Birth of a Dark Nation

by Rashid Darden

Overview

Justin Kena never knew his own strength. He was an average guy stuck working at a mediocre nonprofit in Washington, DC, unsure exactly where his next professional steps would take him. He was awkward, bored, lonely, and bordering on depression. With nothing to lose, he accepts a proposition from his friendly neighborhood corner boy that forever transforms his life.

A guru and a hustler all at once, Dante earns Justin’s trust and ushers him into a new and terrifying world just under the surface of the one he’s always known. In this world, men and women are nothing more than food for daywalking vampires and housing for sinister demons. This lifestyle consumes Justin until he’s not even sure he could turn back—or if he even wants to.

Over the span of centuries and thousands of miles, from slave coffles in West Africa to the antebellum South; from the black sand beaches of Dominica to the back alleys of the nation’s capital, Justin and Dante will live by the precepts of justice and redemption while satisfying their most carnal urges: A lust for blood…and a thirst for life.

This is the Birth of a Dark Nation

Product Details

BN ID:	2940045316385
Publisher:	Rashid Darden
Publication date:	09/30/2013
Series:	Dark Nation , #1
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	549 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Rashid Darden is an award-winning novelist of the urban LGBT experience, a seasoned leader of black fraternal movements, and a professional educator in alternative schools. He is local to the District of Columbia and Conway, North Carolina.

His books include the Potomac University Series: Lazarus, Covenant, and Epiphany; Yours in the Bond (Men of Beta, Volume I); the Dark Nation Series: Birth of a Dark Nation and Children of Fury; the anthology Time; and The Life and Death of Savion Cortez, a volume of poetry. His short story “Smith & Jones: Young Americans” was first published in 47 – 16 : Short Fiction and Poetry Inspired by David Bowie (Volume I). In 2017, Rashid’s play “Message from ‘The Legba’” was selected as a winner of the OutWrite DC and Theatre Prometheus One Page Play Competition. It was staged in 2018. Rashid won the Elite 25 Award in Literature from Clik Magazine in 2006.

Rashid is the National President of Gamma Xi Phi, the professional fraternity for artists. He is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega Service Fraternity, the Apollonians, and the Freemasons. Always a teacher, Rashid has led workshops on practical topics like bylaws and governance, membership recruitment and engagement, and intersectional awareness. Rashid’s efforts in the community have garnered him awards from Greek Tweak, the Thursday Network, and the Georgetown Black Student Alliance.

As an alternative school educator, Rashid has curated varied syllabi for use of educators and students, including the Nat Turner Syllabus, Moonlight Syllabus, David Bowie Syllabus, and the Harriet Tubman Micro-Syllabus. He has taught writing and language arts in traditional and innovative ways, from lectures to project-based learning. Rashid has used restorative practices to proven academic and social-emotional success of his students.

Rashid believes wholeheartedly in living an authentic, intersectional life at all times. He is an out, black gay man who has experienced chaos and order, wealth and poverty, urban bustle, and rural peace. He brings to his novels as well as his own life a sense of thoughtful disruption. Ultimately, he believes in the principles of everyday brotherhood—that is, the parts of ourselves which keep us connected to one another in meaningful ways.