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Robert Fleming
ROBERT FLEMING

Interested in psychology and sociology, I came to writing as a fluke in the early 1970s when a friend, Willard Jenkins, allowed me to sub for him as a music writer at a local magazine in Cleveland. Reading had always been a favorite pastime for me, but writing was something I never imagined myself doing. While studying full-time for a degree in psychology at night at a local college, I worked fulltime during the day as a welfare case worker, squeezing time in doing interviews with people like Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Minnie Riperton, Ray Charles, Bob Marley, and a host of other jazz and pop greats. Like many writers, my first love was poetry and I published two books of poems, Melons (1974) and Stars (1975).

It wasn't until I came to New York as a young writer that a whole realm of possibilities opened for me in that area. I landed my first real writing job at Encore Magazine, a pioneering black newsmagazine in 1977, working as an associate editor. Despite hassles with pay, the experience at the publication was extremely beneficial, giving me a chance to work with such talents as Nikki Giovanni, Ivan Webster, Paula Giddins, and Henry Jackson. I worked on hard news stories, such as the involuntary sterilization of young black women in several southern states, political corruption on a national level, the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, medical experiments conducted on black patients at several East Coast medical sites, and the spate of police brutality cases nationwide. In 1979, I did one story which would change my life: a car tour of the Deep South, where I interviewed poor black families in rural Alabama and Mississippi, spoke with plantation owners in Georgia and Louisiana about their abuse of their black tenant farmers, and conducted a late night talk with a group of hooded Klansmen outside of Anniston, Alabama. This series got me some notice and earned me a scholarship to Columbia University's noted School of Journalism.

After my tour of duty at the 'J School,' I worked for a time with former CBS News president, Fred Friendly, former boss of the legendary Edward R. Morrow, as a staff writer for the PBS TV show, Media and Society. A chance meeting at one of the show's taping got me a job as a reporter at The New York Daily News, where I worked throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. While there, I learned the world of hard New York news from the street up, earning a New York Press Club, a Revson Fellowship and several other honors. I retired at the end of 1991 to write and teach. Since that time, I've published work in Essence, Black Enterprise, The Source, U.S. News and World Report, Omni, Black Issues Book Review, Bookpage, Quarterly Black Review, The New York Times and Publishers Weekly.

Currently, I teach a course at The New School, 'Media And The Black Experience,' with another course, 'Hard and Soft News: Journalism for A New World,' to start in the Spring of 2001. In the early 1990s, I wrote two young adult books, Rescuing A Neighborhood: The Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps. and The Success of Caroline Jones, Inc.: The Story of an Advertising Agency. Two other books, The Wisdom of the Elders (1996) and The African American Writer's Handbook (2000) followed, both of which were selected by The Black Expression Book Club.

My poetry, essays, and short stories have appeared in such books as UpSouth, Brotherman: The Odyssey of The Black Man in America, Sacred Fire, In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African American Poetry, Dark Matter, Beyond The Frontier and the groundbreaking collection of black erotica, Brown Sugar. I'm especially proud of being a contributor in Dark Matter, recently chosen as a New York Times notable book, because of its emphasis on science fiction and fantasy writing. At present, I'm working feverishly on a sequel to After Hours: A Collection of Erotic Writing By Black Men, which was named 'Best Erotic Collection of 2002' by Black Issues Book Review. That anthology will highlight love, lust and marriage. I have three other projects in the works A collection of short stories will be forthcoming next year as well and A Woman's Man, a political novel, of which the first chapter was printed in the anthology, Gumbo. I'm deep into the research for a non-fiction book on the art and politics of the 1960s for publication in the following year.

Recently, I came upon a quote from the Senegalese writer Aminata Sow Fall that sums up my goals as a writer: 'The African writer cannot and must not take pen in hand merely to offer pretty expressions and phrases. As the product of a society that has its problems, he must create work so that each person becomes completely aware of them, so that people think of them, and look for their solutions, Ft that is what it means to be a committed writer, then that is what I am. Our literature must raise issues that summon me to devise solutions to problems that are specifically ours, problems which, although existing in other places, take on a special dimension in our country.'

