Words Kill
By David Myles Robinson
This is
a book that has been percolating in my brain for many years. Having come of age
in the late 60s and early 70s, I lived through some truly tumultuous times
which have had a lasting impact on America: the civil rights movement, the
Vietnam War, AIDS, drugs, and mental illness. I actually lived on Haight St. in
San Francisco in 1968, and I wanted to find a way to weave a story around many
of those impactful events.
Having grown up first in a
predominately white area of Los Angeles and then in a highly diverse community
in Pasadena, I became acutely aware of racism at an early age. In 1969 I worked
as a staff reporter for a minority newspaper in Pasadena, and worked on many
stories involving institutional racism. So, as I thought about a plot for this
novel, I decided that a story centered on friendship and love involving race
would be a good vehicle, especially with the storyline essentially beginning in
1968.
The book itself took over three years
to write. I rewrote it from the ground up several times, trying to get it
right. Even as I continued to write and publish other books, this book, which I
had originally titled The Reporter, continued to rattle around in my brain.
There
is a fair amount of quasi-autobiographical content in Words Kill. Like
our protagonist, Russell Blaze, I had an alcoholic stepfather who physically
abused my mother. I lived through the hippie era in San Francisco and Los
Angeles. I narrowly avoided the draft, just as Russell did.
So
there is a lot of me mixed in with the blood, sweat, and tears on the pages of Words
Kill. I hope people of all age groups like the story and see the unfortunate
societal parallels between the past and the present, particularly as they pertain
to racism.
Famed reporter Russell Blaze is dead. It appears to be an accident, but after Russ’s funeral, his son, Cody, finds a letter in which his father explains that the death may have been murder. It directs Cody to Russ’s unfinished memoir for clues as
to what may have happened. The opening words are: On the night of October 16, 1968, I uttered a sentence that would haunt me for the rest of my life. The sentence was, “Someone should kill that motherfucker.”
As Cody delves into the memoir, a window opens into a tragic past and thrusts the still-burning embers of another time’s radical violence into the political reality of the present. History that once seemed far away becomes a deeply personal immersion for Cody into the storied heyday of the Haight: drugs, sex, war protesters, right-wing militias, ground-breaking journalism—and the mysterious Gloria, who wanders into his father’s pad one day to just “crash here for a while until things calm down.”
Cody discovers aspects of his father’s life he never knew, and slowly begins to understand the significance of those words his father spoke in 1968.
Words Kill is a story of loss, violence, and racism; love, hate, and discovery. It is a story of then … and now.
David Myles Robinson has always had a passion for writing. During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, while in college, Robinson worked as a free-lance writer for several magazines and was a staff writer for a weekly minority newspaper in Pasadena, California, called The Pasadena Eagle. However, as he himself admits, upon graduating from San Francisco State University, he decided against the ‘starving writer’ route and went to law school, at the University of San Francisco School of Law. It was there that he met his wife, Marcia Waldorf. After graduating from law school in 1975, the two moved to Honolulu, Hawaii and began practicing law. Robinson became a trial lawyer, specializing in personal injury and workers’ compensation law. Waldorf eventually became a District Court and ultimately a Circuit Court judge.
Upon retiring in 2010, Robinson completed his first novel, Unplayable Lie, which was published by BluewaterPress LLC, in 2010. He has since published five more novels, three of which are legal thrillers set in Honolulu: Tropical Lies, Tropical Judgments, Tropical Doubts, and Tropical Deception. His other three novels are The Pinochet Plot, Son of Saigon, and Words Kill. Robinson has also published a book of short travel stories, Conga Line on the Amazon.
Robinson and Waldorf divided their time between Honolulu and their second home in Taos, NM for seven years before finally deciding to see what it’s like to be full-time mainlanders again. They now live in Taos, where Robinson can pursue his non-writing passions of golf, ski, and travel.
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: davidmylesrobinson.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/DMRobinsonWrite
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DavidMylesRobinson
Instagram – http://www.instagram.com/davidmylesrobinson
TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2021
The Story Behind Prophecy of the Guardian by J.W. Baccaro
PROPHECY OF THE GUARDIAN
By J.W. Baccaro
Thank you! Well see…creative writing has always been a love of mine. I never had much interest in sports or automobiles. Sure, I know a little bit, but I couldn’t tell you the names of famous quarterbacks or talk for hours about rebuilding an engine block. Creativity has always been my thing in both literature and music. Inspired by authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis (to name a few), I too decided I wanted to create my own vivid world within the imagination…and on paper of course.
