Inspired by GET OUT and Riley Sager, STAY WOKE is the story of Brody and Fatima Marshall, a father and daughter mourning the loss of her mother. Hoping for a new start, they arrive in a small town and uncover murder, conspiracy, and possibly a haunting.
In 2026 the word "woke" has become so watered down that people will argue it means nothing. But it always has meant something to my community, who have had to move in a world of white supremacy, keeping our loved ones and family safe while being aware that there is a system that wishes to oppress us. The title was an attempt for me to take the word "woke" back.
I started writing the story during my wife's pregnancy, which filled me with a different kind of existential dread and anxiety. Once the setting came to me, that's what the story became about; exploring my anxieties about fatherhood, about being Black, about losing my wife, and about feeling isolated. STAY WOKE represents the most personal thing I've written.
This campaign is about helping to get Brody and Fatima's story out there for more people to read. It covers some expenses to get that ball rolling and to release this very winter-centric book sometime in January 2027.
NOTE: NO PART OF THIS PROJECT WAS MADE WITH GENERATIVE AI. Nor will any part of this process, any stretch goals, or any of the funds go towards anything AI related.
STAY WOKE is a suspense/psychological thriller novel rold through the point of view of Broderick "Brody" Marshall, a Black man mourning the death wife and who is now tasked with raising his ill daughter Fatima on his own. Trying to escape the pressures of his extended family and desperate to prove he can take care of Fatima on his own, he moves to the secluded lake town of Orolet after inheriting his grandmother's cabin. His plan (if you can call it one) is to restart his life and return to civilization a better man, father and provider for Fatima.
But Orolet is an isolated place. The next-door neighbors barge in unannounced. The town folks are suspicious and prejudiced. The only people his age are the town nurse practitioner and the Hawkes, but the Hawkes seem untrustworthy. And maybe it's the lack of sleep, but Brody could swear he sees the ghost of his dead wife...
Exploring the pressures of single parenthood, small town racism and mental illness, STAY WOKE is a tense thriller with hidden heart. All Brody and Fatima have is each other, and you don't have to get woke if you STAY WOKE.
Broderick "Brody" Marshall is the main character of STAY WOKE. Well-meaning, kind, stubborn, and struggling with self-doubt, Brody has bounced around from job to job, hoping to find something that sticks so he can finally be the provider that he wants to be for his family. When his wife Anjelah passes away following complications from surgery, Brody is desperate to prove to everyone that he can take care of Fatima and raise her on her own. But Brody soon finds that no matter how far he runs, the ghosts of his past will never be that far behind...
Fatima Marshall is Brody's daughter and whole world. Smart, outspoken and opinionated, Fatima provides an anchor for Brody in a sea of his own insecurities. She's unsure of what lies in Orolet and the town gives her bad vibes. She loves her father dearly, even more so after her mother passed, an event that she struggles to understand, and that the adults in her life struggle to explain.
This will cover the cost of a line edit, paying for the cover art, additional art for the bookmarks and art prints, and purchasing between 50 copies of the book. Once the book is funded, a firmer date in 2027 will be announced. I will also do a happy dance and take my wife and son out to a fancy dinner. This will come out of the funds, but my wife and son inspired the story, so I think they deserve it, yeah?
Stretch Goal #1 -- $2500 -- Alternate Hardcover and Sticker Set
In addition to covering the costs of publishing more copies, any last-minute edits or sensitivity readings, I will commission an alternative cover for a hardcover special edition version of the book. I will also commission art for a limited-edition sticker set for every pledge tier.
Stretch Goal #2 -- $3500 -- FREE SHIPPING, Pin Set and Orolet Town Map
If we reach this stretch goal, shipping costs for copies of the book will be covered by me. I'll commission a set of STAY WOKE enamel pins featuring original artwork and a large poster size map of Orolet.
Stretch Goal #3 -- $5000 -- Mass Market Paperback
I will commission a mass market paperback version of STAY WOKE, i.e the kind of books that get sold (and hopefully bought by) retailers and indie bookstores.
THE CRAZY STRETCH GOALS
Stretch Goal #4 -- $10,000 -- Audiobook
Producing an audiobook is expensive. If we somehow meet this pie-in-the-sky funding level, I can hire and properly pay a narrator for the audiobook version of STAY WOKE.
Stretch Goal $6 -- $100,000 -- Quitting My Job and Doing This Fulltime
I will write books full time. I'll be able to fund future books and insure they stay independent, and that I can pay artists what they deserve. I will also personally give everyone who donated a hug. It might take a while but I'll do it.
