If you’ve been remotely paying attention to anything that I’ve written over the past 30+ years, then chances are you know that Edgar Allan Poe is my favorite writer. I like everything he has written and even spent some time in recent years learning The Raven for the hell of it. This Poe obsession of mine began in the 6th grade when I was introduced to Annabel Lee (and The Raven)by my first African American teacher, Hattie Campbell, and it’s only grown stronger over the decades.
When I learned a couple of years ago that the incredible writer/director, Mike Flanagan (The Haunting Of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Hush, Ouija: Origin of Evil) was tapped to adapt Poe’s work into a series for Netflix, I couldn’t conceal my excitement and wanted to be a part of the writers’ room. It seemed like the perfect fit. Sort of like how I took that music class at Spelman at noon on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, right after I pledged where the instructor was writing a book on Jimi Hendrix. This was serendipity. I figured the professor and I would hit it off, which we did and I’d get an easy A.
I got a D and he told me he was being “generous.”
I didn’t get a gig on the series.