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Visionary Writer Showcases Literary Works
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nationwide — Author Jeffery “J. A.” Faulkerson announced the release of his literary anthology J. A. Faulkerson Reader: The Literary Works of a Contemporary, Black Visionary. The book is currently available for online purchase through Amazon.com.
Faulkerson, a former Tennessee State Secondary Athletic Association (TSSAA) long jump champion who graduated from Kingsport’s Dobyns-Bennett High School and the University of Tennessee, always knew he wanted to become a published author. So, when he published his debut novel Adinkrahene: Fear of a Black Planet in 2014, he breathed a sigh of relief. One of his lifelong goals had been achieved. The very next year, Adinkrahene was selected as one of three finalists for a Phillis Wheatley Book Award (in the First Fiction category), requiring him to travel to New York City’s Columbia University for an awards ceremony. He did not claim the top prize that night, but he became more confident in his ability to produce literary works that entertain, educate and enlighten.
Faulkerson’s J. A. Faulkerson Reader contains essays, poems, short stories and books produced over an 11-year period. He shares the trials and the triumphs associated with becoming an author, poet and screenwriter. He admonishes his contemporaries to become compassionate neighbors who have unconditional love and neighborly compassion in their hearts. He gifts adolescents and young adults, i.e., the Young Achievers, with a playbook that connects prosperity to the pursuit of greatness in the areas of Nurturing, Learning, Working and Leading. He reminisces about the five years he spent as his son’s full-time stay-at-home parent, offering fathers and father figures strategies they can use to help their children develop championship mindsets. And his poetry celebrates his Black ancestors’ legacy of activism, community and kinship, how their unrelenting fight for freedom, justice and fairness serves as the perfect model for how citizenries create more perfect unions.
The J. A. Faulkerson Reader was published on October 17, 2025, and is 523 pages long.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. A. Faulkerson is a Northern Virginia-based Author, Poet and Screenwriter. Many of his writings pay homage to the Black leaders of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s, individuals he calls compassionate neighbors because they were led by the unconditional love and neighborly compassion in their hearts. He also has a heart for youth, evidenced by his years of service as a TRIO Upward Bound and YMCA Youth director. Through his written and spoken words, he admonishes adolescents and young adults to balance their lives on the Four Pillars of Prosperity (i.e., Nurturing, Learning, Working and Leading). A graduate of Dobyns-Bennett High School (Kingsport, Tennessee) and the University of Tennessee (Knoxville, Tennessee), J. A. has been happily married to his wife for over 32 years and is the proud father to his 21-year-old son.
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J. A. FAULKERSON | A Writer’s Journey
The Story of My “READ THIS” Interview with Alice Maria James
I first met Read This Host Alice Maria James at the September 7, 2024 Harlem Book Fair. There I was, standing on the plaza of the historic Adam Clayton Powell Building, outside the canopy that I had erected to cover my vendor booth table, when she approached with microphone in hand to ask me questions about my books. I had done these kind of spontaneous interviews countless times before, but this one felt different. Even then, I sensed that Alice took great pride in being able to introduce emerging Black authors like me to larger audiences.
I answered all of Alice’s questions, giving her brief overviews of each of the books I had on display. The encouraging words she offered in response to my fictional storylines and poetic themes evoked toothy smiles from me. She made me feel as if my words matter, and to an independent artist like me, that’s pure gold.
Months had passed since this encounter, where I had the privilege of walking along sidewalks frequented by Harlem Renaissance authors and/or poets like Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, to name only a few. I continued to work from my Northern Virginia home, putting the finishing touches on my unproduced screenplay RECONSTRUCTION: Power Cell, and adding more chapters to my young adult novel Junior Achiever. I submitted poems to literary magazines like the Mid-Atlantic Review. And I continued to sign onto my weekly Let’s Write Something Sundays/Black Writers Collective Zoom call with Black writers from as far away as Georgia, Virginia and California. I even joined the Northern Virginia Writers Club and the Poetry Society of Virginia so I could have more in-person contacts with more racially diverse groups of creative writers.