My daughter Fatima pushes snow around with her pink rain boots as we look out over the frozen lake between us and our new home. Her purple hood is hiked up and tightened over her ears, but the unruly mass of brown curls still struggle to expose themselves against chubby red cheeks.
“Can’t argue that,” I say, taking a deep breath. The air does have a subtle sulfur smell, probably a remnant of what remains in Lake Orolet after the mines closed, though that happened fifty years ago. I tell myself that we probably won’t notice in a couple of weeks, and anyway, if all goes according to plan, we shouldn’t be staying in Orolet for long anyway.
“What’s that?” Fatima points up.
I get down on her eye level and look where she’s pointing. High above her, strung along the treetops, there’s a steel wire with a basket underneath it. “Oh, that? It’s the hand cart.”
“What’s it for?”
“People used to use it to cross the lake, before they built the foot bridge over there,” I point out the bridge to our right. “You got in the basket, and then you pulled yourself all the way across the lake, to go to work and stuff.”
Fatima glares suspiciously at this makeshift transportation device. “I’d rather walk,” She says, grabbing my hand.
“That’s why you’re the smart one,” I say, adjusting my duffel bag on one shoulder and pulling a pink Minnie Mouse suitcase with my free hand.
Cars are not allowed in the town of Orolet proper, so we leave our trusty Honda Pilot behind and start to trudge over the snow. I figure I’ll come back to get my stuff as needed, once I get Fatima settled. That is my first and only priority. She’s eying these woods and this snow and this environment with suspicion, like it’s all out to get her and I want to make sure she doesn’t have to deal with too much too soon. A friendly stroll through town will do a lot to keep her calm.
Shit has been hard enough for us. My grandmother's passing away was expected. I mean, it was expected in the way that you eventually come to realize that your grandparents are only getting older, and that the clock eventually stops for us all, and you kind of expect “the call” any minute. It didn’t make it less hard when she passed, but the few times I’d come up here to see her, I could tell. She started making plans, asking me how she could use “The Google” to make a will. My mom and my dad and my uncles and aunts and cousins would each take a turn schlepping up into her “haven” out here in the mountains, in the middle of goddamn nowhere. It was a damn sight different from the house on 11th Ave in Paterson, New Jersey, and I think that’s what she liked about it. No gang violence, no random gunshots out in the streets, none of the desperation. Just a cabin on a mountain, a slice of land she could call her own, where she could grow sunflowers in the spring and admire the snow capped mountains in the winter. By the time she passed, she was at peace. She’d raised her kids and helped raise her grands and had held her great-grands like Fatima, and spoiled all of us as rotten as she could. We cried at the funeral. We danced at the re-pass.
I wasn’t ready for Anjie to die. Not by a long shot.
Neither was Fatima.
We get to the bridge and Fatima tenses up.
“Hey, it’s okay. The bridge is nice and sturdy. I’ve been on it a dozen times,” I say with a smile.
She looks down as the weather-beaten, grayish brown wood, then looks up at me. I know that look. It’s the “why are you lying to me” look.
“I’ve got your hand the whole way. I promise. I won’t let go. Dad will never let go.”
Fatima nods and takes a deep breath. We stand in front of the bridge for a moment – I know I have to give her time – and then she takes one step, almost testing it to see if it’s going to collapse. Only when she’s sure it’s going to hold does she take that second step, and only then do I move. Doing it before her would’ve felt like forcing her to do it.
We slowly walk across the bridge, Fatima’s eyes trained on the water.
This is my fault, the thought flashes across my mind.
I shake it away.
There were a lot of fights about my responsibilities and what I did and didn’t do, and how I didn’t make enough, and how I never expected to be a stay-at-home Dad while she made the money. I loved her. Never stopped loving her. I don’t think she stopped loving me either.
We kept it up for another two years before separating. It was for Fatima. Or really for us. I think I broke that trust and it never got repaired. She couldn’t trust me with her baby. That’s why she left; the only thing she ever asked me for was to protect our daughter, and I’d failed. She was going to have to protect her alone.
I’m so lost in thought that I stumble when I realize Fatima is no longer moving. She is looking out at the water, a look of utter bewilderment on her face.
“What the hell is he doing?” Fatima asks.
“Language,” I say, looking out at the lake.
There is a lone figure, sitting on some sort of chair, in the middle of the lake, bundled up to the gills. His eyes are covered by mirrored goggles. There’s a fishing pole in his hand.
“He’s fishing,” I say with a shrug.
