To my readers,

This is to let you know that the last installment of TRIAL will appear tomorrow – Saturday, June 10. While you can pre-order it at any time, on it's publication this Tuesday, June 13 the entire novel will be immediately available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite local local bookstore. So I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of those who have read or commented on the story to date.

As an author who believes in this book, and also cares about the broader health of our literature and our society, your engagement has meant a lot to me. As many of you know, despite  my having sold over 25 million books worldwide, this novel encountered stiff resistance among New York publishers. Far from objecting to  its substance, the principal reason was that white authors should not attempt to write through the perspective of Black characters, especially when the subject is racial discrimination of which they have no direct experience.

I strongly believe that, for the sake of our literature and our society, empathy and imagination should be allowed to cross the lines of personal identity. Indeed, there is a double level of irony here: my principal reason for writing TRIAL was not simply to tell a compelling story about people trapped in the vortex of a nationally televised murder trial, but to address our ongoing racial inequities - including discriminatory law enforcement; voter suppression; the rise of white nationalism; and the exploitation of racial anger and anxiety by politicians and the media. Yet the publishers who objected to a white author addressing these subjects would effectively suppress the voices of the Black Georgians who spoke to me from their own lived experience –an indispensable element of this novel.

I further believe that fiction – if well told –can cause readers to look at social issues in new and different ways. As my late friend Pat Conroy once said, "Fiction is where I go to tell the truth." So I'm grateful that so many of you believe the power of imagination can make our world little better.

With much appreciation,

Ric