| Author | Message | ||
     Gman First Time Poster Username: Gman Post Number: 1 Registered: 06-2008 Rating: N/A |
Hello. My name is Gibran Tariq and my new novel MATCHMAKER was just released by iUniverse last week. As you can imagine, I am very excited. MATCHMAKER is the ultimate black female empowerment novel and it pulsates with my deep respect and appreciation for the ability of black women to change the world. To find out more about MATCHMAKER or to read an excerpt from the novel, please go to Mosaicbooks.com. The book can be purchased online at Amazon.com. It would please me greatly if you would check it out. There is something else I'd like to share with you, a celebration o sorts. Yesterday, marked my first full year of freedom. After spending most of the last 30 years in some of the toughest state and federal prisons in the country, I luxuriate in being free. I still savor each moment of each day as though it is some precious elixir, which, to me, it is. Even after a year, I still find myself fascinated by the newness, the brightness, the joy and mystery of everything. Deprivation has compelled me to appreciate every experience. When I eAt a candy bar, I can taste all the ingredients in every morsel. I feel the glow of the sunshine with an almost mystical radiance. And I am both humbled and weakened by the laughter of a child. Women! To stand in the presence of a sista moves me with such a sense of exhiliration that I constantly thank God for sparing none of His supreme mastery or for withholding none of His grandeur when He created the black woman. They stun me with their sassiness. They inspire me with their confidence.But they shame me for not being more , for being unable to stop the world for them, for not being able to break my chains earlier. At one point during my confinement, I went for 2 years without even seeing a woman! Such unspeakable misery. In prison, I knew how to protect myself, how to survive, but out here, sometimes I'm at a loss for what to do. I feel vulnerable. I was a gangster, pure and simple, and quite honestly, it appears as if I lost something vital in the transformation to becoming a "good guy". I always had my guns, my bluster. Lacking those, I feel reduced. Not knowing what is going to come next frightens me because there are those who might mistake me for prey. In any event, I'm glad to be free. I love to tell people that I have gone from wrong to "write". Oh yeah, let me relay this piece of data. I am a very gifted writer whose life could have been totally different. I realize that it is too late for regrets now, but I reflect back on one, single decision that turned out to be my "proverbial" watershed moment. Here goes. As a teen-ager, I had a white counselor in whom I confided. I told him I wanted to be a writer. As a consequence, he dutifully requested to see some of my work. I complied. What happened next set the stage for me to make the worst decision of my life. The counselor laughed in my face and asked me where had I copied the material from because no 17 year old could write that well. Guess, what my response was? I calmly walked out of his office, sauntered casually across the street and threw all my writings in a dumpster. The very next day, I robbed my first bank! Well, my new friends, I must go. I have a meeting with a local bookstore owner. I hope to convince him to order MATCHMAKER. By the way, I published books while in prison, and I'll tell you this, the literary world can be as vicious and as cut-throat as any back-alley drug deal I've been a part of. I was ripped off by a very prominent black publishing company in Atlanta and at this moment I am involved in a struggle to get royalties. Again, go to Mosaicbooks.com to check out my novel. I don't have a personal website yet because I don't know how to set one up. Computers, MP3 players, and such are new to me. | ||
| Sisg Veteran Poster Username: Sisg Post Number: 318 Registered: 01-2004 Rating: N/A |
Congratulations to you. Your life, like your book sounds very interesting. I will be sure to check it out! |
