So for people who are listening who ha- who don't know about it, who haven't been listening to me talk about it, will you tell folks in about 30 seconds or so what The Fervent Whites is about?

Sure.

Uh, the book is about Sylvia Upshaw and her friend Fate, and they are a bit shaken up because their former neighbors have just moved back to the neighborhood after being wrongfully convicted of a murder.

And some stuff went down while Ella and James White were in prison, and Syl and Fate may have had a hand in some of those things.

So the White couple are a bit upset, to say the least, and Syl and Fate are, are f- afraid.

[laughs]

Mm

... blah, blah, blah.

How has your publishing trajectory surprised you over these years?

I really never thought, especially as a Black male writer, I see that we are a really small portion, I think, of the publishing industry.

You know, men of color in general.

And of course, people of color are a small portion in general.

But I kind of thought that I would publish one book and it wouldn't sell well enough to get another book deal.

And I was okay with that.

And I had already started making plans.

Here's DeShawn.