BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//InvisionCommunity Events 4.7.23//EN METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN REFRESH-INTERVAL:PT15M X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT15M X-WR-CALNAME:RMCommunityCalendar NAME:RMCommunityCalendar BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20250330T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20251026T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Author Milton Davis reads excerpts from Muscadine Wine and S pacefunk. 6/18/2025 DTSTAMP:20250618T050917Z SEQUENCE:0 UID:332-7-c3fe8195a3dde498d013e477e2142422@aalbc.com ORGANIZER;CN="richardmurray":troy@aalbc.com DESCRIPTION:\n Author @Milton [ Milton Davis ] reads excerpts from Musc adine Wine and Spacefunk. 6/18/2025\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n transcript\n\n\n\n 0: 09\n[Music] welcome y'all thanks for coming um my\n0:15\nname is Milton Da vis i am a author/publisher and I specialize in science fiction and fantas y based on\n0:20\nAfrican African diaspora culture and traditions and so t oday I'm going to be uh talking about about a couple of books\n0:26\nthat I have out right now um um I've been writing since um 2008\n0:32\num I've written um about 30 novels since that time um I've published um about\n0:4 0\n12 anthologies um I've been a part of different I've been more recently I was\n0:45\nin the Black Panther Tales of Wakanda anthology i wrote a st ory for that um I also was part of a um an an editorial\n0:52\ngroup for u m the best the 2022 best African spectative fiction stories which\n0:57\ng ot nominated for an award and stuff like that so I've been doing this for a minute um but today I wanted to to uh\n1:03\nreally do something in the neighborhood i don't live far from here and this is a cool bookstore and I wanted to talk about a couple of books that I got out\n1:09\nright now th at I want to highlight um when I first started writing I tried to stay awa y from incorporating my personal\n1:17\nlife into a lot of stuff that I wr ote right science fiction and fans i just didn't want to do that but as I got older and and I started thinking about a\n1:25\nlot about the time per iod that I grew up and stuff like that um I felt like I\n1:30\nneeded to l eave some kind of stories that kind of reflected on that i was born in 196 0 um grew up during you know\n1:35\nthe 60s and the 70s and stuff like tha t and then in in the South so and um I\n1:42\nguess as I got older those s tories became more important to me it made me realize how unique it was um where we\n1:49\ngrew up and how we grew up and stuff like that so um I wr ote this book called Muskadine Wine it's a collection of\n1:55\nshort stor ies and each of the stories are based on personal experiences and experien ces in in general about um\n2:02\ngrowing up in the South and incorporatin g different things like that into it and um a matter of fact the uh\n2:09\ nmusketine wine story with the art here is loosely based on how my mother met my\n2:15\nfather back in the 1930s and stuff so I kind of did it based on that but the um\n2:21\nI'm going to read an excerpt from one of the st ories here and I also have another book that I have here it's called Space Funk and the use the unique thing about\n2:28\nthat is as a black author especially a black science fiction author there's certain ways people want you to write um\n2:34\nand so I started a series of anthologies I call th e funk anthologies and another indication that I grew up in the 70s but\n2 :42\nwhat what I do with those anthologies that I give black authors the o pportunity to write in genres the way\n2:47\nthat they want to write in th em um without the restrictions that you normally run into when you're deal ing with mainstream publishers and we've got\n2:55\num five different anth ologies we've got um steam funk um diesel funk spy funk\n3:02\ncyber funk and the latest most recent one is space funk and that's actually the bigge st one we've ever done we got\n3:08\nmore authors than we ever had um beca use you know black folks want to write about space so So that's basic that 's\n3:14\nbasically what we did we got some of the um top um black science fiction authors in that um in that anthology we've got\n3:21\nauthors fro m around the world we got authors from Brazil from Nigeria from Kenya um f rom um what's the other one um\n3:28\nin Central America I can't think of it right now but we were able to get a wide spectrum of authors and stuff and have them tell stories that are like you know\n3:35\nabout space but a lso has influences from their cultures into cultures as well so I'm going to read a little short thing out that one but the first one I want to\n3:4 2\nstart with is uh Musketine wine and um this particular story most most of them\n3:48\nare fantastic but this one is uh more uh conventional ficti on and it's\n3:54\nbased on the only conversation I ever had with my grand father on my mother's\n4:00\nside um it wasn't because he was not a nice p erson it was just that he was a\n4:05\nperson that um whenever we went out to the farm because my my mom and dad's farm they still had a farm now an d we\n4:11\nwould go out there and visit um he would go into his shed he'd give us a Coke a\n4:19\npiece of sugar cane a box of cracker jackacks and then he'd walk off and that's basically what he do we come out\n4:25\nthe re that's what he do so one day I was out on the farm i was older then i w as a teenager then and um I was into hunting\n4:32\nand fishing and stuff like that country boy you know so and I was supposed to be going hunting w ith one of my uncles and\n4:37\nwhen I got out there my uncle had already gone and my grandfather came up to me and said \"Uh you know what you what are you doing i said I'm supposed\n4:43\nto go hunting he said well he sa id well your my uncle my uncle Willie said he's he's already gone he said I'll take you\n4:49\nand so I was like okay