The Spooky Six with Willow Croft and Mr. Alverne Ball
In lieu of my customary tea, I’m having my first ever Chicago-style hot dog with the illustrous author and screenwriter, Mr. Alverne Ball! Keep those eyeballs peeled for his upcoming literary appearance in Shook! A Black Horror Anthology!
Alverne Ball has a M.F.A in Fiction writing from Columbia College Chicago. He has completed studies in Columbia College’s prestigious Semester in Los Angeles program, an intensive course focused on the adaptation of material to the screen.
He has taught graphic novel writing at Noble charter High School in Chicago. He has written comic and graphic novel material for such companies as Di Bona Ventura Productions, Paramount pictures, Mcgraw-Hill, Lion forge comics, New Paradigm entertainment, Campfire graphic novels, and 133art.com.
His writing has been published in the literary magazine Annalemma, in Columbia College newspaper The Chronicle, online at Brokenfrontier.com, online for the Museum of contemporary Photography in Chicago, online for Comicbookresources.com, and an online graphic story for the literary magazine, Hypertextmag.com. His short stories of suspense have appeared in the Sin anthology by Avendia Press, Criminal Class Review as well as the (now defunct) online magazine, the Heated Forest.
Mr. Ball is the recipient of the 2019 inaugural Tin House graphic novel scholar and he is the graphic novelist of the historical nonfiction graphic novel from Abrams comic Arts on Black Wall Street, entitled, Across the Tracks: remembering Greenwood, Black Street and the Tulsa Race massacre. He is the recipient of the 2014 and 2015 Glyph rising star award for his writing on 133art’s OneNation and OneNation: Old Druids. In 2009 Mr. Ball received first place in the Union League Civic & Arts Foundation Creative Writing Competition for his graphic story, “Virgin Wolf”. He has also received Three Weisman Scholarships from Columbia for his other graphic works.
Mr. Ball has traveled to South Africa to work as a storyline writer on the hit telenovella, Uzalo. He was also a screenwriter on the South African fantasy series, Ifalahke where he received story writing credit. Mr. Ball has written and produced a short film, Crossroads, which was shot on the Warner Bros. backlot via the AT&T Shape competition in the summer of 2018. He has also written and produced the short film, Tattooed Tears, which was directed by Aaron Lewis and was chosen as a 2016 selection for the Indiewise, Sankofa, MeccaCon and Egypt film festivals.
Mr. Ball has also created and written two online comic series, When we were Kings and Zulu, both published by Afropunk.com. He is also the author of the crime thrillers, Only The Holy Remain, and Blue Religion.
All works can be found www.alvernedball.com or wherever your favorite books are sold.
Murder mystery books have been entertaining readers for centuries, captivating audiences with their intricate plots and unexpected twists and turns. But what makes a murder mystery truly successful and enjoyable to read? A well-constructed and surprising plot is essential for a successful murder mystery, with twists and turns that are both unexpected and believable. Additionally, well-developed characters are crucial for readers to relate and become invested in the story. The setting should be described in detail, it should be believable and consistent, and the tension and suspense should be gradually built up, with the most dramatic moments saved for the climax of the story. Finally, the resolution should be satisfying, with all the clues and red herrings coming together in a dramatic and coherent way. Overall, a successful and enjoyable murder mystery must have a well-constructed plot, well-developed characters, a consistent setting, and a satisfying resolution.
In 1978 William Hjortsberg produced a novel based on one of those ideas so obvious that you wonder why it hadn’t been done before. The novel was Falling Angel, and Hjortsberg innovatively combined the hard-boiled detective genre with the horror one, or as Stephen King so aptly put it, the result was if “Raymond Chandler wrote The Exorcist.”
