E-mail Brian

Writing was Brian's solution for boredom. While attending Tennessee Sate University, he worked at Kinko’s and would use the store’s computers to write during off days. His first creation was an essay entitled, A Black Eye: Views of the Black College Experience. After using his employee discount to mass-produce the essay, Brian then decided to write a short story. The short story became a long story and the long story ultimately transpired into his first novel, Crossing Bridges A Testimony Of Brotherhood(1997). An anecdotal tale about frat boys and their antics, Brian quickly realized the power of words when readers proclaimed to have loved the story—even though the mere mention of the book makes him cringe to this day.

He set out to write a more wholesome and meaningful book, which became the widely popular Whippins, Switches & Peach Cobbler(2000), the work which lead Brian away from engineering and launched his career as a full-time writer.

Granddaddy's Dirt(2001), Brian's third novel, made national and regional bestseller lists. Professors and teachers across the country have used the novel as text for their students ranging from 7^th grade to undergraduate students. The novel has also been optioned for a film and Brian has adapted the novel into a screenplay. Granddaddy's Dirt was nominated for the PEN-Faulkner Award, National Book Award, and Townsend Prize for Fiction.

In 2003, Brian wrote and released two novels simultaneously. His love of golf spawned The Big Money Match, a tale of four golfers that must win a match or die. And the hot-button book Catfish Quesadillas explores cultural differences amongst minority businesses.

Brian volunteers his time at local schools to talk about writing and promote reading. He has written for National Public Radio and various periodicals throughout the nation.

July 2003 marked a new era for Brian when he wrote, directed, and produced his first short film entitled Hard-Headed Boy adapted from a short story he wrote as part of a forth coming collection.

When embarking upon his journey as a writer, Brian compiled a list of writers to study and the books he'd have to buy with a starving artist's salary. During a trip to his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, Brian visited his mother's bookshelf where he found every single writer on the list he'd compiled.

Brian told his mother--who was a bit uneasy about his career move at first--it was a sign that he was a writer from the womb. Ironically, his mother died of bacterial meningitis, shortly after the publication of Granddaddy's dirt, and a few days before the book was optioned for a film.

The connection of Brian and his mother remains. After searching through his mother's high school scarp book, Brian discovered that his mother's career goal was to become a journalist, but life and an unexpected  bouncing baby boy altered her plans. After freelancing for various publications, Brian was asked to join the staff of Atlanta Goodlife Magazine as the associate editor. He also writes regularly for The Champion Newspaper, a weekly publication in DeKalb County, Georgia perhaps lifting the torch his mother was never able to ignite.

Despite urgings from other writers and friends, Brian remains an independent author with his sole focus on writing as many books as he can for as long as he can. As high as he rises, Brian still maintains that, "I'm just John and Delores' eldest boy."

He lives with his lovely wife, Latise, in Stone Mountain, Georgia.