SP Bonita:  How much of your time is spent traveling, promoting and selling your book, and what do you like best and least?

 

Vincent: I try to work smarter and not harder. I used to be on the road almost every other weekend. I do once a month now and only travel if the organization is taking care of my travel and lodging. If I’m doing a workshop or speaking I get a speakers fee. I never stop promoting. I promote myself and books each and everyday. That will never stop. People have to know you are out there and how to get your book. I look at all invitations with my publicist TriCom Publishing. Peggy Hicks is excellent. I like meeting people and book club members and getting their views on my writing. It’s fun. Sometimes the travel can be a challenge during weather problems and there’s nothing like being in your own bed. (LOL) I love jazz and barely go out in Houston, but I love checking out the jazz spots in different cities. And foods unique to those areas.
 

SP Bonita:  Tell us about the Black Male Authors Give Away Books in Housing Projects, which you participated in Atlanta, GA in 2002?

 

Vincent: That was one of the most important times in my life. To be at the Mecca of Black learning institutions and walk across the street with all these brothers and sisters with arm loads of books and have people in their cars stopping to get books and handing them out on street corners and people coming out of their houses and hugging us for thinking of them. Children as well as adults; looking on the back of the books and seeing the actual author that wrote the book, handing it to them. Wow, God knew what he was doing. I know that was a run on sentence, but that is the best way to try to explain what it felt like. Joyous!
 

SP Bonita:  How did you feel when you were awarded a Resolution by the State of Illinois House of Representatives commending you for your efforts in helping to raise the awareness about the importance of reading and literacy?

Vincent:  It was very exciting and uplifting. I had ridden on a bicycle 576 miles from Kansas City to Chicago, Illinois to the Oprah Winfrey Show to promote reading and literacy and show my commitment to the Brother 2 Brother Literary Symposium. It took me 7 days to get there in the middle of the July heat. I thought I was going to die several times. But I was committed to my dream of making a difference and showing the importance of literacy. Oprah was not there and they promised I would get on the show, but that ain’t happened yet? (LOL) It didn’t even matter. I accomplished what I did for Literacy and every person who stopped and said hello, rode with me a mile or two, or just waved made the trip worth while, because they saw a person riding alone on a bicycle, headed to Chicago with “Brother 2 Brother Literary Symposium - Cycling for Literary to the Oprah Winfrey Show” on his back. I did it and made a difference. I will be committed to literary until the day I die. Each child’s dream can be realized if they can read and be educated. That’s something to die for!
 

SP Bonita: What writing events have you participated, and will you be participating in any future events?

 

Vincent:  I am on the staff of the Black Writer’s Reunion Conference to be held in Florida in 2008. I will also be doing several writing workshops with a couple of author friends to be announced in the near future. Just go to my
MySpace page for the announcement. http://www.myspace.com/raychone1
 

SP Bonita:  What do you love most about writing?

 

Vincent:  Bringing characters to life and telling a good story where people actually believe your characters are real and can relate to them. There’s nothing more pleasing than welcoming people into your story world. Creativity is marvelous!
 

 

Vincent:  I will be a guest author with Donna Hill in her new book, On the Line due out in February 2008. I’m working on a romantic comedy, Ain’t Nothing Like Loving an Ugly Woman. I also have two children’s books being released in September 2008, Marvelous Martin and the case of Mr. Bean and Marvelous Martin and the Case of Freddy Freeman and the Freckled Faced Bully with Kensington’s Children’s Line.