My name is Yasus Afari and I am a passionate writer, philosophical poet and reggae artiste / dub poet, who is inspired by the natural intrigues of life. I constantly challenge myself to defy and redefine Reggae Dub Poetry and all that I have to offer. Born to parents whose combined age was in excess of 100 years, I was born at home in the 1960’s. It was late on a Sunday night during a thunder storm in a deep rural village in St Elizabeth, Jamaica. There was no clock, radio, watch, television or electricity in our small mud house, so no one knew if it was really Sunday or Monday morning. This personal history has fueled my self-awareness and passion for what I have perceived to be my purpose in life The Rasta-Reggae-World-Traveler My mother told me that I was slow to speak, so she fed me from a calabash (gourd) and I finally began to speak at about two years old. Not surprisingly, this triggered my love affair with nature, the environment and the rustic vibes of Jamaica. In addition to this, I was a happy and receptive beneficiary of positive re-enforcement at home and at school. A case in point, I was asked to write a poem by my English teacher and my poem, The Travelling Sun was read to the class and the teacher told me, “Yasus Afari, this is a very good poem, you must continue writing.” Hence, the momentous poetic birth of Yasus Afari, The Travelling Poet, whom many consider, The Rasta-Reggae-World-Traveler. After high school, in the 1980’s, I worked with the Jamaica Telephone company, from which I received an engineering scholarship. At college, I added music to my poetry and embraced the Rastafari Faith. This heralded the...

My name is Mark King the author of FRENZY a Daniel Jones Story, which is now available for sale around the world. I’m also the writer behind the successful worldwide blog www.always-hanging-around.blogspot.com.  My varied working life has taken me from a fish auctioneer through to a Court bailiff, and then an area operations manager, plus other positions in-between. It has given me a rich tapestry of experiences that has helped feed my imagination, and which is now used in my creative work as a successfully published author. One of the big spurs for my writing career was the death of my father-in-law. I’ve started stories over the years, but never got passed the second chapter, as the daily tribulations of life requiring my attention took priority; so my manuscripts would end up in a draw waiting for the day when I had time to finish them. It was after this heart breaking event that I realized you can never guarantee tomorrow will arrive. I made the decision to resign from my secure job during the biggest world recession in living memory to concentrate purely on writing. Two years later, my first book, FRENZY a Daniel Jones Story, was published. I’m now working on the sequel to FRENZY, which I have initially titled Daniel Jones DOOM. My intention is to carry on with the fast paced exciting formula that fans have enjoyed with FRENZY. The best advice I can give is be prepared for disappointment. It starts from the beginning when you ask friends to review your first manuscript. Don’t be surprised when they do, and they tell you that what you thought was the greatest story ever told is just not their cup of tea. It carries on with getting rejections from agents and...

I have been writing since the age of seven, when I was given my first journal. My affinity for words grew and continues to grow as I do. I’ve written children’s books, poetry books, erotica, fiction and memoirs. My first published work is my memoir entitled Inside a Thug’s Heart, compiled from an exchange of letters, poetry and conversations with the late rapper Tupac Shakur. The book was published via Kensington Publishing in hard cover in 2004, re-released in paperback in 2009 and released again as an ebook in 2013. This award-nominated book was also translated into Polish. By the persuasion of my mother, I published my second book, a poetry book entitled My Mind’s Poetry: Relationships. After receiving an onslaught of emails from fans who wanted to understand how to begin pulling their stories together, I wrote and published the first volume of a petite book series entitled I Have a Story: Getting Started. My latest release, The Block, has become my obsession, a trilogy I never saw coming. The first installment has touched people in ways I would have never imagined. The sequel, The Block: Truth Revealed, will be out late May 2014; and the final installment, The Block: Twisted Labyrinth, will be released spring 2015. I have also written numerous independent projects for clients. Aside from authoring several titles, I have also been hired to write scripts for animation, live production, television, film and ghostwriting. I LOVE telling stories! Having the ability to indulge in a profession that allows that makes life fabulous! My advice to aspiring writers is simple yet challenging: JUST WRITE! Don’t get caught up on what to do with your manuscript once you’re finished. You’ll find finishing will be the most challenging part of the entire journey....

