JoeyPinkney.com 5 Minutes, 5 Questions With… Stephen Witt, author of The Street Singer

About "The Street Singer":

When flat-broke subway singer Jason Spirit receives a large tip in his case from a sexy Russian woman, little does he know it leads to a relationship with Thaddeus Hoover – the high-powered New York City developer with plans to build a $5 billion basketball arena in Brooklyn.

Joey Pinkney: Where did you get the inspiration to write “The Street Singer: A Tale of Sex, Money and Power in a Changing Brooklyn”?

Stephen Witt: As a journalist, I covered the $5 billion Atlantic Yards project that brought the NBA’s New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn. I thought this would make a good subject for contemporary urban fiction.


JP: What sets "The Street Singer" apart from other books in the same genre?

SW: “The Street Singer” is different than most urban fiction, in that the protagonist is a middle-aged white subway musician, who lives largely in the black Brooklyn world. His drinking and marijuana buddy is a Lolly, a sexy black woman from the projects, who is also his occasional lover. (read more)

JP: As an author, what are the keys to your success that led to “The Street Singer” getting out to the public?
SW: Hard work. My first novel, “American Moses”, was self-published in 2009 through my own Never Sink Books imprint. I sold the publishing rights to Changing Lives Press for “The Street Singer”. (read more)

JP: As an author, what is your writing process? How long did it take you to start and finish “The Street Singer: A Tale of Sex, Money and Power in a Changing Brooklyn”?

SW: When I’m on a writing project, my goal is to write 500 words a day. Once I bang out the general story, the rest gets fleshed out in rewrites. “The Street Singer” took me about two years to write. (read more)

JP: What’s next for Stephen Witt?

SW: I’m working on a screenplay based on the only lynching of a black man in New York State. The log line is a small town journalist uncovers the reason behind the unsolved lynching of a black man in New York State. (read more)

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