INTERVIEW WITH EMERSON WATKINS AUTHOR OF A STORY OF A FORGOTTEN HERO-TURNING BACK THE PAGES OF TIME

Good day Emerson and thank you for consenting to be interviewed by Bookpleasures.Com.

Norm

Please tell us something about your background, writing experience and why you wrote A Story of A Forgotten Hero-Turning Back The Pages Of Time?

Emerson

I have a background in broadcast journalism with a degree in News Editorial and Public Affairs. My prior writing experience before the publication of, ""A Story Of A Forgotten Hero-Turning Back The Pages Of Time,"" was writing business and career-related articles for various New York-based publications. I wrote the novel for one specific reason: To illustrate how time and circumstances can change a negative existence of one's life, into a positive one. That the world or society is bigger than the boundaries of where you live; that society is a world of different pains and pleasures, beauty and ugliness, victories and defeats that all men everywhere come to know regardless of race and color.

Norm

How did you become such an excellent story- teller?

EMERSON

Thank you for the nice compliment, Norm. I believe one has to be a visual writer to become an excellent story-teller. Think of an artist. An artist uses brushes, pen, and colors to make exciting pictures. Because I'm a writer, I paint with words and these, ""word pictures"" must be interesting and entertaining to the reader. The words I use in the details, scenes, and descriptions are my brushes, pens, and colors. Words are what I use to make my verbal pictures exciting.

Norm

Why did you choose the ripe old age of 118 for your hero to die and not 120? There is a Yiddish expression that when you want to wish someone good health you say- “may you live to 120.” You did mention “Moses lived to be one hundred and twenty; so what does that tell you about the blessin’ I’ve received.”

Emerson:

It's all a matter of creative design. It was just a matter of individual taste in what the creator wanted and desired. Moses lived to be 120 year-old. That was the Lawd's business. The Lawd created Moses in his own image and set his feet upon a path that Moses had to follow. On the other hand, I created Tippy Pendarvis in my own image. I molded him and crafted him from the natural flowing creative juices from my mind. And he became a living, breathing, human character with the ability to think, feel, and reason on his own. I set his feet upon a chosen path in life that only few men had ever known. Moses eventually lead the Hebrews out of the Land of Egypt, but, before they reached the promised land, they wandered in wilderness for forty years. I brought Tippy out of the land of the Deep South, but he never did reach his promised land filled with milk and honey. Instead, his life was besieged with all manner of plagues, calamities, and social retribution. When Moses had completed his work set before him by the Almighty, he was 120; and Moses was taken up into the heavens. When Tippy finally grasped the meaning of life, and changed it for all humanity, he was 118 years-old, and he died. His age was something that I determined. For I was his creator.

Norm

When your principal antagonist is incarcerated you vividly describe the prison and all of a prisoner’s experience prior to incarceration. Your war scenes also contain very poignant descriptions. How did you learn about all of these details?

EMERSON

Traveling through the backwoods along the Louisiana delta, you speak with some very unique and interesting people. There was one horrendous, eye-poping, real-life, down-in-dirty experience told to me by this sixty-seven year-old African-American that I had weave into my story. His story was about his ten-year incarceration and the horrible things that went on behind prison walls. He took me through every terrible and awful experience of prison life. Some of the stuff he told me was just awful---to gruesome and graphic to use in the book. I was able to extract to good portion of his experience and weave it into novel. It fit perfectlly. The war scenes you're referring to came about by examining and sifting through pages and pages of old, time-faded, yellow-stained war letters, and personal essays from World War II and Vietnam veterans. Over a two-year period, I accumulated a wealth of information for the book.

Norm

At one point in your story you mention that after your principal character Tippy was released from prison he set up a foundation for the purposes of granting scholarships and bursaries. Why did we not hear more about this part of his life?

Emerson: My editor asked that very same question. I told her that the setting up of a foundation for the purpose of granting scholar-ships and bursaries was an important point in Tippy's personal growth. It was a way for him to change his life and give something back; to start out on the positive road in life. But in the context of the story, it had to be secondary to the main plot, which, at the time, was his relationship with his second wife, Mannie, for reasons you already know.

Norm

How long did it take you to research the novel and to write it? Was it based on anyone’s life?

Emerson:

I started working on the novel roughly 13 years ago. The first three years---90, 91, and 92, was spent doing absolutely nothing but historical research. Most of the material gathered took place traveling through the backwoods of the Louisiana delta, talking to senior citizens about the old times. However, the novel has gone through six chapter revisions and five complete rewrites. You might say that I am a predilection for setting extremely high standards and being displeased with anything less.

Norm

Do you agree with Goethe who said: “when a writer leaves monuments on the different steps of his life, it is chiefly important that he should have an innate foundation and good will; that it should, at each step, have seen and felt clearly, and that, without any secondary aims, he should have said distinctly and truly what has passed in his mind. Then will his writings, if they were right in the step where they originated, remain always right, however the writer may develop or alter himself in after times.” If you agree, please indicate why and is this applicable to A Story of A Forgotten Hero?

Emerson:

Yes, Norm, I do agree that when a writer leaves personal monuments on the different steps of his life, he should have an innate foundation and good will firmly planted. As a serious writer, I've always felt that I have to examine and document what I believe is the necessary truth without any secondary aims or reservations. The mark that I leave behind is what I would have stood for as a writer. And, as for A Story Of A Forgotten Hero, there is a lesson to be learned. A person can always change his or her life, despite the social, political, and economic injustice waged against them.

Norm

Unfortunately, racism and anti-Semitism still continues to raise its ugly head, do you think we will ever get rid of it? Please comment.

Emerson:

No, I don't believe we as a society will ever get rid of racism and anti-semitism all together. Race and the color of man' skin is still a problem in our society. But, I will say this: It is a lot better than what Tippy Pendarvis had to face in his life. And that says alot about this society we live in.

Thanks Emerson and we look forward to reading your future literary works. REVIEW OF BOOK