and um I didn't hunt the entir e time because we spent\n4:56\nthe whole time just walking around the farm and he was just telling me these stories about different things and stuff \n5:02\nlike that and so we didn't hunt at all and so this story is uh is loosely based\n5:07\non that that and some other things that um I guess I' ve encountered growing up\n5:13\nin the south um different things like tha t and I wanted to kind of touch on so I'm just going to read the first par t of\n5:18\nit just enough to tease y'all so you'll buy the book but just to give you just want to give\n5:24\nyou some background on that story oka y um Michael felt heat radiating from his\n5:30\nwood panel bedroom wall a nd sprang from his bed the smell of bacon waftda into\n5:35\nhis room as h e h heard into jeans and sweatshirt he set out the night before wrestling on his tennis shoes and\n5:41\ntrotted through the narrow hallway into int o the kitchen mama stood before the stove one hand holding the black iron\ n5:47\nskillet in place while the other scrambled a pair of eggs in a hot pool of bacon grease\n5:52\n\"what you doing up so early boy?\" she asked without looking michael sat at the dinette holding his\n5:59\neager hands under his chin \"you going to grandma's?\" Mama scrapped the scrambled egg s onto a\n6:05\nplate i go out there every Saturday morning you know that michael played\n6:10\nwith the napkin holder rocking his head from side to side can I go mama was reaching for the grits\n6:17\nbut stopped placing her hand on her broad hips now why in the world do you want to go with me\ n6:24\nbecause I want to go hunting mama rolled her eyes you and that gun i told your\n6:30\ndaddy not to buy you that thing unless he was ready to go hunting with you his tire behind ain't been out with you yet\n6:36\nshe scooped a spoonful of grits on the plate to join the eggs and bacon you k now you can't go by yourself and your\n6:42\ndaddy ain't waking up no time soon michael smothered his grits with pepper uncle Willie would take me h ow you know\n6:49\nhe going hunting today this close to harvest time he's probably got chores\n6:55\nmichael piled his eggs on top of his grits with the with the pepper and crumbled bacon in his hands i called him\n7:00\nl ast night and he said he was going mama turned around and looked at him he r eyes\n7:06\nwise you did what she shook her head lord Lord what am I\n7: 12\ngoing to do with you she began to make her own plate and stopped what about that book report you supposed to be\n7:17\nworking on you finished i t yet no ma'am no and how you expect to go with me if\n7:24\nyou ain't if you got homework to do i'll finish it as soon as I get home mama i promise mama turned to look at Michael\n7:32\nwhat you writing about michael spre ad apple jelly on his toast i'm supposed to\n7:37\nbe writing about my her o i'm thinking about Frederick Douglas mama finished her plate before Mich ael finished his\n7:44\nplate before Mama sat down i guess you can go she said but we ain't leaving\n7:49\ntill I'm ready to you hear me yes ma'am a nd I want to see that book report after church tomorrow yes ma'am michael jumped\n7:57\nfrom the table and ran to mama and daddy room to get his 22 rifle he hoarded his lawn cutting money all summer just about\n8:03\nas a birthday present to himself it was a Springfield Savage 22 semi-automatic long rifle the perfect gun for squirrel\n8:10\nand rabbit hunting or so th e sales clerk at Sea said michael eased the door open\n8:15\nand crept clo se to and and crept to the closet behind the bed daddy was stretched out o n top of the covers in\n8:22\nhis boxes short and t-shirt snoring through his thick mustache the closet door creaked when Michael\n8:28\nslid it asi de and daddy's hand came up to scratch his sideburns michael froze until h e stopped scratching then slid\n8:35\nthe door wide open the gun was hidde n behind mama sun mama's Sunday dresses he\n8:41\ntook it out then went to daddy's loose change drawer where he kept the bullets there was a brand n ew pack of 100 shells\n8:46\nthat felt like money in the boy's hand michae l strolled into the kitchen carrying the rifle the way daddy taught\n8:53\ nhim mama looked up from her cup of coffee and grinned despite herself \"y ou look like your uncle Bo when he was your\n8:59\nage\,\" she said she go t up from the table and headed for the bedroom \"guess I better get ready the day ain't getting\n9:05\nno longer.\" Michael washed his plate then we nt to the den he laid his gun down on the floor and turned on TV to\n9:12\ nwatch cartoons he'd almost forgotten about going with mama when she came in the den \"cut that mess off and let's\n9:19\ngo\,\" she said michael sc rambled to his feet turned off the TV and then grabbed the gun and bullets now remember what I\n9:26\nsaid we don't leave till I'm ready yes ma'am a nd if your uncle Willie ain't\n9:31\ncan't take you hunting you don't go y es ma'am all right then let's go m michael\n9:39\ntrailed mama out the doo r to the carport to the 67 sky blue Malibu in moments\n9:44\nthey were zoo ming through the neighborhood down steep hills between the little water oa ks of the city had planned to beautify the landscape mama\n9:51\nworked he r way through the side streets and shortcuts with the seriousness of a NAS CAR driver reaching Mon Road the\n9:56\ntwo-lane highway that ran to Grand ma's farm the sky was a crisp autumn blue\n10:01\nempty of the gray haze t hat sagged low during the summer the summer morning spread its light acros s the pineinfested\n10:07\nhills it felt like hunting season and Michael w as excited he watched the\n10:12\nfamiliar landmarks flash by from his bac kseat window until he saw the solidary shack that signaled the farm\n10:18 \nwasn't far away mama finally slowed down as the roadside mailboxes came into view\n10:24\nshe stood off the path highway and onto the dirt road sh e was creeping as they approached the railroad crossing