I didn’t look around at what genre was most popular in hopes to make a quick buck. I just wanted to write a story that I personally would love to read. A story with not only tons of action and warrior
battles, but also filled with heavy emotion. A world where you feel like you’ve made friends with the characters and are a bit sad when the book comes to an end. You miss them!
I’ve always loved classic Good versus Evil tales. True they are a dime a dozen, filled with similar tropes and sometimes a bit cliché. You know, light versus darkness, one chosen character to rid the world of this monstrous evil, magical items, etc. etc. However, just when you think you’ve read something like this before, as soon as you’re enveloped into the story, you see how the tale carries its own uniqueness. Of course, there will be similarities, I can find that in just about every bestselling epic fantasy/sci-fi I read, but each story carries its own flair.
I love when a villain or even a hero begins to question their path, wondering if the task they are trying to accomplish is the right thing to do. Perhaps the Light has a point? Perhaps the Darkness has a point, and looking a little deeper, maybe, just maybe the Light (or whom we call our heroes), isn’t so perfect after all. Besides, all of us know the world is far beyond mere black and white. So, I took all my thoughts, likes and influences and molded them together and out came my book Prophecy of the Guardian: Book One, Guardian Trilogy.
I began writing this epic tale many years ago. Finally, it was published under an independent company in 2012. When it first came out, I was warmed by the attention it received. There were a lot of great reviews for it (and of course, some negative ones, but that comes with the territory, and even within them words of praise were mentioned. I’ve learned a lot since then). What I loved the most was how people found them to be inspirational and could relate to the characters, especially the Nasharin warrior race. Lots of battles, lots of emotion and suspense; perhaps the greatest of all is that by the end one feels like they have made friends with the characters. At least that is what I’ve been told from readers and to this day it still warms my heart.
I’ve written other books, but I decided I wanted to go back to my Guardian books (my original babies) and give them a revision that’s been long over do. Not only that but create a map of Seventh-Realm Earth and a character and creature list. Most of all make it a trilogy, my original idea from the very beginning. The publisher I was with back then wanted me to make the books into a five-book series. I never really liked that idea, but I went along with it. Now that I’m on my own, and with the help of an editor and artist I hired the books are now a trilogy. I’m really happy with this revision and I hope many new potential readers will enjoy the adventure. It’s one roller coaster of a ride, I promise!
Famed reporter Russell Blaze is dead. It appears to be an accident, but after Russ’s funeral, his son, Cody, finds a letter in which his father explains that the death may have been murder. It directs Cody to Russ’s unfinished memoir for clues as to what may have happened. The opening words are: On the night of October 16, 1968, I uttered a sentence that would haunt me for the rest of my life. The sentence was, “Someone should kill that motherfucker.”
As Cody delves into the memoir, a window opens into a tragic past and thrusts the still-burning embers of another time’s radical violence into the political reality of the present. History that once seemed far away becomes a deeply personal immersion for Cody into the storied heyday of the Haight: drugs, sex, war protesters, right-wing militias, ground-breaking journalism—and the mysterious Gloria, who wanders into his father’s pad one day to just “crash here for a while until things calm down.”
Cody discovers aspects of his father’s life he never knew, and slowly begins to understand the significance of those words his father spoke in 1968.
Words Kill is a story of loss, violence, and racism; love, hate, and discovery. It is a story of then … and now.
Order your copy at https://amzn.to/36crgUB.
J.W. Baccaro is the author of Prophecy of the Guardian, The Coming of the Light and Blood Dreams. Always a lover of creativity, from works of literature to writing music with his electric guitar; even baking and cooking. When not working on his next story or lost in a good book, J.W. enjoys kicking back with a couple of tasty craft beers and binging on Kaiju movies, 80’s action flicks, Japanese animation and slasher films (particularly the one involving a hockey mask). Heck, he even enjoys a good romantic comedy. Feel free to email him at jwbaccaro@yahoo.com. He lives in upstate NY with his wife Melissa, his son Alexander, his German Shepherd and his three cats.
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