Personally Yours - Author Rico Salam

Personally Yours will give you a brief look inside your favorite authors world. We know they write smokin' books, but do they smoke with the Surgeon General and if they do, what? Are they left-handed or right handed? Take a personal look inside Author Rico Salam's life. Enjoy Personally Yours!


1.Who is Rico Salam? - Rico Salam is an up and coming author from West Philadelphia who is striving to give young black men from the urban community a different image in the sight of America. Unfortunately my childhood wasn’t what you would call the best upbringing. I was brought up and raised in a house hold full of alcoholics and drug addicts. So people thought my future was ruined from day one. However my plans were different. I knew if anyone was going to make a change in my family then it had to be me. So I stayed in school and became the first person in my family to ever graduate. After that I enrolled in college and earned a degree in business management. This is when I realized there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do, so I decided to write my first novel “GET MINE OR GET NAKED”.

2.What are you passionate about? - I’m passionate about helping other people who are trying to help themselves. A lot of the time people just need someone who believe in them and will give them that extra push they need to excel. So if I can lend a helping hand to someone who is seriously trying to better their self, then I’m all for it.

3.Why should the world take notice of you? - Because I’m the example of what the power of a prayer can do for a person. I’m far from being rich or famous but I come a long way from being the little boy who grew up in a crack house. I don’t know who was praying for me but I’m sure somebody was because my life could be a lot different right now.

4.What is your favorite chick flavor? A meaty ham, a juicy pork-chop, or a fat free chicken? - Well I don’t eat pork, so the ham is out of the question. And a fat free chicken is just not enough to satisfy a brother. So I’ll say I like mine nice and beefy, but I don’t want the whole cow.

5.What are your life rules? - I’m a firm believer in patience. Success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work and patience to bring your dreams to a reality.



6. You know you are going to die on April 6, 2015 how will you live the remainder of your life? In fear or joy? - Since I already know I’m going to die I would do stuff that I would normally be afraid to do. Like jumping out of airplanes, going swimming with sharks, driving my car at 140 in a 60 mile zone. JUST HAVE NO FEAR AT ALL.


7.5 Favs-

Color- royal blue
Food-lasagna
Movie- Malcom X
Song- Cry for you by Jodeci
Drink- Pink Lemonade

8.Do you forgive regardless of what someone has done for you? -It all depends on how close I am to the person. If we have a close relationship then I would normally forgive them. But if we aren’t that close then I just keep my distance.

9.If you could change your past would you? - I really would like to say yes because there are a lot of mistakes I made in my life that I would like to fix. But if I didn’t make those mistakes I wouldn’t be the person I am today. So I would say no.

10. In the nude or negligee? - I like the negligee because that shows that she is really trying to be sexy for me. I like it when a woman goes out of her way to do something special for me.

11.Where can we find you on the net? - Right know you can find me on Facebook and The Firm Publications.Com

12. Fill in the blank with one word. To know Rico Salam is to appreciate Rico Salam.

EXCERPT - Wait for Love: A Black Girl's Story

Some women don't leave until they get their ass kicked the right way. Not a bruise or a broken bone, but a good deep down ass whoopin'. Not enough blood for questions, but just enough to make their soul wonder why....

Wait for Love: A Black Girl's Story - $12 http://www.wandadhudson.com/

Terrance started a fight with me that morning over my use of water. He said I should pay the water bill, along with the rent, because I was bigger than him and used more of it. It was early and I was cranky from not having much sleep the night before. He had his friends over for an all night party on a Tuesday. None of them had jobs, so no one had anywhere to be but where they were. I didn’t feel like hearing what he had to say, so I replied with a smart quick tongue, hoping to silence him.

“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said to date. I guess you expect me to pay the cable, gas, light, and phone bill as well since your pathetic ass isn’t man enough to do it. Shut up, Terrance. It’s too early for your mouth.”

My response caught him off guard because his reply to me was that of silence. I started walking towards the bathroom to get dressed when I heard him running up behind me. My face was met with his head when I turned towards him. The fool head butted me. His exact target was my eye. I fell backwards on the floor and grabbed my face in pain. Gray stars and filthy vultures circled my face and moaned a song of gloom; it hurt so bad.

While I was on the floor crying and screaming how sick I thought Terrance was, he started kicking me in my back, sides, and face, while yelling in crazy man lingo.
“Don’t you ever talk back to me, you fat, sloppy bitch! Your stupid ass is going to pay every bill that comes into this house whether I have a job or not! Now get your sorry ass up and fix me some breakfast!”

He stopped kicking me and walked away muttering words under his breath that only a psychotic nut would understand. I managed to get up and went into the bathroom to look at my face. My left eye watched my right eye swell up, and my right eye noticed my left eye was red and puffy. My black eyes were on their way.

I took my nightgown off and looked at my stomach in the mirror. It was bruised and I imagined my back was, as well. There was no need to look because I’d felt this way before. I wanted to call into work, but I was already absent two days that week and couldn’t afford to miss anymore.My right eyeball was no longer visible, and I’d have to wear a pair of light colored shades all day as I’d done before. I was at the point of not even bothering to put on makeup to try and cover it up, knowing what I was hiding, as did everyone else.

