more than words

By Felicia Pride, Special to BlackVoices

Marvelyn Brown, a former top track and basketball star, was young, beautiful, in the best shape of her life, and in love. On one fateful day, when a sudden illness landed her in intensive care, a battery of tests revealed that the then 19-year-old had acquired the HIV/AIDS virus.

Now as a 24-year-old, Brown's new memoir, ''The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive' (Amistad/HarperCollins, August 2008) reveals her intimate journey living with HIV/AIDS and learning to use her voice to educate and empower others from making the same choices which led to her diagnosis.

She continues her mission of education and empowerment as today's guest blogger for Blackvoices.com's More Than Words. Read her story below and then pick up a copy of 'The Naked Truth'.

It's powerful and may just save lives:

Embracing the Truth
By Marvelyn Brown

Writing a book about your life is probably one of the most difficult and challenging things one can ever do. It requires you to open up in a way that forces the recollection of memories you'd probably prefer be left in that forgotten mental vault. Writing a memoir also means being open and honest, first and most importantly with yourself. The process can strip you bare, leave you emotionally spent, yet happily free and cleansed. The title of my memoir couldn't be more relevant and appropriate to my experience – 'The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive'.

By Felicia Pride, Blackvoices.com

Sandy "Pepa" Denton of rap group Salt-N-Pepa, is joining the ranks of celebrities releasing autobiographies. Her book, Let's Talk About Pep, co-written with Karen Hunter, will be released by VH1 Books at the end of this month.

Described as a tell-all, Pepa is supposed to offer an uncensored look at her life including her troubled childhood, surviving abuse, her first encounters with Cheryl "Salt" James and their ups and downs, her failed marriages and her escape from domestic abuse, and starring in reality shows like The Surreal Life and The Salt-N-Pepa Show.

"Most of you know me as Pep, or Pepa, the fun-loving half of Salt-N-Pepa," she says. "I am the party girl, the one who is down for whatever. But behind the laughs and the smiles is a whole lot of pain."

Queen Latifah penned the book's introduction and Missy Elliott closes it out with the epilogue. Other celebrities like LL Cool J, Martin Lawrence, and Spinderella, make cameos.

Check out an excerpt.

By Felicia Pride, Blackvoices.com

Method Man is a character. So it's only fitting that the rapper and actor has just released a comic book called, yes you guessed it, 'Method Man' (Grand Central Publishing, July 2008). Through a collaboration with writer David Atchinson and artist, Sanford Greene, the book is a wild ride featuring a weed-smoking private investigator, a religious sect of "murder priests" who are descendents of the Biblical Cain, paranormal creatures, and of course, Meth's native borough Staten Island.

Blackvoices.com chatted with Method Man's "stankin' ass" (his words, not ours) about his comic book, Nat Turner, and the need for a new superhero.

More than Words: "Method Man' dropped a couple of weeks ago. How's the experience been so far?

MM: You'd be surprised at how anal comic book fans are. If you mess up one detail, they call you on it instead of seeing the book as a whole. I'm not acting like I'm trying to be the next Alan Moore. I think I did a good job since it was my first comic book.

By Felicia Pride, Blackvoices.com

Stephen Carter, national bestselling author of 'New England White' and 'The Emperor of Ocean Park,' has returned with his third novel, 'Palace Council,' a whirlwind thriller that keeps readers captivated through its 500 plus pages. Not an easy feat. But Carter is not your average writer.

The Yale professor turned novelist is one of a handful of writers who has experienced both sides of the coin: critical and commercial success. Blackvoices.com caught up with Carter to talk about the thrill of writing.

More than Words: As a Yale law professor, what made you start writing literary thrillers?

Stephen Carter: "Why thrillers?" is the easy question. I write thrillers because they are fun to write, and fun to read. "Why fiction?" is a harder question. I remember wanting to write fiction even back in elementary school, when I would write what I called my "stories" in little notebooks. Most of the stories were science fiction. Years later, serious characters began rattling around in my head. Eventually, I had to let them out.

By Felicia Pride, BlackVoices.com

BlackVoices.com had the pleasure to catch up with bestselling author E. Lynn Harris, who since bursting on the scene more than fifteen years ago, has written page-turner after page-turner. That's right, he has more than four million books in print.

His new book 'Just Too Good to Be True' (Doubleday, July 2008) marks a somewhat new direction for him -- the main protagonist, Brady Bledsoe, is a handsome, straight, and celibate 21-year-old football player who's bright future is threatened. The book is being considered his first "mainstream" novel. But it's all still Harris -- plenty of twists, turns, and secrets mixed with the daily tribulations that all of us go through.

In the end it's a story about family, honesty, and what it takes to be true to you.

Check out what Harris had to say about it all.

More than Words: You self-published your first book 'Invisible Life' in 1991, now after several 'New York Times' bestselling books, how have things changed for you -- in terms of your writing, the publishing industry, and your personal life?

E. Lynn Harris: I would like to think that with each novel I become a much better writer. After 'Just As I Am,' I was going to attend Columbia University in New York to study writing but my editor at the time begged me not too. The publishing industry is much more diverse than when I first became a part of the industry. As for my personal life, well it's never been better. I'm more at peace with myself than ever before. I think a lot of that comes with age and putting demons to rest for good.

By Felicia Pride

Coolio, the rapper most known for his Grammy-winning song, "Gangsta's Paradise," is turning over a new leaf.

He's writing a cookbook.

I don't know why I find this amusing, but I do. Hey, I'm not knocking the hustle or the desire for something new. But the image of Chef Coolio is hard for me to envision.

By Linda Villarosa, Special to BlackVoices.com

Several years ago, I sat in front of my computer and began writing a novel. The theme was "passing." In college, I devoured novels by Charles Chesnutt, Nella Larsen and James Weldon Johnson. I was intrigued by the so-called tragic mulattoes of the 19^th and early 20^th century who were forced, in Larsen's words, to leave their blackness behind to enter the "hazardous business of 'passing,' thus breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one's chances in another environment."

Because my novel is set in the here and now, a time when passing is passé, I needed to give my theme a contemporary spin. So I took the theme of passing and gave it a gay twist.