Featured Author:

ELBERT ALBERSON

 

1.  Please introduce yourself. Tell us a little about the person behind the pen.

My name is Elbert Alberson, I was born in Memphis Tennessee My writing has been influenced by the sights and sounds of Memphis as a child growing up. I placed on a railroad track putting penny’s on the rails for a train to mash into big penny’s.   I dreamed of riding a train with the hobo’s to see where it went.  I listened to the sounds as the coal fired trains chugged and chugged to get started.I Dreamed of the Mississippi River and its big tug boats and paddle wheelers. I wanted to ride a boat down the river all the way to the ocean.  I dreamed of flying from watching the Blimps and planes flying overhead.  I later joined the Air Force, bought a boat, and took train trips. My books include all of these.

2.   What made you decide to write (the genre of your book), were there any influencing factors, or were any of the stories based on true events.

My books are based on my life, my travels, and the adventures I have enjoyed.  The Characters are mostly real people with the names changed.   Other characters are purely fiction.  The locations and places mostly are real, as I have traveled to 14 foreign countries.   I have 8,000 hours of flying time.  Thus there is a lot of historical drama portrayed as fiction occurring in real places.

3.   How do you promote your book, and do you find that difficult or just par for the course.

I actively participate in Facebook.  And its many pages affording more and more exposure, like Books, Books and more Books.  TITAN pages. Vanity Fair is a great venue, and I am happy to participate as Tammie Gibbs was such a great help in getting me off on the right foot as a mentor. I am on Twitter, with daily tweets.

4.   Do you remember your first review and how it made you feel?  (If it was a bad one, also tell about your good one too).

I haven’t had a review of any of my books to speak of professionally. I have had the surprise  phone calls congratulating me, telling me they really enjoyed  my book. I had one very memorable review in an email that really excited me from a person I had never met.  I haven’t had any bad reviews of the sort.  They will occur as time goes on as I understand from other authors.

5.    Tell us about your book and if it’s a series and how the public is reacting to this book.

Years ago, while working and living in Florida, three friends and I got into Scuba Diving in rivers and later in the ocean. Four years of diving every weekend somewhere, gave me a lifetime of experiences and adventures to write the rest of my life. Combined with my travels, I have dramatized my stories with places all over the world I have visited.  CAY SAL, the Discovery generated book 2 called Diamonds and Gold and that generated a third book in this series called Old Gold.  The main character is Morgan Young and his three friends. They live through many adventures of life and death experiences that keep you captivated wondering what will happen next.

6.    Can you share any and all links that are important to you as a person and the book?  (You can relate more to a book if you know more about the author).

My author page at: www.facebook.com/authorelbertalberson tells all about me personally and holds excerpts of all my books. I have six books published now and I am very proud of each one. Those being RED BULL, a military book.   COTTON TOP, my memories from 1941 to present. And CHASING SECOND CHANCES, an adventure of a couple chasing happiness and finding it under sad circumstances.

7.    I’ll wrap it up with this question since “7” is a lucky numberJ.   Can you share an excerpt from your book, and I’d like to thank you so much for taking time to share your book with me. Please share as much as you’d like.

Excerpt from CAY SAL, the Discovery.   Cay Sal is an island in the Bahamas.   Morgan gave the signal to start their descent. The plane got bigger and bigger until they were at the door behind the pilots seat.  They slowly eased into the plane and it was a stripped down Gooney Bird,
called a C-47 by some. Morgan noticed a shiny metal suit case wedged behind the pilot’s seat. Morgan headed for it and the plane seemed to move but he ignored it for the moment.  He was well aware this plane was sitting on a ledge  and if it slipped off the ledge for any reason, it would drop another 3000 feet into dark green water.

Jake watched as Morgan pulled it free and head back to the door.   Morgan gave the signal to head for the surface.  It was apparent, the next hurricane   would probably knock the plane off the ledge to never be seen again.

They made it back to the surface and pried open the locked case. It was packed with Bundles of hundred dollar bills, fifty dollar bills, twenty’s and ten’s.

They couldn’t wait to count it, but the wind was getting up and the sea got white caps on it.  Inside and thirty minutes later, they realized they was two Million dollars richer than earlier that morning.

Jake noticed Al seemed to be in deep thought.  Jake asked:  “Al, what are you thinking so hard about?”

“That money has got to be laundered.  We can’t spend any of that.   We don’t know who it belongs to.    We can’t even talk about it to anybody.   If we do, word could get back to the owners and I would bet it is mob money.    We need to launder it and it will probably only bring 50 % of the face value.    Hell, we even have to worry about who are we going to even launder it.”

Now greed is creeping into the picture and they could see the hesitation on everybody’s face that they were going to end up with a lesser amount.

Morgan pointed out, “We will still end up with $250,000 each.

That seemed to make everybody smile again.  After getting back to the friend of Al’s house where they were staying, he was a lawyer and had connections to the underworld. Arrangements were made to meet with a man at midnight to launder the money.

About midnight, three shady characters arrived that looked like they just got up from a poker game and probably did.  They came into the room but nobody shook hands or mentioned names and the lead man ask: “Where is the money?”

Another man saying nothing, had in one hand a briefcase and in the other, he held a Mac-11 automatic capable of massive destruction, under his coat.

***Albert is a fine colleague of mine and I urge you to check out his book(s).