Only when I took a break from all this activity did I come across a LinkedIn email from Alice. In the email, she invited me to be a guest on her Read This program. I accepted, of course, and the rest is history. I will leave it to you to click on the video above to see what we talked about.
SUPPORT MY EFFORTS BY PURCHASING ONE OR MORE OF MY TITLES THROUGH MY J. A. Faulkerson Books website.
But as you watch the video above, it is my hope you will begin to understand the motivation behind my writing.
For those who don’t know, I write to educate, entertain and enlighten. And while I am constantly endeavoring to strengthen my creative voice, I often find myself focusing on themes that pay homage to my Black ancestors – enslaved and oppressed Black Africans and Black Americans, the Black Civil Rights leaders of the 1950s and ‘60s. They are the reason I penned the poetry collection March of the Compassionate Neighbor, for they are the ones who were led by the unconditional love and neighborly compassion in their hearts. Unfortunately, remnants of their legacy are needed now because we live in an era of deep racial retrenchment that hasn’t been seen since 1877, when the first period of Reconstruction ended following the presidency of Andrew Johnson.
But my heart also bleeds for other men, more specifically the ones who have been blessed to be fathers. Back in 2015, I wrote a book titled Real Men Raise CHAMPIONS: Unleashing Your Inner COACH, to let fathers and father figures know they are thermostats that set the temperature not thermometers that measure it. Their mission is to cultivate stronger connections with their children, so these same children grow up to become great nurturers, great learners, great workers and great leaders that lead independently fearless and empowered lives.
But as I endeavor to heed my own parents’ spoken and unspoken lessons on how to lead an independently fearless and empowered life, I also recognize that we fathers and father figures should not have to cultivate our father-child relationships in isolation. I firmly believe fathering males relating well with their own children represents a wonderful opportunity for them to join forces and extend their service to the other children in their communities. By “huddling up” on a regular basis, they can draw up plays that can be executed to improve outcomes for all God’s children.
As many of you know, I’m traveling to Atlanta in late July to attend Black Writers Weekend. While there, I will participate in the annual pitch fest.
I’m going all in, y’all, pitching my unproduced screenplay RECONSTRUCTION: Power Cell. Because the screenplay’s plot speaks to the times we’re living in, I hope the attending film studio representatives view the story as a revolutionary statement to the powers that be. I also hope my Black American and Black African contemporaries view my Black characters pursuit and display of Black excellence as the playbook for reconstructing Black labor today for the jobs of tomorrow.
But enough about me.
Let’s get back to Alice, give her the flowers she so rightly deserves.
I encourage you to visit her sites – Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, Apple Podcasts, Facebook and LinkedIn.
She’s the real deal, y’all, manning a Read This empire that I hope will one day be uttered in the same breath as Oprah’s Book Club and Troy Johnson’s African-American Literature Book Club (AALBC).
Thank you, Alice, for affording me this opportunity to think out loud.
More significantly, thank you for being such a gracious host.
It’s Not About Him, It’s About Us
Lately, I have been growing increasingly frustrated with Stephen A. Smith and his attempts to draw equivalences between the criminal prosecutions of Donald Trump and Black American men. Smith seems to think we Black American men have a propensity for committing crimes, and as a result, we Black American men should be more inclined to identify with Trump’s legal travails. Smith even thinks this perceived affinity should motivate us Black American men to vote for Trump in the upcoming presidential election. But let’s be clear: Donald Trump isn’t being victimized by the American criminal justice system. He spent four years as US President thumbing his nose at American jurisprudence while allegedly going out of his way to break its laws.
