A.Rahman Yoba who manages screenwriters under his GhettoSuburbia Entertainment shingle has created an action-thriller book series featuring a protagonist he feels is long overdue. "I wanted to take a guy from the hood and drop him into an international setting usually reserved for his Caucasian counterparts. But that's not the high concept hook at all. The first Montey Greene story was so big I had to spread it over three books, so you have to read the books to find that out," he says.
The Huffington post has been quoted as saying: "No need to say move over Jason Bourne, James Bond or whoever the new flavor of the month is in this genre, Montey Greene has carved out his own lane."
Even the United Kingdom has served notice as the book review site, TheBookBag.co.uk says: "Montey Greene is a very refreshing central character, a very promising start to a new series."
Yoba has been repping writers since 2003 and served as a judge for the Scriptapaloza International Screenwriting Competition in 2009. "I know a lot of people. I could have easily sent the manuscripts to agents and publishers, but with me being a born hustler and all this technology available at your fingertips that wouldn't have made any sense, no sense whatsoever," he stated.
Having given away hundreds of books and building a domestic and international readership through Goodreads.com and other social networking and book lover sites, Yoba is now sending book packages out to fim, TV and digital-medium producers. The books are also out to director Anthony Hemingway (Red Tails, The Wire, Power). "I've known Anthony for like 20 years, something like that," said Yoba "met him on my brother's show New York Undercover back in the day. He was just a P.A. I've watched him grow into a damn good director. Matter of fact I told him whenever he got his first feature I would be there to support him. Little did I know it was gonna be in Europe, but when he got Red Tails I kept my word and flew to Prague. So yeah, as far as directors go, I sent him the first package. You can call it an honorary package 'cause he's got the first chance to turn it down (laughs)."
The books are a combintaion of literary and commercial fiction. Montey Greene has to overcome an immense amount of internal conflict in the first three books, hence the Identity Crisis umbrella, and even though the twists and turns are aplenty, the action and story are straight forward enough to make it universally appealing.
"I'm in the unique position of having been repped as a screenwriter at one point in my career and then actually repping writers. Which is not all that crazy when you think about it. I love writing. I love reading. I can see something before it manisfest into three-dimensional form. Those are the people I want to deal with. I know for a fact most of Hollywood is a town of follow the leader. Very few executives can see past the nose on their face, which is to say they can't see at all unless they have a very big nose. So I approach the self-publishing of my books the same way. I don't have to wait until it becomes a best seller before I send it to people. I can give them the opportunity to get in on the ground floor, make a good entertaining product at a price, 'cause once it becomes a best seller, it's gonna be real expensive to do business with me," Yoba concluded.
While adapting "They Call Me...Montey Greene" and "Get...Montey Greene" for the big, little and computer screens, Yoba is writing the third installment of the series, "Farewell...Montey Greene," set to release winter 2014-2015.
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