Aberjhani

I am a native of Savannah, Georgia (USA) and as corny as it may sound I took one of my first serious hints about the possible power of words in my life while watching John Boy scribble away on the old Waltons TV Show. We had big families and challenging historical times in common. 

Other definitive clues came in the form of biographies about, and books by, authors from different literary movements. The creative souls of the Harlem Renaissance, French Commitment, The Beats, and the Black Arts Movement all inspired me a great deal. So did attendance at colleges and universities throughout the U.S., and service as a military journalist in Alaska and England. The idea to utilize travel as an extended component of my education came from the example set by Langston Hughes.

My first book, I Made My Boy Out of Poetry, was published in 1998, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance in 2003/2010 (Facts On File and Infobase Publishing), and The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois in 2003/2010 (Kensington Publishing and Open Road Media) . Since then, I have published works in multiple genres and currently maintain a column with AXS Entertainment on the cultural arts, social observations, and political and philosophical curiosities.  I founded Creative Thinkers International in 2007 and the 100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance Initiative in 2011.

My most recently published book is Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry. I am currently at work on two other titles of creative nonfiction, one play, and one volume of previously unpublished poems (you can read quite a few on the Internet and several volumes are available for purchase).