To purchase Books online: click on cover to go to Amazon.com, or go to BarnesandNoble.com, Teaching For Change Books, or other online sellers and search on the title. In Hyattsville, Maryland, they are available at Busboys and Poets Bookstore and Franklins General Store. To purchase Skytroopers CD, go to https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/richardmorris.
(Booksellers go to Baker and Taylor or Ingram. Library and school bulk orders, contact
CreateSpaceDirect for Masjid Morning and Canoedling in Cleveland, or call 1-800-288-4677 for Well Considered or Cologne No. 10 For Men.)
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Masjid Morning
Bookvana.com announced today (August 14, 2017) that Masjid Morning is the winner in the 2017 Bookvana Awards in the category Fiction: Romance.
“LOS ANGELES – Bookvana.com announced the winners and finalists of THE 2017 BOOKVANA AWARDS (BVA) on August 14, 2017. Over 50 winners and finalists were announced in over 30 categories. Awards were presented for titles published in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
“The Bookvana Awards are new specialty book awards honoring books that elevate society, celebrate the human spirit, and cultivate our inner lives.
Masjid Morning had previously won a Finalist Award in the Category Fiction: Romance in the 2017 International Book Awards.
Masjid Morning has won a 2017 International Book Award
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[“Masjid,” Arabic for “mosque,” is pronounced “mass-jid; (“Atif” is “uh-teef“) ]
Cover by Audrey Engdahl
While their families feud, Atif and Amy fall in love and strive to surmount their conflicting religions and cultural backgrounds and the opposition of their families.
In a small Maryland town, Atif, a premed student, and Amy, a high school senior, meet secretly as Atif answers Amy’s questions about Islam. Their attraction grows, and Amy tries to convert him to Christianity, while Atif believes that if they marry, she will convert to Islam.
Atif’s father, an immigrant from Lahore, Pakistan, and chief surgeon at a hospital, is leading his congregation in construction of a mosque, while Amy’s father, a decorated veteran of the Battle of Mogadishu who owns a large dairy farm, is opposed to the construction and heads a group doing everything they can to stop it.
Quick Reviews
“A thought-provoking and ultimately moving story that looks at love, human nature, and conservative religion.”–Kirkus Reviews
“A powerful novel about hate and intolerance–religious and racial.
But even more than that, it’s a Romeo and Juliet romance about two young people caught up in their parents’ feud.” – Kathy Cunningham
“With Islamophobia on the rise in the US, publication of this interesting novel is quite timely. Its two intertwining plot lines converge in a stunning denouement that I won’t reveal.” –Edd Doerr, President of Americans for Religious Liberty
“The book is excellent.” –Lobna “Luby” Ismail, Pres., Connecting Cultures
“Masjid Morning is a Romeo and Juliet story set in present day rural America with characters struggling over questions of love, loyalty and belonging. It makes one question whether community spirit can ever overcome the violence of our prejudices.” –Cynthia A. Snavely, minister
“In this stimulating, suspenseful story, two people, balanced between youth and adulthood, struggle with romantic tension, the future, the purpose of life, truth, and injustice, while the world around them battles over the construction of a house of prayer. The book moves effortlessly between technical descriptions of a mosque rising from the ground like a living being and the emotional struggles between religions.”
– Jay Endelman, homebuilder
“A good book for interfaith dialogue. The conversations are set within a story, which takes away some of the formality of such dialogues.”
– Dawud Abdur-Rahman, author of The Dhikr of Authenticity
“The framed pictures of Lahore on the walls of Atif’s living room reminded me of my summer vacation visits to my grandparents in Lahore from our home in Faisalabad when I was a child.” –Rafay Ihsan, college student
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Canoedling in Cleveland …a book that deserves a place in every middle school and high school library
High Praise from Writer’s Digest: We’re excited to report that Canoedling in Cleveland has just received high praise from a judge in the 23rd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards.
Issuing 5 points (“outstanding”) in each of the six categories evaluated, this judge concluded with the sentence, “Morris has done a wonderful job, creating a book that deserves a place in every middle school and high school library.”
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Meet Jeff, Lori, & Randy + Walter & Sarah, and canoe all the rivers and lakes around Cleveland in 1960!