only\n10:30\nthe s ection crossing of the road was visible the rest blocked by a tangle of sc rub pines and honey honeysuckle vines\n10:37\nmama turned left across the track she drove to the g through a gauntlet of blackberry vines that made Michael that\n10:43\nmade Michael's mouth water as he remembered blackberr y pie and ice cream they turned right at the hog pins the\n10:49\nhouse ap peared flanked by the corn and peas and pea fields mama drove down the\n10 :54\nroad to the rear of the house parking between the house and the shed michael jumped out the car before mama came to a\n11:00\ncomplete stop his impatient eyes circling for Uncle Willie his euphoria was checked by a je rk of his arm that\n11:06\nalmost lifted him off his feet boy don't you ev er jump out of the car like that again mama's face would get me was get\n1 1:13\nme a switch angry don't go hitting on that boy a much older female v oice\n11:18\ngrowled grandma stood at the screen door of the of the back p atio michael blessed\n11:23\nher for saving him for what surely was going to be a whooping or at least a pinch on the arm she eased down the\n11:29\ nconcrete stairs wiping her hands on her apron did you see what he did mam a said\n11:34\nhe ain't hurt you'll know better next time won't you Michae l yes ma'am michael\n11:40\nfollowed Mama and Grandma up the stairs since he made mama mad he sat beside the women in an old folding chair took his\ n11:47\nshare of the butter beans from the bushel and began shelling he ke pt his eyes low and peeled as they talked\n11:53\nwaiting for the right mo ment to ask the question that was burning to get out of his throat mama st opped talking as she grabbed\n11:59\nanother handful of beans michael clea red his throat and looked up at Grandma\n12:04\ngrandma is Uncle Willie he re shoot boy uncle Willie Uncle Willie went hunting\n12:10\nright about su n up he won't be back until dark michael slumped over like he'd been hit b y a brick he looked at\n12:16\nMama with pleading eyes i told you no hunti ng by yourself with that gun she reminded him\n12:23\ni'll take him grandp a shuffled in from the kitchen his hands deep in his overall pockets he sm iled at Michael\n12:31\nflashing his gold tooth and Michael was filled wit h dread \"you feel like hunting today Daddy?\" Mama asked \"you supposed\n 12:38\nto be resting.\" \"I don't want to go hunting no more\,\" Michael w hispered \"i feel fine\,\" Grandpa\n12:45\nreplied pulling his right hand out of his pocket michael watched the gnawled scarred appendage rise out t he old man's\n12:51\nball head to the old man's ball head \"it was hideous like something from a freak\n12:56\nshow at the fair when he was small he always was careful to avoid touching or being touched by that hand and hi s\n13:03\nmirror twin he thought when he was older he'd get over the fear but it was still clinging to him as real as ever\n13:10\ni don't want to g o hunting no more he said \"is it all right?\" Mama asked Grandpa grandpa concentrated on Grandma\n13:18\nconcentrated on the peas the doctor said h e needed to get some exercise\n13:23\n\"i don't want to go hunting no more \,\" Michael shouted boy can't you see grown folks talking mama nailed him stealed\n13:30\nher stare then returned to her conversation well Papa I g uess it's okay but you keep\n13:36\na close eye on him he can get wild som etimes what you mean you guess it's okay grandpa said i'll take this boy\n 13:43\nanywhere I want to come on Michael let's go hunting michael watched the back of\n13:48\nGrandpa's head as he bounced down the stairs he looke d at Mama in desperation what you waiting on go on now\n13:56\nmichael tur ned and followed Grandpa down the stairs he could do this he was 12\n14:01 \ngoing on 13 with two hairs on his chest and a start of a mustache on his upper lip his confidence had almost returned\n14:08\nuntil he caught a gl impse of those hands pull out a porch of red a pouch of red man chewing to bacco he jumped past\n14:13\ngrandpa and tried to the car to get his 22 wh at you going to kill with that time\n14:19\nmichael ignored the comment ho lding the gun toward the ground like daddy had taught him and making sure his safety was on squirrels\n14:26\nand rabbits sir\,\" he said grandpa la ughed like a laughed like a wet growl \"can't kill no squirrels with that thing\n14:33\nain't going to do nothing but make them mad should have brou ght my shotgun.\" Grandpa started walking and Michael\n14:39\nfollowed afr aid to say where he wanted to hunt they followed the trail branching off t he dirt road that cut\n14:44\nbetween the the barn and the and the old mul e stables \"no can't kill nothing with\n14:50\nthat thing\,\" Grandpa said \"can't kill it right?\" I mean you shoot a squirrel with that and they'l l be running around mad\n14:56\nhurting and hiding shotgun a shotgun will put him down just like that grandpa\n15:01\nstopped walking and Michael al most ran into him \"see this?\" he asked pointing at a dent between his ri ght thumb and\n15:08\nhis finger \"shot a squirrel one time and thought it was dead.