Grubbie Debuts: Desmond Hall with Jennifer De Leon, Your Corner Dark

Join GrubStreet Novel Incubator alum Desmond Hall for the launch of his debut novel, Your Corner Dark, in conversation with GrubStreet Board Member Jennifer De Leon. This event is free and open to all to attend, and is hosted on Crowdcast.

American Street meets Long Way Down in this searing and gritty debut novel that takes an unflinching look at the harsh realities of gang life in Jamaica and how far a teen is willing to go for family.

Things can change in a second:

The second Frankie Green gets that scholarship letter, he has his ticket out of Jamaica.

The second his longtime crush, Leah, asks him on a date, he’s in trouble.

The second his father gets shot, suddenly nothing else matters.

And the second Frankie joins his uncle’s gang in exchange for paying for his father’s medical bills, there’s no going back…or is there?

As Frankie does things he never thought he’d be capable of, he’s forced to confront the truth of the family and future he was born into—and the ones he wants to build for himself.

Desmond Hall is a Jamaican born author whose debut YA novel, YOUR CORNER DARK, a fast-paced thriller is due out in January ’21. He graduated Marquette University with a BA in Journalism and has written and directed an HBO feature movie, “A Day in Black and White,” which was nominated for the Gordon Parks Award.  He’s also written and directed a full-length stage play, “Stockholm, Brooklyn” that won the Audience Award at the Downtown Theater Festival at the Cherry Lane theater. The play was also picked for the Public Theater’s New Works Series.  For two years, he worked as a high school Biology and English teacher in Brooklyn, NY. In this period of my life he also counseled teenage ex-cons after their release from Riker’s Island Correctional Institution.

While working in the advertising and film industry Desmond has served on the board of the Partnership for a Drug Free America, the Advertising Council, judged the One Show, Addys and the NYC Downtown Film Festival. He’s also been named one of Variety magazine’s Top 50 Creatives to Watch. He is a recent graduate of Grub Street’s Novel Incubator program, where he developed Your Corner Dark.

Jennifer De Leon is the author of Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From (Atheneum/Simon & Schuster 2020) and the editor of Wise Latinas (University of Nebraska Press). An Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Framingham State University, and a GrubStreet instructor and board member, she has published prose in over a dozen literary journals, including Ploughshares, Iowa Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. She lives in the Boston area.