Hi, I’m Tommy, London-based musician, writer, lecturer and entrepreneur. I’ve been writing and creating music, interactive concepts and art for 5 years now. My motives are simple: I’m a curious person and love conversations. Due to my young age, I can safely assume I’m a digital native. After posting my first creation online and watching it spread, receiving feedback along the way, I realized that creating is the simplest way to discover the world around you. You create something great – or not – and post it online. Magically, it ends up in places you couldn’t have gone otherwise. A singer from Brazil got in touch with me and shared her story; a student from Thailand asked me to bring my concept to his country; a UK professor asked me to do a lecture about my writings. All sorts of creations, all sorts of reactions. I find this beautiful – and so human-like. Art creators have a big advantage compared to the rest of the population: they create. Creation is based on one simple concept: Doing, taking action. Comparing the life of a creative with the life of a non-creative, I spotted the chasm between their mindset. Creatives are more motivated to “make stuff happen,” regardless the end result. Likewise, comparing how creatives approach art and how they approach life, I also spotted the same thing: the can “do” when it comes to art, but they conform and become indecisive when it comes to professional and life decisions. This made me wonder, so I investigated the matter a bit more. Why do some people become great artists and fulfilled human beings, while others struggle? The results were impressive. When it comes to the single reason why some people get what they want from life,...

I was born in 1965 in Chicago, Illinois.  I wrote my first poem in the third grade. It was a Mother’s Day poem, which I still have to this day. I have been seriously writing poetry since I was in high school. With support from family and friends, I published my first collection of poetry Life through Celestial Lenses in October of 2012. This was a dream come true, over 20 years in the making. In May of 2013, I published my second collection of poetry The Darkness, The Light, And the Glory. I truly love writing poetry and creating with words. My goal is to heal and inspire through poetry. When I was growing up, I had a really active imagination, I’m sure all kids do.  I enjoyed doodling and attempting to create my own comic books. I was raised by my mom and grandma. I am the youngest of three (older brother and sister). My love for God and life has been the heaviest influence on my writing. I was very shy up until my teen years, so writing was a way of expressing what was going on inside and a way of expressing to my family how much they meant to me. I would always write some little note in birthday cards, Mother’s Day cards, etc. I remember writing a poem for this girl I liked in high school. I never could get the courage up to give it to her, so I just pined away from a distance. Music influences my writing also. I love music. Some songs can touch you so deep, as if they were written just for you.  I like writing while listening to music; it helps stir up my creative spirit and keeps my toes tapping....

Everyone has a story. The desire to share stories of our lives is a universal human longing. With the release of my autobiography, Outer Search Inner Journey ©1997, I set out on the book signing circuit where participants habitually remarked, “I want to write a book about my life.” Many who dream of writing the next great American novel hold a desire to see their life’s story in print. They have an advantage over other aspiring authors as writers can only write what they know. Those dreaming of undertaking an autobiography have the prerequisite needed to launch their literary pursuit; they’ve lived their life and know their book’s material! At book signings I was always asked, “Why did you write Outer Search Inner Journey?” This question helps guide the aspiring autobiographer. What’s your motivation? I wrote for three reasons: as a means of expression, to offer a message of hope for tormented souls and to show the pitfalls of international adoption. I was adopted from a German orphanage by American parents and grew up a misunderstood alien in the United States. Separated from my German family, ethnic culture and native land left me with a chilling emptiness. To fill the void, I returned to Germany and searched for my mother, but my journey twisted into a desperate struggle to escape a labyrinth of hopeless despair. To draw readers into my story, I wrote Outer Search Inner Journey as if a novel.  I wanted readers to vicariously experience the drama, romance, heartbreaks and ultimate triumph of my life story. Before writing each scene, I traveled back in time and relived each of the book’s episodes. Once immersed in a past event, I described the action, shared my thoughts and imparted my feelings. This process awakened...

I created the plotline and characters. I had no doubts about what was going to happen in every chapter, so how did I get tripped up by a conversation two of my characters had in my sweet romance, Songs that I Whisper? I was at my computer just typing away, when out of the blue, Suzette tells Bill that her mom was to never know her brother had once bailed them out of jail. I actually stopped typing to stare at the computer screen.  Did she just say they had been arrested?  Where on earth did that come from? I reread her words again just to make certain, but sure enough, it was right there in front of me. Now, I either had to figure out why Suzette and Bill had been arrested or delete that part of her dialogue. It would have been easy enough to delete it.  With just the touch of a few back spaces and I would have been the only person on earth to have ever known my sweet Suzette was a felon. Fortunately, I only considered that option for a few seconds before shrugging and deciding I loved her anyway.  Suzette was my fictional child, so as her mother, she needed me to back her up no matter whatever trouble she had gotten herself into. Of course, now I had to think of a reason why the two of them had been arrested without making them into hardened criminals. It took me about two weeks to think of the best crime for them, but in the end, it was the right thing to do.  That scene added color and gave the reader a small taste of Suzette’s quirky side. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just delete the...