\" \"I guess I should have asked it before I went to picking\n15 :14\nit up damn thing took a hold of me right there like a beaver trap too k a half an hour to get it loose and it was dead\n15:20\nhalf that time mi chael looked at the spot and grimaced imagining how painful it must have f elt\n15:26\nsuddenly the scar and the hand were gone sinking back into gra ndpa's pocket\n15:32\nthey walked to the second hog pin where the trail en ded the air heavy with the stink of swamp and m swamp mud and hog\n15:38\n droppings before them was the turnup the turnup green field the fall plant ing full and ready for harvest grandpa\n15:45\nwalked into the field and o ver the barb wire fence separating the field to the woods michael hadn't p lanned on going to\n15:51\nthose trees it was a tangle of pine oaks and mu sketine vines that seemed per perpetually dark and it repulsed the\n15:58\ nsun's attempt to penetrate his core blind obedience only went so far\n16: 04\ngrandpa where we going you want to shoot squirrels don't you michael r eluctantly\n16:10\nnodded his head but this is the best spot for them at l east it was a while back come over here and hold this wire\n16:16\ndown fo r me michael sat the gun down on the opposite side of the fence then grabb ed the wire\n16:22\ncarefully pushing down with his weight grandpa stepped over his hand gripping Michael's shoulder for support michael\n16:28\nclo sed his eyes keeping his head away from that hand \"got to be careful\,\"\ n16:34\nGrandpa said as he grunted his way over the fence \"once he and Mi chael were settled\,\" he showed him his left hand\n16:40\n\"when I was ab out your uncle Willy's age I worked for a white man named Mr elias Burnsid e in his sawmill it was hard work\n16:47\nback then because a colored man did whatever the boss said do even if it wasn't your job well one day I wa s\n16:54\nputting up a fence like this like this one on Mr burnside's farm and before I knew it I was up to my ankles and fire\n17:00\nants boy I go t to jumping around and screaming and tore my hand on that barbwire took m e a long time to get this\n17:07\nhand back right michael climbed over the fence the woods towered before him like in black silence\n17:14\nhis stil lness of final warning to all intruders michael eyes went to Grandpa waiti ng for him to lead the way instead\n17:22\nGrandpa reached into his pocket pulled out his red man chewing tobacco and leaned against the fence \"we' ll stay\n17:28\nhere and wait\,\" Grandpa said \"they'll come to us.\" And that's a portion of Grandpa's hands\n17:38\num there's a uh there's a thi ng about his\n17:44\nhands that if you read the rest of the story you will encounter\n17:50\nbut uh but yeah that's uh that's part of that story rig ht there um like I told y'all earlier this book is um it's a\n17:56\ncolle ction of of space stories by black authors um they're from um different pa rts of um parts of the world we've got\n18:03\npoetry in here um some of t he authors here like for instance uh uh Linda Addison and Sheree Renee Tho mas Eugene\n18:10\nBacon are some of the top black science fiction authors out today um I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of\n18:15\nthem and when I put out the call for this book I was surprised at the response I got uh this is the biggest anthology that we've done so far um the\n18:2 3\nstory that I want to read to you guys is I'm going to be selfish and ac tually read my story\n18:30\na portion of my story and it's kind of it's a story I wrote a long time ago but\n18:37\num um recently there's been a l ot of talk about artificial intelligence and stuff\n18:44\nlike that and i n this story I was actually imagining um artificial\n18:49\nintelligence a nd how it would be used in space travel and it also came from uh u\n18:55\ npart of the story came from the person that this book is uh dedicated to um author by the name of Valjan Jeffers um\n19:02\nValjon is no longer wit h us um but she is was an amazing science fiction author and poet and um w e used to hang out on\n19:10\nonline together and I had never read anybody do any science fiction poetry before and so I put out a challenge i\n19:1 6\nsaid \"Look I I if somebody will write a a science fiction poem I'll wr ite a\n19:22\nstory based on that poem.\" And Val Jean did and she sent th is poem called\n19:27\nLeviathan and I'm like \"Okay now I got to put my m oney where my mouth is i got\n19:32\nto write a story.\" So basically the the name of the story is Leviathan and it starts with the um poem and then um I go\n19:41\ninto the story um you I don't talk so loud but yeah I fee l the\n19:49\nfun and everything so I'll try to project more um so I'm goi ng to read the poem first and then I'll read a I'll\n19:55\nread a portion of the story leviathan of flesh and steel racing\n20:00\nthrough streets soaring of technological genius his fist crush tons of debris to\n20:07\nd ust his sight travels miles over designated horizons torn from his life\n2 0:13\ncrushed disembowled by madness infernal and stone to be reconstructe d by\n20:19\nhumanoed hands and I'd rather be dead he remembers the whispe r of a lover's\n20:25\nbreath on his cheek the head he cradled so gently a gainst his shoulder and he\n20:30\nhas no tear ducts to give voice to his sorrow only the dreams of his hardwire\n20:36\nheart never forgotten imagi neers of her soft caressed upon his\n20:41\nmetal brow space marshal Balag on Babatunde posed be\n20:48\nposed before the view shield of launch stati on 5 his rugged brown face creased with a broad smile behind him United\n2 0:56\nNations delegation gazed in awe at the sight beyond the platform jut ting into the void 10 sleek vessels hovered in\n21:04\nzero gravity tether ed to the hangar beam by a web of massive titanium cables from\n21:10\na d istance they remember they were resembled normal fighter craft minus the c ockpit but the delegation knew each\n21:17\nship was the size of Earth's m oon an unbelievable example of human ingenuity effort and desperation\n21: 24\nbalogon turned to his colleagues and his smile grew wider well everyon e what do\n21:29\nyou think they're amazing and John Ratic replied a tall narrow man with a beak\n21:35\nnose and straw blonde hair Radic served as UN vice secretary he was a successful\n21:40\nAmerican billionaire who pai d for his position with the council and was easily impressed the space mar shal dismissed\n21:46\nhis comment focusing on the one person whose opinio n mattered more the one who could make or break his project her\n21:53\nex pression was less impressive the mechanics are simple fish ambeck\n21:58\n commented \"I'm more concerned about the control system.