Dead America

Our opener for Season 4! This is a great start to a big season. Ja'Quintin talks with us about his new Novel WILLIE. Transcript of Ja'Quintin Means interview http://www.mediafire.com/file/mcklv4enmcon6va/JaQuintin_Means_Transcript.docx/file (Download) Get your copies of https://www.amazon.com/Willie-JaQuintin-j-Means/dp/B08GFY33FJ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1andkeywords=Willie+Ja%27Quintin+Meansandqid=1602625435andsr=8-1 (WILLIE) https://www.thewonderingalchemist.com/ (www.thewonderingalchemist.com) https://www.matchmaker.fm/profiles/guests/fab65022-05dc-42b5-a857-0a43be28c64d (https://www.matchmaker.fm/profiles/guests/fab65022-05dc-42b5-a857-0a43be28c64d) https://www.instagram.com/jaq_means/ (https://www.instagram.com/jaq_means/) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ed Watters 0:08 To overcome, you must educate. Educate not only yourself, but educate anyone seeking to learn. We are all dead America, we can all learn something. To learn, we must challenge what we already understand. The way we do that is through conversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others. However, some of the best conversations happen with ourselves. Reach Out and challenge yourself. And let's dive in and learn something right now. And we are super excited today to have Ja' Quintin means with us today, Ja' Quintin, could you please introduce yourself and tell the people what you do? Ja'Quintin Means 1:09 Oh, yes, I spent two and a half years as a minister in training in the Methodist Church, and also spent a lot of time in high school being a journalist. And that kind of gave me this love for writing. And being a minister gave me a love for history, spirituality and religion and how it works inside of the human mind and how it can be good for us. And sometimes as we know throughout history can be bad for us. And that really was inspired me to be a writer and write the way that I do and about the subjects I've talked about. Ed Watters 1:46 Very interesting. The book we're going to talk today about is called Willie, Willie started out going to have a different title. Could you tell us why you chose Willie, instead of the other title, Ja'Quintin Means 2:02 I grew up learning about the weightless letter, or like I heard of it. It's like this folk tale in the black community. So I've always grown up hearing about the Willie Lynch letter, but I had never listened to it for myself. And then I found that there's so much controversy on if it's being a real document or not. But when I when I actually read that document for myself, it just spoke to me in such a way. And when I looked out at the world around me, and I looked out at my own black community, I could really see the effects of what was detailed in that letter. And I was like, Well, you know, my book would be a lot better off if I could kind of show how these things affect us today in a kind of allegorical historical tale. And that's what inspired me to change the name because initially, it was run boy run. And it was really just inspired about me and my best friend walking through the backwoods of Arkansas. He's dark skinned, I'm very light skinned. And me just thinking of like this bond of two friends that wanted their freedom and wanted to, you know, do whatever it took to get that. And like I said, like, once I once I read the Willie Lynch letter for myself, I just had a completely different perspective. Ed Watters 3:19 History tells a lot, you know, and I looked a little into that Willie Lynch letter myself, because I never heard of it until I ran across your book, and we hooked up for this interview. By going back looking and doing the research, like you obviously have with this book. Do you tie a lot of fiction and historical fact into this book? Ja'Quintin Means 3:48 Yes, I did. There was so many, you know, Arkansas just has a very rich culture in the...