In the summer of 1960 before his senior year in high school, Jeff canoodles friends Randy and Lori into joining him in canoeing every lake and stream around Cleveland. They battle rapids and discover waters poisoned by pollution, and Lori fights for equality with the boys. Jeff and Lori become interested in each other and in learning why their suburb is all white. After a canoeing accident on an angry Lake Erie, they meet Walter Madison from the black part of the city, and Jeff and Lori wonder if they can make him and his friend Sarah a part of their lives. In the end, the pair confront both segregation and pollution in the city.
In this bittersweet, deeply touching coming-of-age tale . . . their journey becomes as steeped in tender memory as the film Summer of ’42 and as timeless as Huckleberry Finn. —Stanford Pritchard, novelist, poet, playwright
Morris paints a vivid picture of canoeing up the once-dead Cuyahoga River (now full of life) which famously burned in 1969. —David L. Levy, author of Revolt of the Animals
I love . . . the unexpected honesty of Jeff’s conversations with Walter: “You scared me too when I first saw you. . . .” “Why? . . . ” “’Cause you’re Negro. . . .” “Why does that scare you?” —Carolivia Herron, best-selling author of Nappy Hair
On one level, Richard Morris’s CANOEDLING IN CLEVELAND is a cute, nostalgic story about three teenagers spending the summer of 1960 taking canoe trips. . . . But on another level, the novel is about the racial divide in the suburbs of Cleveland, and Jeff’s growing determination to change the world.
—Kathy Cunningham, Goodreads
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I loved Sycamore Row by John Grisham, recently #6 on NYT bestsellers list. If you did too, you may also like Well Considered.
Well Considered
Ron Watkins looks into the 1907 mob murder of his great-grandfather on a Maryland tobacco plantation
Robert Fleming of AALBC.com calls it “A profoundly memorable and affecting novel,” and Kirkus Discoveries describes it as “a sensitive study of race and history in the American South” and “a multilayered thriller.”
“Well Considered is a suspenseful but deeply moving novel that gripped me throughout. I recommend it.” — William C. Byers
Look Inside! –> First Pages of Text + Reviews richardmorrisauthor.wordpress.com/?page_id=2000&preview=true
“Days after finishing the read, I continued to be lost in its prevailing attitudes. Choice is always an aspect of a great book.” — J.G. Rose / ALA / NJASL / Media Specialist
Black history month article by Julia Duin, former religion editor for the Washington Times and a frequent contributor to the Washington Post Sunday Magazine: The Hyattsville Life and Times (Vol. 9 No. 2, February 2012), page 7: http://issuu.com/hyattsvillelifeandtimes/docs/hlt2012feb
Interview by Sarah Nemeth – 3-11-2011 http://hyattsville.patch.com/articles/considering-the-written-word
Gloria Minott radio interview – WPFW 89.3 FM – 2-24-11
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Cologne No. 10 For Men
“There aren’t very many funny Vietnam War infantry books. This is one of them. Read it and be amazed.” —David Willson, Books in Review II, The Vietnam Veterans of America Veteran
Cologne No. 10 For Men has been selected for inclusion in the Naval Academy Library in Annapolis, MD.
“This is truly a superb novel of the Vietnam war, a novel that compares favorably with those earlier “dark humor” war novels such as CATCH-22 and M.A.S.H. The writing crackles with authenticity.” — Writer’s Digest
“A funny and serviceable satire about the gross rationalizations that propel war and peace.” “. . . like Catch-22 or M.A.S.H. . . .carries echoes of Tim O’Brien’s similarly toned The Things They Carried.“— Kirkus Reviews
Cologne #10 for Men – Hilarious, dinky dau, delightfully wacky! Finally a cure for the stink of war.
“I love the way Wilfred recycles the bodies. That’s fabulous stuff with a direct line to Heller’s Catch-22 and perfectly captures the insanity of the Vietnam War.” — Richard Peabody, editor, Gargoyle Magazine More »
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Skytroopers CD
songs of war, peace, and love from Vietnam Songs written in 1967-68 by Richard Morris, A Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), performed in 2007 by Richard Morris.”Counting Bodies In The Nam” was written in 2007.
Album includes the song “Diggin’ A Hole,” a Finalist in the Blues and Jazz category in the 2006 Mid-Atlantic Song ContestRecorded in 2007 by Richard Morris. Available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/richardmorris Lyrics are at www.vietwarsongs.com. 
Richard Morris, Author 