This is what I've tried from the moment I first started submitting my work to publishers and will continue to do until I no longer write. Which I hope is never.

 

Gift of Faith by Robert Fleming (book cover)Gift of Faith
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Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Urban Books (December 24, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1601627459
ISBN-13: 978-1601627452
Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches

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Gift of Faith concerns a young black pastor in New York City, who confronts the unthinkable when his children are killed by his wife, who then kills herself. This tragedy shakes his faith, causing him to question all of his beliefs, and wonder if God is a loving and caring God.

The church members and his mentor, Rev. Smart, rally around him. Rev. Smart, knowing that the young man is in the throes of incredible grief, assigns him a group of church members in need of guidance and wisdom. It is the challenging spiritual journey experienced by Rev. Clint that should inspire readers as he moves through his emotional pain and suffering to spiritual renewal and redemption. The question is: how does a person endure such a great crisis by relying on faith and God?

 

Fever in the BloodFever in the Blood
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ISBN: 0758212399
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 320pp
Pub. Date: May 2006
Kensington Publishing Corporation

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'and he's burning mad at the world. He's mad at the family he lost'his parents and sisters viciously killed by a gang in their own home; and he's mad at the foster family that 'rescued' him'headed up by a powerful Harlem congressman who sees Eddie as a campaign ploy. Mainly, Eddie is mad at himself, for getting caught by the cops with blood on his hands. Blood he should have washed off right away. He was sloppy this time. It won't happen again. Because Eddie knows the fever that ignites his rage is wasted'unless it's put to use. And he intends to put it to use again and again'

 

Havoc after Dark: Tales of TerrorHavoc after Dark: Tales of Terror
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ISBN: 0758205759
Format: Paperback, 241pp
Pub. Date: March 2004
Kensington Publishing Corporation

'the world is cloaked in shadow and hearts pound in deafening dread. Every step is suspect, every moment counted, every sound feared. This is the hour when panic takes hold. Terror does not distinguish among class or race or place. See it stalk its prey in a murky basement in Spanish Harlem'under a haunted voodoo moon on a Caribbean isle'by ghoulish candlelight in a Mardi Gras backroom. These are the minutes when reality fades, defenses crumble, and only the unknown triumphs. No one is spared. Not parish priest, shape shifter, or fortuneteller. Not homicidal boy or cunning woman. Within seconds, paid killers roam city streets and murderers reborn emerge from fearful chambers of the undead. Within minutes, life slips away to ungodly applause, amulets work black magic, and satanic traditions throw blood at the stars. Now is the instant when...

 

After HoursAfter Hours: A Collection of Erotic Writing by Black Men
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Edited by Robert Fleming

Format: Paperback, 256pp.
ISBN: 0452283329
Publisher: Dutton/Plume
Pub. Date: July  2002

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After Hours brings together an extraordinary collection of eighteen stories by today's best and brightest black writers-Colin Channer, (Waiting in Vain), John A. Williams (The Man Who Cried I Am) and National Book Award Winner Charles Johnson (Middle Passage), among others. From Mexico to the Hawaiian Islands, Jamaica to New Orleans, these erotically charged tales of love and lust explore the diversity and richness of African-American sexuality.

Together, these powerfully seductive stories of desire make up a sensual collection that will appeal to anyone who loves provocative prose and black literature at its best.

Charles Johnson, Colin Channer, Cole Riley, Brian Peterson, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Tracy Grant, Earl Sewell, John A. Williams, Kenji Jasper, Eric E. Pete, Alexs D. Pate, Brian Egleston, Clarence Major, Curtis Bunn, Gary Phillips, Brandon Massey, Robert Scott Adams, Jervey Tervalon, Arthur Flowers.