How the power in words fascinates me and inspires my journey to grow stronger was the theme of my first Amused Now guest post, written this past year as I was expressing myself as an Empowering Artist. My hope was to promote self-influence and awareness through creative outlets that each of us could relate to. As we enter into this new cycle of the year, with remnants of remaining goals to be completed, we have given ourselves great opportunity. We have opened the windows up a little wider to purpose and room for growth and development. During these times, it is up to us to take a vested interest in ourselves and to focus on our desired goals.We have the ability to put action and effort to carry out and see these goals come forth into fruition. Our life’s journey may not always be easy, but with a positive outlook, we can make the collaborative exchanges needed to be successful. On my life journey, there have been many beautiful things that have changed the trajectory of my life and, even with things that were not so good, I always find myself affirming with words that evoke the blessing in it all. The aesthetic thing about life  is that even in our uncomfortable moments, I believe the universe has its way of providing us exactly what we need, even if we can’t see or appreciate it at the moment. This is one of the reasons why I remain diligent in my quest to seek clarity, which amplifies purpose for all of our existence. I’ve learned that life is for the living and we must seize every opportunity to be the gift and share that same gift with the world. In my writing, speaking, or serving, I take...

I like to think of myself as an Inspirationalist. An Inspirationalist is a person “who inspires or one whose beliefs tend to inspire others.” My ability to inspire others often comes in the form of poetry. As a young adult, I used poetry to poetically express myself, whether it was during happy or sad times. Poetry allowed me to turn my feelings into spoken emotions, which many have openly stated that they enjoyed hearing. Poetry also allowed me to gain confidence in speaking to numerous crowds by learning to make connections with the crowd, owning the stage, and aligning the poem with the way it was to be performed. In looking at the true feeling that guides many of my poetic escapades, I have to say that it is love. Love is a beautiful feeling. It allows me to experience life in such way that I just cannot help sharing my feelings with others. My journeys to love come in the essence of friendships, parental interactions, significant rapports, and family relationships. The truth about love is that sometimes love hurts. It can cry sad tears of solitude and it can uplift. What we must realize It that how we use the knowledge about love is what makes it worth giving and receiving. As of this moment in time, I am grateful to have been awarded with numerous opportunities of reciting my poetry in front of national book festivals, community outreach groups, professional organizations, and other communities around the U.S. My joy for poetry is everlasting. This same joy that I write about can be experienced in my books: Poetic Outlets and My Poetic Soul Unleased. My purpose in writing these books was to finally show the world that sometimes quiet is not really quiet...

I’m excited to share my interview with Kit Wilson. He’s super-knowledgeable about script writing and distribution, which makes this piece a great addition to both our Featured Artist and Filmmaker Series. Kit Wilson recently released a new screenplay-to-novel called Falls City, the true story of a Braniff Airways stewardess and her best friend, both who perished in the Braniff Flight 250 tragedy of 1966. He chose to write about the tragedy for three reasons: 1) his uncle was a Braniff pilot, 2) he went to college near Dallas around the time when Mary Wells rebranded the airline with Emilio Pucci uniforms and brightly colored planes, and 3) he knew both of the girls killed on the flight. The 60s were a tumultuous period. Kit feels “there’s a lot of smoothing over of that period and I want to make sure that history isn’t totally rewritten for a generation that has no clue what it was like. For over a decade, the generation of that time had to deal with not only the Vietnam War, but the anti-race marches, assassinations of leaders and distrust of the government.” “All this was happening while these two girls were going to stewardess school and learning to be an effective ambassador to Braniff and the flying public. These girls were trying to live out a lifestyle that hadn’t been available to young women. Rather than go and become a teacher or a wife or a secretary, they had an opportunity to travel and experience something new.” At that time, being a stewardess was considered a glamorous position, quite different from what the position is considered to be today. “Most of the flying public today has no idea what it meant to fly back then. Men wore coats and ties...

Sparks of my true calling have shown themselves to me throughout my life – glimmers, hints, tugs. But fate has a way of punching you in the stomach if you don’t listen the first 57 times. In grade school: I poured myself into an autobiography project. I had never felt that way before: alive, consumed. When I received a B, I took that to mean that even though writing felt good, I just wasn’t that good at it. In college: I enrolled as an English major, but panic set in when I thought about becoming financially independent on an English major’s salary. I switched majors. As an entrepreneur: I watched my business crumbling around me. When asked what I wanted to do differently, all I could say was I wanted to write. When I was writing, I felt in tune with who I was supposed to be. When fate tapped me on the shoulder politely, I ignored her. So she punched me in the gut. My consulting business closed, but I was finally ready to hear what she was trying to tell me. In the Fall of 2012, I started writing in earnest for the first time in my life. I don’t want to give you unrealistic expectations; it’s not as if I embraced writing as my true career and suddenly I was free to write full time. I had to take a 9 to 5 job to pay the bills, but mentally I’m a writer.  I write at night, in the lull of the evening, after everyone has gone to bed and the tide has gone out on all my other responsibilities. A little over a year later, I’m launching my first novel Mounting the Whale. Here are the three major things I...