\" Fish day the Ni gerian\n22:04\nvice chairperson overseeing the Leviathan project was a str iking woman with flawless brown skin and intense\n22:09\namber eyes she he ld a PhD in space engineering and was not easily impressed\n22:15\nbalagon 's f smile faded the control system is fine fish day cut her eyes at\n22:2 2\nthe space marshall the control system is untested yuenh how cleared his throat looking up\n22:29\nat both of them ai has proven technology you kn ow this Fer the Taiwanese delegate\n22:34\nand AI specialist stood beside the space marshal he was as tall and broad as the space marshal with empat hetic eyes that\n22:42\nrevealed his that revealed his support for the for the project yes but only for military purposes she\n22:48\nanswered i und erstand the gravity of the situation the signal from the tipc left no doub t that they intend to attack to\n22:54\nattack us so much for friendly fir st contact John whispered i'm not comfortable with\n23:00\nthinking weapon s foolish your day finished that's why I insisted you come the space marsh all broke from the group\n23:07\ncrossing the room to a instrument panel o pposite the view screen begin demonstration he ordered the titanium\n23:14 \ncables separated from the ships floating to rest in the cold vacuum engi ne ports glowed white hot as the vehicles\n23:20\nprepared themselves for maneuvers balagon activated his earpiece leviathan\n23:26\none commence cr oss check cross cross check are you talking to the ship fish\n23:32\nasked of course Balagon replied the Leviathans have been taught to recognize an d respond to all Earth languages of\n23:39\ncourse they also interpret bin ary code and other basic speak this is Leviathan\n23:44\n1 the metallic vo ice responded cross check is complete fishete edged toward\n23:50\nthe vie w screen how do they receive assignments we brief the pod leader and\n23:5 5\nhe relays the orders to the team fisher should look confused the pod le ader the\n24:01\nLeviathans are infused with part social behavior they wor k as a group adapting learned behavior to determine each\n24:07\nship's re sponsibility leviathan one is the most intelligent of the 10 the others se lected him to be the pod leader\n24:13\nso we don't expect any problems wi th the command structure ola stared and Bagum smiled you must\n24:20\nunde rstand these are semi-scentient craft balagon explained they are designed to operate independently this\n24:26\nmeans they must be allowed to make t heir own decisions we give them an objective and an entire and a desired r esult it's\n24:33\nup to them to determine the course of action that's too much independence foolish\n24:38\nargued balagon frowned at the diplomat disappointed by their ignorance when\n24:43\nthese ships reach their desti nations we will be dead our children will be dead and our children childre ns will be dead\n24:50\nin addition the nature of the threat may have dras tically changed the Leviathans must be prepared to assess situations\n24:5 6\nand adjust the plan to obtain the objective how do you know they'll sti ck to the plan she asked balon's face became stern\n25:05\nsome things are n't not left a chance it's the one command they cannot alter the ships rem ain motionless balagon\n25:12\nrepeated the command leviathan one begin ex ercise\n25:17\nleviathan one didn't respond sweat reform sweat formed on B alagon's forehead jennings run a communication\n25:24\nsequence airman Jen nings fingers ran across the LED board communications f\n25:30\nfunctional ly normally sir fish today came face to face with Baligon\n25:35\nwhat see ms to be the problem commander balagon cleared his throat\n25:40\ni don't know he swam in a sea of memories grasping\n25:46\nfor schools of shimmeri ng metaphors that scattered before him arms stroked that he could not see legs kicked that he\n25:52\ncould not feel somehow he knew they were there the only sensations were the cold\n25:58\nof the water and the pain in hi s heart words formed a beat of consciousness that called him in the called him with\n26:05\nthe rush of desire she was there she waited for him he h ad to see her she\n26:11\nneeded to know he stepped out of the memories on to a beach of white silicone a cold wind tingling his surface he\n26:19\ng azed upward into the sensors eyes into an intense brightness that spoke to him\n26:24\nin a thousand languages each phrase issuing the same command program malfunction\n26:31\nreturn to standby await further instructions t he brightness was too intense the\n26:37\nmemories evaporated with the inc reasing light confusing him he turned and ran back into the sea fell in to get away\n26:44\nfrom the glare he dove deeper to escape the light and th e memory surrounding him in a swirling dance images returned\n26:52\nfaces formed and names appeared one name danced about his head just out of his\ n26:58\nreach it was a good name a familiar name\n27:03\nhis name and that 's\n27:10\nBut anyway um um I have these books here today and if\n27:15\ny ou want to purchase them you can purchase them up front i'll sign the stor ies and stuff like that i also brought a couple of other books with me\n27 :20\nas well um if you have any um middle-rade people in your in middle gr ade readers in your family um I\n27:26\nbrought a book that I wrote a few years ago called Amber in the Hidden City it's about a young African-Ameri can girl who\n27:31\nfinds out she's the only person that can pick a the n ext king of an African kingdom that's been hidden from the rest\n27:36\nof the world for a thousand years and uh her grandmother is from that kingdo m and would tell Amber these stories um\n27:42\nstories about her life whi ch Amber thought were fairy tales but now she knows they were actually tru e so now she's on this adventure with her\n27:48\ngrandmother to go back t o this kingdom and um and fulfill her her her um prophecy i guess you can say that um I\n27:55\nhave the first the book the first book and the secon d book here and for those of you who are into um cozy holiday\n28:04\nroma nce books because I write a little bit of everything