Ask the Author: Byron Crawford
Answered Questions (12)
Byron Crawford
Harvey Weinstein called. He invited you to a late night meeting in his suite at the Four Seasons.
Byron Crawford
It's my right eye, but it seems like my left eye because I'm looking in a mirror in my profile pic. I was in an accident about five years ago and I suffered what's called a globe rupture (don't google that). I still have the eye, but it looks weird and doesn't really work.
Byron Crawford
I don't plan my reading in advance, by season. I prefer to go to a book store or library and stand around looking like an idiot for hours on end until I finally just settle on something.
Byron Crawford
I just don't have the time anymore. I'd let someone else do it, but I don't know if there's anyone else who could do it, or would be interested. It's a time consuming process.
Byron Crawford
I don't get nearly as much of the kind of hate mail I used to post, maybe because a lot of older and semi-literate Internet users are now on Facebook. I still get the occasional bum rapper wanting to know Paul Rosenberg's email address, as a result of something I posted back circa '09, and the occasional weird furrin guy who thinks he's emailing one of the girls from RackRadar.
Byron Crawford
I only started writing as an adult, and having read very little up until that point. Once I did start writing, I looked around for people I could emulate/rip off, and the thing you realize right away, as a black male writer looking for other black male writers (nullus), is that black guys don't write. When they do, it's not very well publicized, which I'm sure is part of the reason they don't.
I went to school for business, which typically means you don't have to read or write much of anything, but this was a fairly writing-intensive program. We were taught/ordered to emulate articles in Harvard Business Review, especially by a guy named Michael Porter, to the point where if you submitted them to a publication you would rightly be accused of plagiarism. But that was the whole point. If you attempted to get creative and/or informal with it, you'd get a bad grade.
While I was in college I read The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast. I was already writing on the Internets at that point, but I had no idea that it was something I would continue to do well into my adulthood, semi-professionally. But once I did start writing, that was the kind of writing I attempted to emulate. I drew on it a lot when I was writing for XXL, and I always thought one day I would write a similar book. I toyed with the idea in the late '00s, but I never seriously pursued it, and it wasn't until a while after I left XXL that I set out to write my first book, at which point I had a pretty strong handle on what I was doing.
I went to school for business, which typically means you don't have to read or write much of anything, but this was a fairly writing-intensive program. We were taught/ordered to emulate articles in Harvard Business Review, especially by a guy named Michael Porter, to the point where if you submitted them to a publication you would rightly be accused of plagiarism. But that was the whole point. If you attempted to get creative and/or informal with it, you'd get a bad grade.
While I was in college I read The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast. I was already writing on the Internets at that point, but I had no idea that it was something I would continue to do well into my adulthood, semi-professionally. But once I did start writing, that was the kind of writing I attempted to emulate. I drew on it a lot when I was writing for XXL, and I always thought one day I would write a similar book. I toyed with the idea in the late '00s, but I never seriously pursued it, and it wasn't until a while after I left XXL that I set out to write my first book, at which point I had a pretty strong handle on what I was doing.
Byron Crawford
Like many an episode of Law and Order SVU, the story of my next book was "ripped from the headlines," and aspects of it are just as problematic!
Byron Crawford
I watch certain inspirational films and listen to '90s rap music.
Byron Crawford
I should be putting the finishing touches on my next book in the next few weeks, but I'm not sure when I'll release it just yet. I can't reveal too much about it yet either, but if you've been following the news lately you can probably guess what it's about.
Byron Crawford
Start working on a book now, if you haven't already. All you need is a computer and a free word processor. You can't upload pretty much anything to Amazon and publish it on Kindle, and maybe someone will even buy it. Even if you plan to try to get a book deal, you should write something anyway, to see if you can. You don't want to get that $100,000 and then come to find out you can't even write a book. I heard they've been making people pay that money back since the economy fell apart.
Byron Crawford
There's a period of about 15 minutes after you finish a book when you're absolutely on top of the world. The rest is miserable.
Byron Crawford
Hardcore bender for at least a day, if not three days in a row, from which I usually emerge refreshed and ready to take on the world. If you can't afford the alcohol, pr0n until you go into a "shame spiral" or a walk around the block.
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