To help authors market their books and and to help create greater awareness, we occasionally feature winning stories submitted to our 50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading Awards Contest on this blog. The journey to success is often a long one. We hope the stories of successful authors will provide some encouragement and help others overcome the challenges they face. This story was submitted by Sully Grand-Jean.
Writing is a power strong enough to shake the world. That’s why the writing industry is so prolific. Everybody has something to say and this sharpens the curiosity of readers who are eager to know who said what and why. As a reader myself, I am also in quest of knowledge and I believe it is in books. I’m an author because I was and still am, a curious reader. As an author, I want to satisfy my readers’ expectations and exigencies with respect and love. I write to feed the readers’ mind.
I write by vocation. Since I was in Middle School, I felt the call to write. Something was burning inside of me, I did not know what it was; but I started walking around, back and forth, while saying repeatedly with as much pride and eloquence, “Grand-Jean Sully, the man whom the world has a great need for, the man who will write many books to save humanity from immoralities.” At this point, I started writing poetry. My classmates called me “the poet”; they forgot about my name; since someone said, “the poet”, everyone would know whom they were talking about. Since then, I wrote through inspiration. Whenever and wherever I felt inspired, I have to leave whatever I was doing to write the ideas that suddenly came to my mind. That is why I write to motivate, inspire, open the readers’ eyes, and to call for individual change, social reformation, and human revolution.
I used my pen to read the readers’ mind to feel what they feel, to make them read what they want to express. I want to be the voice for the voiceless and use my pen as an emergent complaint and petition of the minorities, the marginalized, the needy, the exploited, the abused, and the victims of racial and partial injustice. I also write for the conversion of the perpetrators of injustice, the conspirators, the racists, the deceivers, the abusers, the offenders, the exploiters, and those who take pride and pleasure to make others suffer by any means. Though I don’t publish too many books as of yet, I do have a writing career that I am going to address.
My writing career started as early as 6th grade. At that time I even wrote poetry for a few girls in class. I wrote acrostics with their name; and I even expressed my love through poetry, and soon I became a romantic poet. In 11th grade, I already had a collection of poems about love, nature, patriotism, and faith ready to be published. The collection was reviewed and edited by one of the most eminent literature scholar in Haiti at that time, Dr. Pradel Pompilus. Unfortunately, before publication, I lost that collection due to political tumults that put Haiti upside down, in fire and flames, to overthrow the president Jean Claude Duvalier, also known as “Baby Doc” in 1986. Many people fled to save their life. I was deeply sad, but not discouraged. At that time it was rare for someone to have a machine or device to save files; and I did not remember all the poems to rewrite them, so I had to start over.
To keep my writing calling productive, I studied journalism at the “Institut Francais” in order to write as a professional writer. After being certified, I found a job with the government as a columnist and reporter in charge of the city of Carrefour in the newspaper called, “Le Nouveau Monde”.
Also while I was in double major at the “Universite Adventiste d’Haiti” (Theology and Social Science) I published articles in the university magazine called, “Echo”; I won a poem contest; and I received an award for writing a play, setting a drama club, and for playing at the auditorium of the University while keeping my audience happy and proud.
Before graduation, I wrote and defended a memoir of 252 pages on Theology of Liberation in Latino America.
Coming to America, in 1994, I helped Library Rincher, in New York, to write and publish a multilingual dictionary with pronunciations called “Manman Pemba” in Creole, French, English, and Spanish. Moving to Georgia, in 1996 during the Olympics, I later enrolled in a dual master’s program and graduated in 2008 the year that I published my philosophic book, “Motivational and Inspirational Thoughts for all People” to inspire mankind.
I translated a computer learning software from English to Creole for Atlanta Language Institute to help Creole speaking students to learn the computer in their native language.
Now I use my experience, my poetry skill, my social science skills, faith and humanism to write a book on black history, negritude, and social reformation; to promote a fair society where justice and human compassion reign. It has been a reality since April 2014. The famous and catchy name is, “Just Because I’m Black”. After saying so I have great expectations.
I want to be an agent of peace to promote human revolution through the revolutionary truth and sincerity, love and mutual help. Also, I want to become a worldwide civil right leader to uphold and respect human and children rights. I want to reconcile and unite whites and blacks in order to live on earth as brothers and sisters in the same house. This is the reason why I published this late book, Just Because I’m Black.
Just Because I’m Black is a repaint of the social contradictions, racism, unfairness, and injustice that constitute a virus with multiple branches that is destroying society, which remains unconscious of the threatened diseases. That ‘is the book that elevates morale and enhances the self-esteem of the black people mostly the young black males. This book called for social and judiciary reformation to serve equal justice. Finally, the book condemned the deceits of many religious leaders who are misleading a multitude of naïve members; it invites those members to double check the teachings and analyze them in the laboratory of truth.
Therefore, writing is one of the best professions ever existed on this planet because writers rebuilt human being as a whole. Through writing, we nourish the thoughts, we excite the spirit of research, we boost the soul, we rejoice the heart, we shape the body, and we touch lives forever. I am proud to be an author with positive attitude, noble vocation, and a sacred mission.