How Award-Winning Crime Writer Christopher Chambers Writes

The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

#PodcastersForJustice

Award-winning writer, commentator, and Professor of Media Studies at Georgetown University, Christopher Chambers, chatted with me about why there's never been a better time to break through as a writer of color, unreliable narrators and the 2nd person POV, and writing for Marvel's Black Panther franchise.

Christopher Chambers is a professor of media studies and novelist whose books include A Prayer for Deliverance and Sympathy for the Devil, the graphic anthology (with Gary Phillips) The Darker Mask, and PEN/Malamud-nominated story, "Leviathan." His writing was included in the anthology The Obama Inheritance: 15 Stores of Conspiracy Noir, which won numerous awards including the Anthony Award.

His latest novel is Scavenger: A Mystery, set in Washington D.C.'s underbelly where "... a Black homeless man must quickly learn the ropes of being a detective after [being framed] for a brutal crime he didn’t commit." Publishers Weekly called the book, a “... no-holds-barred crime novel . . . a 21st-century twist on traditional hardboiled noir,” and friend of the pod, writer S.A. Cosby, called it "wholly original."

Professor Chambers is an honors graduate of Princeton University and the University of Baltimore School of Law, where he was the first African American in the Law Review. He's a regular commentator/contributor on media and culture issues on SiriusXM Radio, ABC News, MSNBC, and HuffPost.

Stay tuned for a special offer from this week's sponsor Neuro.

If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews. In this file Christopher Chambers and I discussed:

• Why he didn't want to be the next Scott Turow
• How to incorporate today's confluence of societal crises into your writing
• What it's like to be invited to write about Wakanda
• Why the writing life equates to isolation
• And more!

Show Notes:

• Christopher Chambers
• Scavenger: A Mystery by Christopher Chambers (Amazon)
• Christopher Chambers Amazon author page
• Christopher Chambers on Instagram
• Christopher Chambers on FaceBook
• Christopher Chambers on Twitter
• Kelton Reid on Twitter

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