I WAS, AM, WILL BE (Double Issue#2): Write-Right / Cliffhangers

“In a world where rarely anything is original anymore, strive to stand for your true self, seek change and peace. Let's love one another, learn from one another, but let go of others bringing us down. I never said be like me, so be you, be different, and make a difference. Forgive yourself and others, face your fears with a middle finger, and live not by hate, for only love must guide your life.”

- Excerpt from ”No Pasa Nada Lesson #40”

I WAS, AM, WILL BE is a collection of contemporary fictional short work about a twenty-five year old Black-American, Jonah Tarver, on a three-month journey throughout Spain, Greece, France, and Amsterdam. Within the two collection issues, "Write-Right" & "Cliffhangers," the narrator ventures alone into the unknowns of determination, destiny, and death, and takes the reader along the journey.

J.R RICE is a Black man, writer, teacher, and spoken word artist who was born and raised in Oakland, California. He has a B.A in Creative Writing and an English-Education teaching credential from California State University Long Beach. Upon attending CSULB, he earned the Rookie of the Year award at the 2005 National Collegiate Poetry Slam in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While studying abroad in Paros, Greece, he was mentored by the author, George Crane. He has two unpublished manuscripts in a book series following the Black-American narrator, Jonah Tarver:  BROKEN PENCILS, a coming-of-age novella, and I WAS, AM, WILL BE, a collection of short stories, poetry, and travel essays. J.R Rice is fine and dandy like cotton candy, currently residing and teaching in the Bay Area.