I have another book h ere called Palmetal Christmas and it's\n28:09\nabout a um an older couple um empty nesters kids are grown and gone who have\n28:15\ndecided they wan t to take a vacation on during Christmas and go to they've always been at home every year but they\n28:20\nwant to go to an aisle and hang out and s tuff like that but then through a series of circumstances they find out th at they're not going to be gone by\n28:26\nthemselves all of their childre n somehow are going to end up with them on that same vacation and uh I gue ss you can say\n28:33\nhilarity ensues so but that's what I have with here with me today and um so um thank y'all for uh\n28:40\ntaking your time to check me out and if y'all have any questions right now I'm I'd be more th an happy to answer\n28:51\nwell I started and I still am a self-publisher and and I did it because I wanted to be able to write my books\n28:57\nexa ctly the way I wanted to write them and at the time um and even now still\ n29:02\nyou know black authors have challenges in getting their work publi shed because people have certain perceptions of what\n29:08\nwe should be writing and how we should be writing it it's not as bad as it was when I f irst started but when I first started I kind of looked at the re I\n29:14\ nresearched the industry and I was like you know um nobody's going to acce pt my stories the way that I want to write them so I started writing them myself\n29:21\nstarted self-publishing myself and I also um published a fe w other authors that's why I started the anthologies\n29:28\nbecause I whe n I started doing it I said \"Well I know there's other authors who probab ly have run into the same things\n29:33\nI've run into and they would you know be looking for an opportunity.\" So that's why I started doing it so um now\n29:42\nI'm here 20 years later and I'm what's called a hybrid publ isher now because\n29:48\nnow I get published in mainstream published work s but I wouldn't that\n29:54\nwouldn't have happened if I had not self-pub lished you know I was able to develop a reputation from about my\n30:02\nw riting by doing it on my own and that kind of translated and now that's ki nd of the common thing now a lot of authors\n30:08\nnow are like doing bot h they'll publish their own work and then they'll publish mainstream as we ll it just depends on\n30:14\nthe situation they'll have they'll have an a gent to promote themselves with the mainstream publishing but then they'll do their own personal work and publish\n30:21\nthat themselves and what h appens if there sometimes what happens when your self-published stuff gets really big\n30:27\nthen the mainstream publishing people will come and sa y \"Hey we want to publish that.\" And then then you could that way you ca n get an agent and go\n30:33\nthrough them and then uh and and access that market and stuff what platform you use to sell\n30:39\ni don't know anyth ing about question sounds kind of but what platform do you use process the process\n30:47\num I basically um now I use a a manuscript software to cr eate my\n30:53\nmanuscripts and stuff i do own use I use Word to do my stu ff um once I make once I get my books formatted um there's a\n31:00\ncompa ny called um what they were called Lightning Source back in the day but no w they they call themselves Ingram and\n31:05\nwhat Ingram will do is if y ou once you format everything and send it to them they will create your bo ok for you and\n31:12\nyou can get your book print on demand you can you c an order one book from them you can order a 100 books from them and\n31:17 \nthey'll print them for you um as far as distribution is concerned if you want to get distribution they also are the\n31:23\nlargest distri book di stribution company in the country and they basically will\n31:29\num um if they'll for a fee they will make your book available to bookstores\n31:35 \nlike this Barnes &\; Noble any place that sells books they'll make yo ur book a book books available like that um so\n31:40\nthat's what they'll do am*zon also will do it am*zon will also do have has a print on demand business as well um the\n31:47\nthe advantage of using am*zon's print on d emand is that if you sell your books on am*zon um they're cheaper for you to\n31:55\nprint but just recently am*zon went up on their prices big time you know because of what we're going through with\n32:01\nthe tariff situ ation and a lot of my friends that use am*zon are not very happy right now because that biting into\n32:06\ntheir profit margins and stuff like that you know so So there's a there's a number of ways to do it now there's th ere's um ebooks which are big um\n32:14\nthere's actually a company called Draft to Digital that I use right now which they basically will distribut e your ebook to different people so you go set\n32:21\nyour ebook up with them and then they'll they'll make your ebook available for Kindle and all the other e-readers to\n32:27\nlibraries and stuff like that you know so and this then this is just like a one-stop shop you know that's kind of th ing you don't pay them what they do is\n32:34\nthat they take a percentage when you sell um if you're getting if you're thinking about being an auth or and you're looking at doing something\n32:40\nanybody that tells you th at you have to pay them to produce your book you know as far as like we're gonna we're going\n32:47\nto be your publisher and we're going to sell yo ur book but you have to pay us to publish your book don't mess with them b ecause a real publisher is not going to\n32:53\ncharge you to sell your bo ok they're not going to do that and with\n32:59\num I would say I would ta ke a look at Ingram LSI um now now understand that these people don't mark et your stuff all\n33:07\nthey're gonna do is print your book for you and and and make it available to you when you need it but um they don't do\n33 :12\nmarketing they don't do anything like that that's all going