I’m not sure who was who, but I came out of the bathroom to see Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde standing in my living room in the form of Terrance’s body.
“Hey, baby. I have some interviews to go on today, so I’ll drop you off at work. I put your purse and jacket in the car, and I want to stop and grab you some breakfast, so hurry your sweet self up.”

He walked out the door and I stood in the middle of the room waiting for an answer. Someone needed to tell me Terrance was sick and I wasn’t the person that had his cure. Sure, I had the answer; I just didn’t feel like talking to myself.





Wanda D. Hudson

Wanda D. Hudson
http://www.wandadhudson.com

Personally Yours - Author Gerald Rice

Personally Yours will give you a brief look inside your favorite authors world. We know they write smokin' books, but do they smoke with the Surgeon General and if they do, what? Are they left-handed or right handed? Take a personal look inside Author Gerald Rice's life. Enjoy Personally Yours!



1. Who is Gerald Rice? He's a dead body rotting in the corpse of a rusted out Grand Am in the backyard of an abandoned house in Highland Park. Hey look- I just found him that way, I didn't do it. But me? I'm a guy who did a lot of different things before finally coming back to my passion. I'm a father and a husband too. I'm a lifelong Detroiter where ever I go. I'm a grateful child of a broken home.

2. What are you passionate about? Books. Reading was my first passion, writing is my second. No, horror movies were my first passion. Then reading, then writing. I started watching horror movies when I was about 4. My mother introduced me to them. She was a huge Stephen King fan and she was really the reason I started reading for pleasure. I was in the Horizons Upward Bound program when I decided to start writing as a hobby. I had a creative writing class where we all had to write a story and read it aloud to the class. There was something so addictive about having a captive audience listening to something I created. I wasn't really that good at first, I think I can be bold enough to say I was pretty bad. But I never stopped wanting it. I committed myself to learning from the books I read. People like Stephen King (obviously), F. Paul Wilson, Al Sarantonio, Ethan Black, most recently David Wong and a host of others.

3. Why should the world take notice of you? I'm different. Not that I'm the only unique voice, but I think all unique voices should be heard. You won't pick up another book on the shelves like mine. I've always been the 'what's next' or 'what's new' guy. If I'm writing about monsters I want it to be THAT monster you think of when you lie awake at night. I want to push any genre I write in, to create someone else's favorite or most hated character. I'm not a black writer; I'm a writer who just so happens to be black. Just like I'm a writer who just so happens to have feet. It's a part of me, a major part even, but not my sum total.


4. Old school music or todays Hip Hop and R&B? I'm going to say both and neither. My tastes are weird. There's a lot of old stuff I just never dug and a lot of old stuff I only liked because my parents liked it and a lot of stuff I just got burned out on. And whenever I had control of the radio in the car I was always flipping past stuff other people probably liked. My mama used to have nights where she would let me or my brother pick the music. We could go through her extensive record collection and play a dozen or so songs. I picked stuff like 'Electric Avenue' (back when nobody was listening to Eddie Grant except like 5 people and we were 3 of them), Billy Ocean and Rod Stewart (don't pretend like 'Da Ya Think I'm Sexy' wasn't the jam). Stevie Wonder is my all-time favorite artist but I can't STAND 'Ribbon in the Sky' anymore; give me 'Do I Do' or 'Creepin'' (I also can only listen to like 2 Luther Vandross songs and his version isn't one of them).

But the new guys, I don't know, I don't keep up with music like I used to so it's tough to name who I like. Jaheim, I think his name is, every time I hear him I have to turn him off. I liked 'Ain't Leavin' Without You' back when George Benson called it 'Gimme the Night'. But I'm a huge fan of Jill Scott, Erykah Badu, Corinne Bailey Rae. Some Alicia Keys is okay and Rihanna is like junk food. I know it's not really that good, but I can't help myself.

5.What are your life rules?
Don't expect to get something you don't give
Expect me to pick at you if you let me know something bugs you (it's a Rice trait--we're jerks like that)
Be careful who you step on today, they might be standing over you tomorrow
Don't touch my food
Stay out of other people's bedrooms
Seeing your mother naked after 12 will give you eyeball cancer

6. If God sent you a text message what would it say? What did you put in the turkey burgers? Those were awesome.

7. 5 Favs -

a. color - Green

b. food - steak (medium well)

c. movie - The Thing

d. song - 'What You Won't Do for Love'

e. drink - Cranberry juice

8. Do you forgive regardless of what someone has done to you? I like that JFK quote: Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

9. If you could change your past would you? Sometimes I think I would, but it then again everything I've done up until now has lead me here. My life isn't the greatest, but I can't imagine life without the people I have in it or the things I've accomplished.

10. Random thought - If there's something you really want to do with your life then you won't let any obstacle stand in the way of you doing it.


11. Where can we find you on the net? Feel My Ghost or my Facebook page, which I have no idea how to find.


12. Fill in the blank with one word - To know Gerald Rice is to be touched by the squishy brain of Gerald Rice.