vol. 1 No. 2 | |
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Guest Columnist: Kimberley L. Wilson Article by Lee E. Meadows
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This month's edition of LitLine provides articles and information from a few of the literary community's newest writers. It is a monthly newsletter designed to empower, enlighten, educate and showcase literary talent from a myriad of authors and topics. My special thanks goes out to Reverend Cornelius R. Wheeler, Lisa R. Cross and Adam Wilson, writing under the pseudonym Clayton Powell, the three returning columnists. I appreciate your continued contributions and look forward to your future involvement. Thanks to my guest columnists, Michelle McGriff in the May issue and Lee Meadows, Kimberley Lindsay Wilson and Cathi Wong, in this issue. Thanks also to those who have expressed an interest in submitting future material. LitLine will only be as successful as the readers make it. Thanks to you all, and like my motto says, "It is the readers who make authors successful!  How
to Raise A ThugKimberley Wilson "My
baby is a good boy! He didn't do nothing wrong!" The
woman who spoke these words sat, crying in a rocking chair on her porch.
Her 18-year-old son was in jail awaiting trial for a very serious crime.
She was a close friend of my mother's and had known me all my life. My
mother had come to comfort this poor woman and I tagged along. In an
effort to calm her shattered nerves Mamma spoke soothing words and
coaxed her into going inside and lying down. I
said nothing. I couldn't. I've known her son since the day he was born
and I was both sure that he was guilty and disgusted at his crime. Later,
the boy was convicted and went to prison. About five years into his
sentence his mother died and he was allowed to attend the funeral. He
wore a nice blue suit accessorized with handcuffs, shackles and two
matching US marshals on either side of him. Most
of the folks at the funeral shook their heads and complained that it
wasn't necessary for the officers to bring him into the church that way.
I said nothing. All I could think-and I know this will sound unkind---
was that his appearance was a fitting testimony to the way he'd been
raised. You can support LitLine by sponsoring the online newsletter monthly or annually. You can conveniently pay online by using the buttons below. Please give use your feedback on LitLine by email at: litline@storytale.com. Pay online:
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 Dead
MeatRev. Cornelius R. Wheeler Co-Pastor, Vermont Avenue Baptist Church Washington, DC “I
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your
reasonable service.”
(Romans 12:1) The
Apostle Paul, in a way like no other could, urges us, in view of God’s
mercy, to offer ourselves as sacrifices to God as our act of worship.
I would guess that this verse is not for every body!
Those of you who have no awareness, no spiritual appreciation for
what God has done for them are excused.
As well, if you possess no feel for the power of order, logic and
discipline God brings to your life, then you also may be excused.
And I will go so far to excuse those of you who just don’t
care. But for the rest of us, God calls on us to participate in the
ancient ritual of offering flesh and blood as a “substitute payment”
for our sin. The best and
most concise explanation I can give of the requirements of
“sacrifice” is that it has three elements; consecration (setting
apart), expiation (covering of sin) and propitiation (satisfaction of
divine anger). For ages,
ancient people would sacrifice the first and the best and the purest to
appease and placate their gods.
The
1980’s and 1990’s have been acknowledged as a Third Renaissance
period in the growth and distribution of fictional novels written by,
plotted around and primarily marketed toward African American readers.
As much as Terri McMillan’s much heralded ‘Waiting To Exhale’
launched an explosion of contemporary romance spin-off’s, less
recognized, but equally as important is the pivotal role Walter
Mosley’s ‘Devil In a Blue Dress’ did to build a foundation in
which an impressive list of African American authors have broadened the
landscape of the mystery genre and made significant contributions to its
growth among African-American readers. The
sporadic, but critical history of African American writing in the
mystery genre has its roots in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, the
Harlem Renaissance, the Black Art Movement and the Third Renaissance. The windows of opportunity for African American writers
during these periods seem to open and close as quickly as the movements
they supported. The numerous voices of anger, regret, love, outrage and
protest found a welcome audience within the African American community,
but very little push from mainstream publishers. Though anger and
romance were dominant literary themes, the few voices in mystery went
relatively unnoticed among the reading public, though the writers
maintained a strong commitment to clearly Afrocentric themes.
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