 

The African American Writer's Handbook: How to Get in Print and Stay in PrintThe African American Writer's Handbook: How to Get in Print and Stay in Print
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Format: Paperback, 352pp.
ISBN: 0345423275
Publisher: Ballantine Books, Inc.
Pub. Date: March  2000

With African Americans writing and buying books in record numbers, the time is ripe for a comprehensive publishing guide tailored expressly to the needs of this vibrant, creative community. The African American Writers Handbook meets this challenge perfectly.  Read More

 

The Wisdom of the EldersThe Wisdom of the Elders
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by Edited by Fleming

Format: Paperback, 343pp.
ISBN: 0345409752
Publisher: Ballantine Books, Inc.
Pub. Date: January 1997
Edition Desc: 1ST TRADE

In these troubled times, wisdom often seems in short supply. But as this magnificent volume reminds us, African Americans have been blessed with a precious legacy of wisdom, gained through long, hard years of struggle by those who have gone before. Wisdom is the most hallowed gift born of experience and endurance. The life-affirming guidance in The Wisdom of the Elders has been gleaned from this bountiful harvest and includes some of the most electrifying and deeply moving writings and speeches ever produced. Here are the unedited works of such luminaries as Sojourner Truth, W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., Elijah Muhammad, Lorraine Hansberry, Thurgood Marshall, Zora Neale Hurston, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Mary McLeod Bethune, Marcus Garvey, Barbara Jordan, Paul Robeson, Jean Toomer, and many others.

 

Proverbs For The People: Contemporary African-American StoriesProverbs For The People: Contemporary African-American Stories
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Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Kensington (July 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0758202873

Forward by Jewell Parker Rhodes, Edited by Tracey Price Thompson and TaRessa Stoval with Pearl Cleage, Donna Hill, Parry "Ebony Satin" Brown, Omar Tyree and others

If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing." "Don't start none, won't be none." "If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything." Whether it was in the church on a hard-shined wooden pew, or around the kitchen table after, listening to the wisdom of mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandparents, friends, and leaders, the messages of the proverbs resonate in the souls of most African-Americans'a sweet refrain heard through striving, reaching, loving, and living. In this powerful collection of stories based on African, African-American, and Biblical proverbs, some of today's most exciting new African-American writers tackle the unifying themes, delicious wit and undeniable wisdom of the proverbs, making them sing for a whole new generation.

In the moving "Love Can Move Mountains," author Elizabeth Atkins Bowman explores the meaning of the African-American saying, "Mountain, get out of my way!" in a story about the miraculous, mysterious power of a mother's stand-firm love. In Arethia Hornsby's "My Momma Said'," two friends go out on the town and get schooled in a life lesson that proves the truth behind the ages-old African-American proverb, "Never judge a book by its cover." Town gossip gets the best of a loyal wife and gives credence to C.F. Pope's saying, "Never declare war unless you mean to do battle," in Gwynne Forster's wry tale of comeuppance, "First Thing Monday Morning." And in the flirty short story, "Something Special," Venise Berry shows what the Cape Verde Islands maxim, "Every week has its Friday" really means as one woman's weekly ritual promises seven days' worth of sensual satisfaction.

In addition to such established writers as Pearl Cleage, Omar Tyree, Margaret Johnson-Hodge, Timmothy McCann, Brandon Massey, Kambon Obayani, Earl Sewell, Maxine Thompson, and others, here, too, are rising stars in the African-American literary world, including fourteen-year-old Kharel Price and fifteen-year-old Tierra French, proving that the wisdom of the past lives on in the next generation.

From the struggle to break the chains of the past, (Pat G'Orge-Walker's "The Consequence") to the fight to keep hope alive in the face of injustice, (Robert Fleming's "A Crisis of Faith"), from the joys of loving an older woman (Parry "Ebony Satin" Brown's "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do"), to an African man's discovery of his own America (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Women Here Drive Buses"), this triumphant, stirring anthology is a glorious reminder of the power of proverbs to heal, to provoke, to unify, and to inspire.

 

Fleming's Work is also included in:

Dark Matter: The Anthology of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction by Black Writers

 

Some of Robert Flemings Reviews and Interviews on AALBC.com

List of Reviews by Robert Fleming on AALBC.com

Three Days Before the Shooting by Ralph Ellison

Interview with asha bandele

Interview with Colin Channer

Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala

With Billie by Julia Blackburn
http://www.aalbc.com/reviews/with_billie.htm

Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor Edited by Paul Beatty

Something Like Beautiful: One Single Mother's Story by asha bandele

Even More