I started writing as a freshman at Northeastern High School in my home town, Detroit, MI….I used to walk from my house on Eliot and Rivard down Mack past the Vernor’s Ginger Ale plant to Woodward Av and make that right turn to go to the library several blocks  past Wayne State University on Woodward to the Detroit Public Library, it was quite a walk,,,,I don’t know what made me do it except for a yearning to read….and I wanted to read fiction….I liked adventure novels, “The Last Of The Mohicans”, “The Black Stallion” and other books about animals, especially horses, and ten dogs lost in the wild raised by wolves, becoming the baddest animal out there….I wrote a love story in my sophomore year entitled “On The Wrong Track”….My English teacher, Mr Roussey read it and asked me to join the school newspaper staff which he was in charge of, The Review, which I think I heard some one say was the oldest high school newspaper in Michigan….I started off as a copy reader and the next semester I became the Copy Editor and then my senior year I was promoted to Editor-In-Chief of The Review.

After graduating my folks didn’t have the money to send me to college, but I wanted to get out on my own so I joined the army. At the induction station they gave aptitude tests and told me that they were recommending me to be in a division of the army called ASA, Army Security Agency. At the time I didn’t know that it was the sister organization to the NSA, National Security Agency. In fact I really didn’t know anything about what ASA was until I went home after basic training for the Holiday season and friends were calling me 007 and James Bond….They told me that people in suits were coming around asking all kinds of questions about me and my family….Anyway after the holidays I found out that I had a Top Secret Krypto Security Clearance….Anyway, while in Basic Training I used to write letters to my girl back in Detroit and one of my army buddies read one and was so impressed that he asked me to write one for him to send to his girl….I wrote a poem that he liked and wanted to send to his girl, too….The big mouth told some other of the troops and suddenly I was asked to write letters and poems that several guys used, Black AND White guys….They attempted to compensate me but I refused to take anything from them….

Upon being honorably discharged from the ASA after 7 years I enrolled in Federal City College in Washington, DC which eventually became UDC, the University of Washington, DC where I majored in Journalism with a minor in Drama….While in DC, Robert Hooks, one of the founders of The Negro Ensemble in NYC came to DC to form the DC Black Repertory Company in 1971….I wrote a scene for myself and went to the audition at a supper club on Georgia Av and got accepted to be one of the original member of the Company….

For years I had this ideal for another love story floating around in the back of my mind even when I was pursuing acting in DC and later in L.A. after I moved there after college….I would write notes about the characters in this story, which I kept in a notebook along with notes about other stories that kept coming at me. In fact while in college my sophomore English teacher liked my writing so much that she published an excerpt from it in the college newsletter….She told me that was the beginning of my writing career….It was from a story called “Brotherman”….I can’t tell you what it was about because I decided to go back to my notes and finally complete this exciting story, hopefully it’ll be published before the end of the year.

Although I love to act, writing is really my first love….I love creating characters, characters with true, deep feelings about life and what their purpose in life is, feelings about how they connect with God and everyone else in this world and attempt to discern what their purpose is and who in life also feels the desire to know, to connect with the Universal Spirit….Life is NOT meant to be difficult….Everything we need is available to us….We just have to learn how to share, how to wish well for everyone, how to be in tune….”Brotherman” has some things to say….I can’t wait to finally finish it…..