talking a bout am*zon no um LSI Draft oh\n33:20\nDrafted Digital yeah Drafted Digita l they do now ly they've they've they started exclusively as ebooks but no w\n33:27\nrecently they've gotten into print and they've also gotten into um audio books\n33:32\nand they make all that stuff available to you of co urse all that all that costs for you to do for them to do it for you and s tuff but they they've kind of went\n33:38\nthe opposite way where other pe ople started with hard copy and went to ebooks they started exclusively eb ooks\n33:44\nand then they now they've kind of drifted into the other area and stuff like that so trying to become like a one-stop shop type place y ou know\n33:56\nif it's if it's just you um you don't have to worry about all that stuff you know um you can just you\n34:03\nknow if you can get th e right setup the right room and stuff like that you can you can you can c reate your own audio\n34:09\nbooks um the um am*zon is probably one of the most popular popular people right now with Audible but a lot of people\n3 4:16\ndon't like to use am*zon because they take the majority of the profi t they take like about 60 60% something like\n34:22\nthat you know and the y used to it used to be the other way till they found out they had they th ought they had a monopoly on the thing then they switch\n34:27\nit around and stuff like that you know so and with them basically you can they give you um uh voice actors you can pick\n34:34\nand select and stuff like that they give you the whole nine yards and all that kind of stuff you know bu t the but the the um the um the consequence is that\n34:43\nyou don't get a lot of the profit stuff like that um but it does um the I know\n34:48\ns ome people that do it themselves but the more professionally you can do it in a studio setting you know to cut out the\n34:54\nnoise and have somebo dy that can edit it for you you know when you make mistakes and stuff like Daryl here he he can edit\n35:01\nstuff like that you know the more profe ssional you can do it the better it's going to be you know but uh and\n35: 06\nsome people I I I don't have the voice but I know some authors who hav e the voice to do their own audio books you\n35:12\nknow me personally I'd rather find somebody that can do it themselves\n35:22\ni know a friend of mine who's an author who also has an audiobook company and he\n35:28\nbas ically you know he gets you know you send him the story he has a number of \n35:33\nvoice people that he works with um he'll you know check with them and see which\n35:38\nones because it is it is a thing audio a voice acto r has to want to read your story sometimes they don't really like\n35:44\n your story so they don't want to read it you know it's like that and then based on how their pacing is he can figure out\n35:50\nhow much it's going to cost you per hour to to pay that person how much you know how many how 's how much it going to cost\n35:56\nyou and that kind of stuff like that you know and then there are some country companies that that's all they do is audiobook stuff there's there's other\n36:02\npeople other than Audibl e that can do audiobook stuff for you and they will tell you how much it's going to cost you\n36:08\nbased on how long the work is and stuff like th at now when you when you upload to Audible though Audible don't pay you\n3 6:13\ndoesn't pay you as much if you upload your own audio book with them as if they were to do it but there is software out\n36:21\nthere where bec ause on my particular website I can do audio books and I can sell them fro m my website and there is\n36:27\nsoftware out there where people can read can listen to my stuff you know and don't have to use Audible and stuff l ike\n36:32\nthey can just listen to it straight from their stuff you know so so there there are there are ways around it and that's\n36:37\nthe way I prefer to do it the only thing about doing it yourself is that audiobook s are expensive like this\n36:43\nparticular book um we had our guy take a look at it cuz he's like he want he's \"Oh man we got to do audio book of this\n36:49\nthing.\" You know it would cost me $6\,000 to do this as a a udio book you know i\n36:55\nmean that'll be my upfront cost just to get t he Now once I pay that $6\,000 now and I get the audio book then it's\n37: 01\nstraight profit because it's just electronic data you know so if I got the money to do it Yeah everything else\n37:07\neverything after that is gravy but see I'm kind of like you i I have some audio books but for the l ife of me I cannot\n37:14\nlisten to an audio book i just can't I just can 't do it\n37:23\ni had an author that I had one audio voice actor that did two of my books and it was interesting because um people\n37:30\nwere lik e \"Yeah I really I really love her on this And then somebody said but the n somebody else said you know that\n37:35\nwas a good book but I could not stand that voice actor i'm like I'm surprised they got to it\n37:40\nbeca use what they were talking about so and that's a personal thing you know y ou really don't know who's you know but there are a lot of good voice acto rs out\n37:47\nthere i' I've run into them just just from the fact that I' m out here selling my books sometimes one of them will read\n37:52\na book of mine and they'll be like \"Oh man i really want to do this for you man you know I I would love to do this.\" And stuff like that one of the curi ous\n37:59\nthings about about doing um audio books especially through thr ough um am*zon I'm just going to be honest with you that\n38:05\nsometimes the voice actors will ghost on you they they will start doing the work\n3 8:10\nfor you and then all of a sudden you're not hearing from them anymor e and I'm like you're like well what's going on and you can't find them or anything and\n38:17\nI've had it I've had it happen to me a couple of tim es there was one woman I was working with she was doing one of my books an d she was amazing i mean she was\n38:23\nbecause my books are like a lot o f my books are like Africanbased she was doing the African accents she was \n38:28\nhitting i like \"Oh man this is gonna be a great book.