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The streets of Chicago come alive at the hands of one of the best Urban Fiction writers of our time.
The streets of Chicago come alive at the hands of one of the best Urban Fiction writers of our time.
Blak is a Chicago based Urban Fiction writer. His literary background can be considered less than traditional. He grew up in the Chicago housing projects and poor neighborhoods, and though he partook of the street life, he remained an avid reader.
He taught himself to write and at first, he embarked on a career as a spoken word poetry artist by the name of just Blak.
Though he loved the spoken word world, a place where he met many multi-talented people, his innermost desire was to be a novelist. Blak had several attempts at writing a book on the shelf. While dealing with family life (he had fathered his two daughters) and street life, he managed to finish the manuscripts that would become Triple Take, The Apostles and Slipping. All three novels would be published on a Random House imprint Striver's Row. Their publication launched his career as a novelist.
In 2020, Blak has published several novels despite the pandemic. Two of the three books are his 1st and 2nd young adult novels. To Live And Die In Chiraq, the first offering for young readers is included in a creative writing curriculum for 7th and 8th graders at a Chicago charter school. He is currently working on several projects, among them another novel.
His writing career is about fulfilling his dream. Where he's from, the neighborhoods that created and molded the persona, Blak, these places are filled with dead and broken dreams. Sometimes life can be so hard that people don't possess dreams at all or spends all of their time trying to destroy other's dreams.
It was always a dream of his to use his gift of a creative imagination to tell stories and he hoped to one day see them in print.
Imagination is truly a gift he feels, and he was blessed with more than his fair share of it. He also feels that one of the true crimes against Nature a person can commit is to not utilize or forsake their talents. His position is that the world is filled with mediocre work because a lot of the geniuses are too bored or lazy to create.
Never forget where you began, is something Blak believes in heavily. Never be ashamed of what you've been through either, he says. What you've been through and where you started should make you proud of the person you've become, he feels.
He offers a small reminder that there are plenty of young men and women currently incarcerated, and books are welcomed gift to most inmates.
Positive Energy Achieves Constant Elevation.
Though Blak currently has reached his goal of writing and publishing 11 urban fiction novels, he's not quite done yet. I have one or two more left in me, he said, including some non-fiction stuff. Also in the future, he would like to contribute to some anthologies with local writers. Blak makes sure we know that if it gets boring or corny he'll bow out gracefully, because he has always been against forcing his writing. Right now I still love it and it feels good to be able to create better and better tales, so I guess I'll stay for awhile, he says.
Q: Do you read or publish other writers' work?
A: No. Not currently. I'm not a fan of reading other writers' work. I'm scared that I may accidentally write something similar and get accused of stealing. I'm paranoid like that.
Q: Do you critique's new authors' work?
A. No, because often I feel they don't want true constructive criticism, they want to be told how good they are.
Q: What advice would you offer a new writer?
A: Write. Write. Write. And write some more. That's the only way to get better.
Q: Do I want to write your book for you?
A: It's amazing the amount of people, that think because they have an idea for a book, and you're a writer, that you want to write their book. No thanks.
Q: Are your characters based off people you know or knew from the streets?
A: Actually they aren't, they may share the characteristics of many people though.
Q: Do you feel you're self-made?
A: Absolutely not. I owe many people thanks and love, especially the readers. Blessings
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Monroe "Roe" Pearson was born and raised in the Martin Luther King Homes housing project on Chicago's South side. At a young age, he was already a boss and part owner of a large street operation, netting unheard of amounts of cash daily. In the "jets" every day becomes a struggle to remain at the top of the pile. The pursuit of money, fast cars and willing women lands Roe in the penitentiary at an early age.
During his prison time, the projects Roe knew and loved so well are demolished down to the last row house. Years later Roe is released, and now he has to deal with the reality of the only place he's ever lived being gone. Soon enough he realizes not just the buildings are missing, but so are the people and their way of life.
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***Young Adult Novel***
"Real life is often stranger than fiction", is what Charles "Chill" Reason heard his teacher say one day in class, never knowing that he would become a living example of those words. In the blink of an eye, Chill’s ordinary everyday life as a high school hoops star with pro-basketball dreams changes dramatically. As he begins an unfamiliar journey, along the way, his character will be challenged as he maneuvers through the cold streets of Chicago. Disloyal friends, corrupt thugs, and federal agents all want a piece of Chill with the summer just getting started.
***Young Adult Novel***
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***Young Adult Novel***
Living in Chicago, a city not so affectionately known as Chiraq, sometimes you have to become heartless to survive. In the young adult version of Moore's Heartless, we meet Pat and her four children. She has taught her children, "ain't no love in these streets", for as long as they can remember.
As her children grow, Pat watches them become street poisoned as they transform into a scammer, shooters and someone that'll do anything for money. Her children's future is undecided as Pat tries to keep them from caring too much, in a place that doesn't care at all.
***Young Adult Novel***
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***YOUNG ADULT NOVEL***
Some kids jump off of the porch into the street life of Chicago aka Chiraq and some of them are pushed off the porch. Tureon "Tutu" Young only wanted to play his Xbox, hang with his big brother and write rap songs, but the streets don't care about the plans of boys and men. After witnessing tragic events at an early age, Tutu's heart was hardened long before he became a man. As a self-proclaimed savage, riding for his block and his gang is all he knows. Along the way he will lose more than he could have ever guessed, as he learns as much as you love the streets, they don't love you back. Whatever happens he will have to grow up fast as he learns to live and die in the Raq.
