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I am so thrilled and excited to share with you all my new book, “Visible Lives: Three Stories In Tribute To E. Lynn Harris” (Dafina Books – May 2010) .  “Visible Lives” is a literary tribute to my friend and mentor, the late E. Lynn Harris.

I am sharing a chapter excerpt from my novella, The Intern, on my website. I am inviting you all to please check it out, HERE!

New York Times Best-selling author E. Lynn Harris passed away in July of 2009. His novels about successful and glamorous black men with sexual identity conflicts, and the women and men who love them, made him one of the nation’s most popular writers.  My own explosive debut memoir entitled Hiding In Hip Hop: On the Down Low in the Entertainment Industry – from Music to Hollywood (Atria/ Simon & Schuster May 2008) positioned me as one of the entertainment industry’s most talked about authors of late. I bravely unmasked the deep secrets of a prominent gay sub-culture within not only the entertainment community, but within the confines of Hip Hop, Hiding in Hip Hop became the runaway sensation of the year.

“Author Terrance Dean’s New Tribute Book For The Late E. Lynn Harris”

“Visible Lives” is a powerful tribute to the late Harris in which three authors present new novellas in the genre E. Lynn helped to create. I conceived the idea and concept for the tribute book, “Visible Lives” and enlisted the contributions of fellow authors Stanley Bennett Clay and James Earl Hardy.

In “Visible Lives,” readers are introduced to three novellas House of John by Stanley Bennett Clay; The Intern by Terrance Dean; and Is it Still Jood to Ya by James Earl Hardy.

In House of John, Jesse Templeton is a thirty-eight year old freelance photographer still reeling from a recent breakup with his live-in boyfriend Sean.  He thinks he’s done with love -that is until finds he starts falling for a gorgeous local at an annual sex retreat in Santo Domingo. In The Intern, workaholic television executive Chase Kennedy finds himself drawn to the office’s new intern, sexy college student and basketball star Quincy Thornberry. Things couldn’t be going better until Chase learns that Quincy’s father may be the man he lost both his virginity and his heart to years prior. Lastly in Is It Still Jood to Ya?, actor Raheim Rivers is anxious to be reunited with his lover Mitchell Crawford after being away a long time.  Uncertain about the future of their relationship, Raheim and Mitchell are forced to confront their issues and each other when a summer blackout strands them together in New York.

I thank you all again for your continued support and love. I hope you will go to your local bookstores today and purchase your copy of “Visible Lives.” You can also order a copy, HERE!

It is a befitting tribute to an icon in the literary world. Also, I am looking forward to meeting  everyone and signing your books at some of the select booksignings across the country.  Help us celebrate the legacy of my great friend, E. Lynn Harris. I know he is smiling at the beauty of it all!

A new book is claiming that Barack and Michelle Obama were on the rocks before the historical election, and everyone’s up in arms about people “slandering” our President and First Lady. According to the NY Daily News,

In the new book “Renegade,” about Obama’s barrier-breaking run for the presidency, author Richard Wolffe recounts a stretch in 2000 when the Obama’s marriage was a lot frostier than it appears today.

“There was little conversation and even less romance,” Wolffe, who covered Obama’s campaign for Newsweek magazine, wrote of that period. “She was angry at his selfishness and careerism; he thought she was cold and ungrateful.”

At the time, Obama was a young state senator who had decided to run a Democratic primary against incumbent Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Chicago) – a contest Obama lost by a dismal 2-1 margin. Michelle was a new mom with two-year-old Malia at home and Sasha, born in June 2001, not far off.

“She hated the failed race for Congress in 2000, and their marriage was strained by the time their youngest daughter, Sasha, was born,” Wolffe wrote. “Politics seemed like a waste of time to Michelle.”

Here’s my question: Why should the media be expected to leave out stories like this, just because they involve our President and First Lady? One could take it to be a slanderous news item, but others could see it the way I see it – Barack and Michelle aren’t perfect. In fact, the trials and tribulations of their coupledom are just like the trials and tribulations of ours. Know why? Cause they’re effing human. And the fact that they had this alleged relationship rift 9 years ago and were able to get through it to become what they are today is more beautiful than the cookie cutter love the newspapers want to make their marriage out to be. If anything, it makes them more normal than they’ve ever been, and while it might be a tough sell to say that it means you and your man might eventually become a power couple like the Obamas, at least it gives you hope that your problems are shared by one of the most successful couples on the planet…and that you’ll get through them, eventually. Just like they did.

So I’m posting this “rumor” for all to see, and I want to know everything you readers have to say about it. Let me have it. Cause I ain’t budging.

Check out this gallery of Shelly and Barry looking all cute on Date Night. If they can do it, you can too! Amen.