17 Mar 2012, Posted by caburkes in DesktopEpics, Leslie Road Detective Agency, Short Stories, Urban Lit, Young Adult, 0 Comments Tagged , , ,

Toasted! – A Leslie Road Detective Agency Short Story Series


Toasted! - A Young Adult Short Mystery

 Toasted! – A Urban Young Adult Short Mystery Series.

Recently crowned the stars of New York after solving a massive car theft ring, 17-year-old’s Andrea Webb (child prodigy) and Anika Kims (linguistic genius) have been invited to the wedding of Andrea’s college professor. When the groom and people around them start dying, the clock starts to rapidly tick down for the girls to solve the mystery before they, too, become the victims.

Toasted! begins a continuing Urban YA short story series of mysteries featuring Andrea, Anika and a host of characters based in Jamaica, Queens New York and beyond. For ages 17+ and up.

Excerpt from Toasted!

Andrea reached in and snatched Anika out of her seat and away from her little fan club; almost tripping her across the dance floor and away from prying ears.
“Ow!” Anika protested.
“Are you done? Or are you getting ready to take your show on the road?”
“Mama, I can never be done. They’re all hangin’ off the strap! We got front page press! Twitter’s off the cha-zizzle! Look at it!” She pulled out her cell phone, revealing the news about their exploits all over the internet. “Look at it! I can’t keep up. It’s crazy!”
Anika went into an immediate barrage of swift texting into her phone until Andrea snatched it out of her hands.
“You’re crazy. Did you tell any of these people how we almost got killed?”
“I was gonna get to that. Eventual-like.”
“Listen to me, I…” Andrea took in the whole picture of her friend; giving her the once over and it suddenly occurred to her. They were wearing the exact same dress.
“‘Nika! How could you!?”
“How couldn’t I! This dress is the bomb! Feel that silk, baby!”
“You KNEW I was saving up to buy this dress. You KNEW!”
“Psssh,” Anika scoffed and put an arm around Andrea, snuggling her up close. “Who cares, mama? Time to party like a rock star! Totally coo….”
Andrea shrugged her off, completely at her wits end. “They’re shutting us down, ‘Nika. The cops don’t want us to work high profile crimes and they’re annulling our reward.”
“Lo que usted combate del talkin, Willis?” What you talkin’ about, Willis? Anika asked, “I didn’t quite hear you so say it again. But this time, more slowly.”
“We ain’t… gettin’… paid!”
“That’s what I thought you said.”
Across the active catering hall, Anika spied Captain Mike and his wife carelessly mingling with the other guests; laughing and drinking. Anika started removing her earrings and rope chain around her neck.
“Who confirmed that with you? Captain Mike?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Cool. Hold my gold,” Anika started taking off her watch and heels. “This is gonna get ugly.”
Andrea thought about it for a moment, looked at Mike from across the hall, then started following Anika’s lead, taking off her earrings and shoes, too. “Bump this. I’ll distract him and you clock him from behind.”
“So we doin’ this?” Anika held out her hand.
Andrea slapped her ‘five’. “Damn right. Let’s get our dough.”
“Sho’ you right!”

Available on Amazon.com – Releasing: 3/19/2012

The making of the Toasted! Book Cover tutorial coming 3/24/2012 in this journal, covering many aspects of my time when developing bookcovermodels.com characters, so get your notepad ready.

Corey A. Burkes Author/CEO
DesktopEpics Entertainment
Stories You Can Feel! Continue Reading...

16 Mar 2012, Posted by caburkes in Leslie Road Detective Agency, Urban Lit, Young Adult, 0 Comments Tagged , , ,

Next Up: Urban Young Adult Mystery Short Story Series (Whew! Say that 10x)


Alright … Gotta battle plan!

This whole publishing thing is about sampling, testing and evolving. I had a plan, now I have to adjust it.

While I wait for the verdict on my submission of Scratch to the Amazon Singles section (a coveted spot thus far), I’ve started posting my  short stories that were on Smashwords and ported them over to Amazon as short stories at about .99 cents. My long form novels will be,moving forward, at least $1.99 and higher. Bottom line. No further need to hash that. If I’m selling a short story, it can’t be more than $1.99 out of good conscience unless I become a super star and then, naturally, I’ll charge $1000 for a short story. LMAO! Not!

So, out from the depths of past stories told comes Toasted! A short mystery story I originally wrote years back and even read an audio book for. The link escapes me right now.