Smith wants us to ignore the fact that Donald Trump was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Trump’s inherited privilege is what causes him to falsely believe he is entitled to preferential treatment, even after he allegedly 1) paid off a porn star to prevent her from talking about their sexual affair, 2) stole and then stored classified and top secret government documents at his Florida resort and 3) asked Georgia election officials, all fellow Republicans, to find the exact number of votes he needed to steal the presidential election from the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, Joe Biden. And let’s not forget he lit the fuse that turned his MAGA supporters into insurrectionists on January 6, 2021.
Stephen A. Smith seemingly wants us Black American men to forget that the unenlightened (or Un-Woke) segment of White America has been trying to make us Black American men the face of criminality since the general Black American population stopped working for free after then-President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1864.
It seems obvious that Smith is unfazed in making this equivalence because of who he associates with. He has been known to break bread with the likes of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who reportedly is one of Donald Trump’s closest friends. Because of his association with Jones, it’s safe to say Smith has probably broken bread with the former president as well, and has undoubtedly completed 18 holes of golf with him at his Florida resort. So, it’s not much of a leap to surmise that Smith has probably been asked to use his platform to do Trump’s bidding.
Smith has built a reputation for being one of ESPN’s most brash and opinionated sportscasters. Who doesn’t enjoy watching episodes of ESPN’s First Take, where Smith’s topics of conversation center around sports, not racial politics? But Smith’s comments on race are inflated with ignorance and insensitivity, for it shows he is possibly working with the Trump Reelection Team to get more of us Black American men to vote for Trump in November.
My Black American brothers, it’s not about him (Donald Trump), it’s about us, our ability to remain the default leaders of the movement to inject unconditional love and neighborly compassion into the hearts and minds of the living. It is our Black ancestors’ exercise of these superpowers before, during and after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ‘60s that have allowed us, their contemporaries, to develop and display reconciliatory excellence in the present age.
Donald Trump is not deserving of our time, attention or votes. Unlike us, he is not committed to creating a more perfect union.
Affirmative action as we knew it was eliminated by a conservative Supreme Court that Trump’s Republican Senatorial minions corruptly seated by first preventing the first Black American president, Democrat Barack Obama, from making more progressive appointments.
He denounces and supports the elimination of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs.
He equates Black history with Critical Race Theory.
And he supports the banning of books written by Black authors.
As men, we are called to stand in the gap for our women and children. As Black American men, we are called to stand with our closest constituents – our Black American women and Black American children – while pressuring the country’s duly elected leaders, both Democratic and Republican, to do right by all its people, not just a select few.
Stephen A. Smith seemingly wants us to deviate from this purpose, even as he enjoys the perks of being associated with the wealthy, influential and powerful. What I hope he realizes, though, is the conquering oppressors that he chooses to associate with have no desire to develop authentic relationships with us, their more compassionate neighbors.
While our Black ancestors established the longstanding tradition of demanding that this country live up to its ideals- that all men (and women) are created equal, and have been endowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – the fact still remains that it has not. And when Black celebrities like Stephen A. Smith float false equivalencies to get a criminally indicted former president re-elected, it confuses matters. We Black Americans are wired to be compassionate and neighborly because lashing out violently only makes things worse for everybody. We must get in each others faces and share truthful and heartfelt stories that speak to where we were, where we are, and how much further we have to go as a people and as a nation.
We will know that our nation is starting to become defined by unconditional love and neighborly compassion when more of us are seen hugging it out with people who look different than us but share the belief that our union can be perfected.
Stephen A. Smith would have us Black American men embrace a man who wants us to hate more and love less.
“CHECKMATE” | A Poem by J. A. Faulkerson
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
Require moments of reflection
Temporary pause to consider
Historical inflections
We weren’t born
To be enslaved by the naysayer, the other
We all were made in His image
To be sister, brother
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
Cause us to doubt our place
Wanting to be citizens of this country
Not members of a specific race
Don’t get me wrong
Beautiful is the color black
But when they confine us to a color
They’re suggesting we lack
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
No reason to spat
Kindness, civility
A tip of the hat
Compassion and love
Should be the basis of our interactions
Making additions to the family
Not senseless subtractions
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
A call to make it right
Neighbor helping neighbor
Overcoming our collective plight
Don’t allow the naysayers
To call Black History CRT
Unite with enlightened others
Demand racial amnesty
THE TIMES THAT WE LIVE IN
A perpetual game of chess they play
Enough of this nonsense
It’s not the bed I wish to lay
By working together,
More can be great
Proclaim to the naysayers,
“Checkmate!”