\" I just c ouldn't wait for her to finish it and then she was gone\n38:34\nand and I wasn't able to find it\n38:43\ni have done them um not usually through som ething else like um like in October\n38:50\num the the Atlanta writers clu b has a um has a indie author conference that they\n38:56\ndo every year a nd actually I'm doing a uh seminar with them this year i'm going to be tal king about selling and\n39:02\nmarketing your books to beginning authors u m and I've done that a couple of times there and the ironic thing\n39:08\n about this and I have to talk about this is that when I first started writ ing and I first went to the Atlanta Writers Club\n39:15\num they didn't wa nt to have anything to do with indie authors you know I like it was like I went there and I was like\n39:21\nwasting my time they had no time for in die authors and now here I am 20 years later and I'm doing presentations\n 39:27\nat at the Atlanta Writers Club about indie author stuff because tha t's where most indie that's where most authors are\n39:33\nnow that's the space that they're in now and that's the stuff that they want to know but at least they were I guess they\n39:38\nwere um conscious enough to realiz e that their audience and the people that they're serving this is what the y want\n39:45\nthey do want to know about mainstream publishing but they a lso want to know about indie publishing and so they you know they responde d to it and they've\n39:51\nbeen you know providing those resources and st uff you know\n39:59\nyeah I've done that on all levels i've been to elemen tary schools i've done high schools um I've done college\n40:05\ncollege s tuff i do a lot of stuff with Georgia Tech um they've been supporting what we've been doing locally for a long\n40:11\ntime and we've got a really g ood relationship with them and talking to their students and stuff like th at and\n40:16\nand I think that's that's a big part of it because I know w hen I first started out there's so many pitfalls you can run\n40:22\ninto as a writer trying to get into it there's so many people out there waiting to rip you off you know and there's so\n40:27\nmany horror stories but I was lucky enough and I'm just going to say plain lucky because I didn't kn ow what I was\n40:33\ndoing to meet people who right off the bat were look ing to help um one of the\n40:39\nfirst people that helped me was the the brother that owns Nubian Bookstore um I had no I knew nothing about making books\n40:45\nand creating books and I just walked into his store and my naive self I said \"Hey man if I make a book will you sell\n40:52\nit?\" A nd he said \"Well do you have somebody do your manuscript?\" I was like \" Nope.\" He said \"Do you have somebody to\n40:58\ndo your cover?\" I said \"Nope.\" And then he went and he gave me the cards and said \"You know ge t in contact with these\n41:03\npeople and they'll help you put your book together and once you have your book together\,\" he said \"Bring it back to me i'll take a look at it if I like\n41:09\nit then I'll schedule a tim e where you can come in and sell your book.\" And so all the horror storie s that I heard\n41:15\nother people talk about as trying to publish and se lf-publish I didn't run into any of that because of the fact\n41:21\nthat he was just there and and there there were some other authors that were li ke mainstream published authors that I\n41:28\nencountered online and I wa s like these people have no reason to talk to me they're doing their thing and just for\n41:33\nthe hell of it I just said look I'll ask them all th ey can do is say no and they were kind enough to say hey yeah I'll\n41:38\ nwrite a review for your book I'll take a look at it and stuff and I kind of felt like because that happened with me I\n41:44\nfelt like I'm obligat ed to do the same thing so when I run into new authors and stuff like that I kind of offer the same\n41:50\nthing i'm like \"Yeah you know um you ne ed to look at this person you need to talk to these people you need to go to this resource and stuff like that you\n41:56\nknow and you need to chec k this out.\" That kind of thing you know so so I think that's part of it that's was I like to do that because of the fact that\n42:02\num excuse me excuse me people did it for me and especially for black authors because y ou know it's everything for us\n42:08\nis always you know another a whole another angle and stuff like that it's gotten better but still you know yo u\n42:14\nstill have to have those people who understand that who understa nd your journey you know and they they feel that\n42:20\njourney it's just not um going different steps you you know that you know the stuff that yo u're going to deal with so\n42:26\nyou can give them that little extra pus h or that little extra information that they need in order to get them aro und those obstacles and stuff like that so\n42:33\nSo I think that's that is part of it is being able to reach back and help other authors and talk to other authors about\n42:38\nstuff you're welcome those are some great\n 42:45\nquestions any any other questions comments curses\n42:52\nwell I ap preciate y'all appreciate y'all coming by you know like I said we got the books available here um um books\n42:59\nthey can you can also order my bo oks through this bookstore i do sell them directly from my website um the good thing about today though is if you buy\n43:05\nthem today you get the m signed by the\n\n\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n forum post\n\n https://aalbc.com/tc /topic/11681-author-milton-davis-reads-excerpts-from-muscadine-wine-and-sp acefunk/\n\n DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250618 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