Fatima looks at me and narrows her eyes, as if to say “I know he’s fishing, why is he fishing out there?” I’ve gotten better at interpreting her looks and various glances, and this one is a “I’m not as dumb as you think, Dad.”
“Ice fishing,” I clarify.
The look stays.
“Some people like to ice fish.”
“He’s on the water,” She says.
“Yeah.”
“That’s stupid. He can fall in. Is he stupid?” Fatima asks.
“No, he’s not stupid,” I say.
“How do you know?”
“Ice fishing doesn’t make someone stupid. It’s winter and it’s freezing out there. The ice is really thick.”
“Not thick enough if he can put a hole through it and fish,” Fatima says.
And thing is, she kind of has a point, in that maddening way that kids have a point. She’s great at that; picking apart the holes in the logic of adults. And being an adult is an exercise in doing the illogical and then explaining the reasons why those things make sense in retrospect.
Right after Anjie died, Fatima asked me why her mom needed a “Mommy Makeover” after Anjie died due to the complications from the surgery.
“Why did she do it?” Fatima asked. “Mom was beautiful.”
“I know,” I said, swallowing back tears.
“So why did she need a makeover? Was she stupid?”
“No.”
“So why?”
I didn’t know then. I don’t even know what I said. She still asks sometimes, and I haven’t come up with an answer.
“He’s practiced a lot,” I say with a shrug. “Practicing usually makes perfect, right? He’s probably done it so many times he knows when the ice is thick enough where he can drill a hole, but not fall through.”
Fatima nods. “Still seems stupid,” she says.
“Be nice,” I say as we start moving again.
“Why?” she asks.
"You can’t assume someone is stupid because they do something you don’t understand.”
“Because I’m stupid?”
“You’ve never been stupid,” I said firmly. “And don’t let anyone tell you different. Got me?”
She nods and starts walking again.
I have to do that sometimes. Remind her that she’s not stupid, or dumb, or “retarded” like kids at her old school told her. And the shit is hard. Being the only one there to tell her she’s beautiful and loved and gifted and so smart. Even when me and Anjie split up, that was our number one priority. We didn’t want her to feel like it was her fault, but that’s what every parent says. It’s what my parents wanted for me when they split. What I wanted more than anything was for them to be back together, and I sometimes wonder if that’s how Fatima feels. I wonder if there is a part of her that wanted to go to Disney World knowing that me and Anjie were together and not spending a fortune to stay in two separate rooms. And now that Anjie is gone, is there some hollow part of her soul that can no longer be filled by positive affirmations and a father’s love and all the gentle therapy. Her mom is gone, and she still doesn’t understand why. Or worse, she understands why, but can not fathom the idea that her beautiful mother went under the knife. Was calling Fatima calling Anjie beautiful every day not enough?
Maybe Anjie was the one who felt hollow inside.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and it makes me pause. This, in turn, freaks out Fatima; she grabs my leg and her head spins back in forth, as if I’ve discovered some unknown crack in the bridge.
“Sorry Peanut,” I say, squeezing her closely. “It’s only my phone. Caught me off guard.”
“Oh,” she says slowly. “Who is it?”
“Don’t know,” I lie, like I’ve lied the two dozen times the phone has rung on the drive here. I know who is calling, I know why they are calling, and I know what will happen if I answer. I’m not willing to risk losing Fatima for that. If I answer, it’ll be on my time, when my situation is more stable.
The less they know about where I am, the better.
We hit the end of the bridge and go from wooden slats to a dirt street.
There aren’t any paved roads in Orolet, and that includes its Main Street. The snow hasn’t been shoveled away so much as it has been trampled into a muddy, compact slurry.
I start to explain things to Fatima, when she starts to scream.
Due to the volatile nature of shipping costs and world events, I will not be able to ship overseas.
Pledge rewards will begin shipping in Q1 of 2027 unless otherwise stated. I plan on using PirateShip for the vast majority of my shipping costs. Shipping may be charged after pledges are made. I will e-mail to inform when this may occur. Estimated costs will be posted in the FAQ section closer to the fulfillment date.
For the preview of my upcoming novel, please allow time for me to write it.
I would not be where I am without the people in my life who life me up in my hardest time. A special thanks to my amazing wife Carolina and our wonderful son. Thanks to my mother and mother-in-law, my sister and my brothers-in-law. Special thanks to Jen Donohue, Wren Rivers, Shiv Ramdas, Ami Moregore, Cynthia Skye. And thanks to all you wonder backers for coming with me on this ride!