Copyright 2024, Jeffery A. Faulkerson. All rights reserved.
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.
“March of the Compassionate Neighbor” | A Poem by J. A. Faulkerson
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.
Compassionate.
Neighborly.
Two words with different meanings but working toward the same goal.
The Literati say they are adjectives that modify nouns. I say they become active verbs when they are embodied in a person, in a people.
There have been protests, there have been marches. The one I think about most is the 1964 March on Washington, where the keynote speaker was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, King, Jr.
This march produced results, specifically passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But then there was the one in 1965, at Selma’s Edmund Pettis Bridge, where then Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Chairman John Lewis and other black residents were beaten with sticks wielded by white police officers.
Bloody Sunday, they call it.
Black bodies bloodied by white lawmen, white lawmakers, for wanting to participate in the franchise – local, state and federal elections.
These are the marches I think about, the ones that resonate with me the most.
No, I wasn’t there. I arrived in 1968, 16 days before an assassin’s bullet ended Dr. King’s life.
Nor was I there in October 1995, when Louis Farrakan invited Black American men and their non-black allies to something called the Million Man March.
I may have not been present that day, a small speck among the sea of black men, but my spirit was. Watching this event play out on TV, I prayed that the nation would look past Farrakan’s fiery rhetoric to hear his admonishment to black men.
Black men, you must do more to stand in the gap for your black women, your black children, your American nation.
These marches had goals, righteous ones.
But then January 6, 2021, happened.
The Stop the Steal Rally.
An event organized by supporters of a former United States president.
The individuals who came to Washington that day weren’t compassionate or neighborly.
If anything, these insurrectionists were livid, driven by hatred for their fellow man, their fellow compatriots, all because their candidate had lost his bid to serve a second term as the United States president.
The question that we, members of the US electorate, must ask ourselves is what hope did these insurrectionists have in reclaiming something that had not been stolen?
Why didn’t they just stay home, accept the loss like so many others have done, support the peaceful transfer of presidential power?
That’s what the citizens of democracies are expected to do when voters duly elect a new leader to office.
But that begs another question.
How are we supposed to act in times such as these?
Times when absolute truths, facts really, are ignored, disregarded.
Times when news of candidates’ criminality, indiscretions, don’t disqualify them from running for political office but instead allow them to lead by double digits in their party’s statewide primary elections.
Times when marches led by the descendants of enslaved Africans are wrongly contrasted with one that served the purpose of one person, the defeated former president.
The Christian Bible admonishes us to do unto others as we would have others do unto us.
These united states of America can be great, but they can never be great again. That’s because they have never been great.
Enshrined in the United States Constitution is the pledge to create a more perfect union.
Why?
Because our Native Americans ancestors had their land stolen from them.
Because our Black American ancestors were enslaved and oppressed.
Because our Asian American ancestors were relegated to concentration camps on US soil during World War II.
Nothing great about denying people’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The fact is, I’m not better than you, and you’re not better than me.
We’re equals.
Equals that become better individuals, better unions, when we acknowledge the gifting that has been bestowed upon the other.
But we don’t stop there.
We also go out of our way to embrace and comfort others when the weight of the world weighs them down.
I am your Compassionate Neighbor, the guy who lives with his family next door.
Love me.
Work with me.
Pray with me.
March with me.
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Copyright 2024, Jeffery A. Faulkerson. All rights reserved.
To discover more titles by J. A. Faulkerson, visit https://jafaulkerson.com/store/.