Anyway, it’s based on two young teen detectives. One super smart and the other a linguist genius. Originally created in 2000 as an audio gift for blind children, these characters and I have have been through changes for going on twelve years now. well, now that they are about to be published, this version will stand pat.

I’m currently developing the cover and the story is finished as well as final edits. This is going straight to Amazon with a .99 cent price on it and up they go.

The category is a little strange though:

Urban (taking place in Jamaica, Queens), Young Adult (the core characters are 17) Mystery (because these are Mystery who done it adventures) Short Story (less than a book) Series (continuing episodes).

These girls are NOT Candy and Julissa from 40 to Go, just to be clear. They won’t even hold a weapon for the length of the series. But they are an excellent team of characters as well as the continuous side characters that will show up in most all of the stories. I need to expend some of this extra story telling energy i have going on and I came up with about five mysteries to tell so far.

I’m slackin’.

Corey A. Burkes Author/CEO
DesktopEpics Entertainment
Stories You Can Feel! Continue Reading...

02 Jan 2012, Posted by caburkes in Urban Lit, 1 Comments Tagged , , , , ,

Urban


I used to wage a serious war with the concept of ‘Urban Lit’ and how it seems, if you’re Black and a writer, you are lumped into this pot called ‘Urban’. Well, while I’m researching all I can about YA URBAN Fantasy … guess what? Barely any Black people. In fact, YA Urban Fantasy also covers Twilight and you KNOW there aren’t any Black people (of any lead quality) in them.

Wikipedia’s definition: Urban fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy defined by place; the fantastic narrative has an urban setting. Many urban fantasies are set in contemporary times and contain supernatural elements. However, the stories can take place in historical, modern, or futuristic periods. The prerequisite is that they must be primarily set in a city.

So, for kicks, I checked out ‘Urban Lit’:

Wikipedia’s definition: Urban fiction, also known as Street lit, is a literary genre set, as the name implies, in a city landscape; however, the genre is as much defined by the race and culture of its characters as the urban setting. The tone for urban fiction is usually dark, focusing on the underside. Profanity, sex, and violence are usually explicit, with the writer not shying away from or watering-down the material. In this respect, urban fiction shares some common threads with dystopian or survivalist fiction.

Even Wikipedia sees the issue as mentioned in the previous line…. however, the genre is as much defined by the race and culture of its characters as the urban setting.

Okay, assuming that Wikipedia is as close to the final answer on a subject as we can get, by these definitions alone:

1) LA Banks Vampire Hunter series (I REALLY miss her a lot). Also of note, she was ahead of the game as far back as 2003 or 2004. Anyway … YA Urban Fantasy. I agree.

2) Silk White – Tears of a Hustler 2 – Urban Lit. I agree.

3) Liar, Liar by Latrese Carter – Urban Lit. NO!

I would really classify her novel as drama with no extra classification under ‘Urban Drama’. By current ways of thinking, I might as well classify Megan Hart’s Broken as urban lit too, if she was Black. But she’s not, so it’s not urban lit.

But Broken covers a lot of ground Black author drama novels cover.

If an urban story has to take place in a city, and i haven’t read EVERY Black author out there, but are you telling me 95% of Black stories take place in a city?

Butta‘ (forthcoming) is purposely categorized as ‘Urban Thriller’ because it covers both elements: takes place in Manhattan and is a thriller. (see reviews here)

CommonSense short stories … actually YA Urban Fantasy believe it or not.

Daylight Werewolf and Children of StoneGate … YA Fantasy. Some Black characters, mostly children and NOT taking place in a major city though in contemporary times.

The problem is evident without me even having to harp on it for too much longer. Call Black writers ‘Urban’ and they get lumped, as they do, in one corner of the store. It’s almost to your advantage NOT to reveal much of your race in your story/bio/etc just to get equal billing on ALL shelves, not just in an Urban Section, where you KNOW Twilight will NOT be … but it’s urban by definition, even if it’s fantasy.

Proof? Here’s a Harlequin Novel for you … a clearly defined ‘Romance’ category publisher. Written by Marueen Smith. Not in the Urban section. Black author.

Which makes me wonder how many Black characters/Book Cover models are on the cover of Harlequin novel’s anyway? Just a thought.

 

Corey A. Burkes Author/CEO
DesktopEpics Entertainment
Stories You Can Feel! Continue Reading...
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