***YOUNG ADULT NOVEL***
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After serving ten years for armed robbery, Jonathan “JC” Cole is about to get out of the joint, and he has one thing on his mind: revenge against the three men—former childhood friends, now powerful crime lords—who betrayed him to save their own skins. Richard “Richkid” Kidman is a Playa with a capital P, at one time controlling a stable of twelve women. Alonzo “Zo” Johnson is one of the richest drug dealers in the Windy City. And Eugene “Lil G” Pierce ranks among the most successful con men on the East Coast.
JC feels that the time has come for him to claim what is rightfully his. His misfortune was his ex-friends’ stepping-stone, and now it is time for them to pay up—in spades. He doesn’t want to kill them, he just wants to take everything away.
He does this with the help of his woman, Champagne; his best friend, Rat; and Rat’s girlfriend, Shaunna. They form a family of sorts, with JC as the leader and Champagne as the fierce mother hen, together embarking on an exciting journey into the underworld of Chicago.
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Led by Jonathon “J.C” Collins, the crew returns to the savage streets and opulent penthouses of Chicago. They’ve reached levels of power and money that most ghetto-dwellers can only dream about.
With most of their enemies permanently out of their lives, they’re trying to leave the gangster lifestyle behind, but the streets aren’t done with them.
Has good living made the crew soft or are they still ready to handle whatever the streets throw at them? This time the stakes are even higher and they’ve got much more to lose in Triple Take 2.
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This is the closest you’re ever going to come to being a heroin addict(dopefiend) without snorting a blow. As heroin carves a seldom seen swath through America, a large percentage of its victims are women: Diesel Dolls.
Once again, Y. Blak Moore uses his unique talent to create an instant classic. He makes us care about people that society has written off, whether it’s Annie from the Ida B. Wells or Jasmine from Lawless Gardens. Here the reader is forced to understand that the addicts they know or have tried to ignore in urban America are actually people with feelings, emotions, and a soul.
Nothing is private here as this world’s characters’ drug inspired deeds, innermost thoughts, and dope desires are held up to the glaring light. Through Y. Blak Moore’s eyes, readers are ushered into a world laced with hopeless hope and laden with the unrealistic reality of addicts and dealers. Without apology or disclaimer, Blak gives us Diesel Dolls.
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Life used to be so simple for Charles “Chill” Reason. His days consisted of playing basketball, trying to get good grades and doing his best not to make his girlfriend Stacy mad. That all changes shortly after his 17th birthday as his older brother drops a load of responsibilities onto his lap along with a powerful secret that would surely change his existence. Being the younger brother of a known plug used to just mean plenty of money, clothes and shoes, but because of betrayal it could cost Chill his freedom. In a short time, Chill must transform from an easygoing child hoop star into a street wise man because his very life depends on it.
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Living in Chicago, a city affectionately known as Chiraq, sometimes you have to become heartless to survive. In his 6th full length novel, Y. Blak Moore weaves an urban tale that mirrors parts of society only some of us know to exist.
From the beginning Heartless drags you under like a strong current and refuses to let you go. Experience a torrent of emotions as you meet Pat, a single mother of four. Pat knows all too well just how heartless the Chicago streets can be as she watches them transform her children into a scammer (Dee), shooters (Nayshawn and Jayshawn), and someone (her daughter Shay) that will do any and everything for money.
In a place where sex and drugs are currency and life is cheap, Pat tries to keep her children on the straight and narrow, but it might already be too late.
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Growing up in a Chicago ghetto, seventeen-year-old Donald “Don-Don” Haskill has nothing but time on his hands–time he rarely spends in school, choosing instead to smoke weed and hang out with friends. As a child, he witnessed his father’s suicide, and today Don-Don’s relationship with his mother, a worn-down cop trying to keep the family together is tenuous at best. Then Don-Don meets a girl with a taste for crack–and his delinquent life turns violently criminal.
Consumed with chasing his next hit, alienating even his best friends, Don-Don works the streets like a pro. In pursuit of the demon, no deal is too shady. But when a huge drug transaction goes terribly awry, a bloody chain of events is set off, as Don-Don becomes a moving target, not just for the Chicago police force but for the ghetto’s most hardened thugs. . .
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The Apostles run Chicago’s streets. Their leader, “Solemn Shawn” Terson, is the most revered–and feared–man in town. Because of his past exploits, the Apostles have a loyalty among its members that has reached mythic proportions.
When Insane Wayne, a former member of the rival gang, the Governors, comes groveling for admission to the coveted Apostles, he’s quickly turned down. His reaction is violent: He shoots a Governor and plants evidence that lays the murder rap on the Apostles, setting off a bloody series of retaliations.
Solemn Shawn is ready to give up the gang world. His pregnant girlfriend wants another way of life and the cops are hot on his tail; he knows the time has come to step aside. But he must fight one more street war before handing over the reins of his empire. The head of the Governors has a score to settle with Shawn that dates back to their prison days–and Shawn and the Apostles must fight or flee as the streets around them erupt in violence. . .