A Novel by R. L. Pitts
The Quest for Fruit
This the story of Bayboo, Erasto, his grandson, and their dog Tashi, as they go on adventures and learn life lessons.
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A Novel by R. L. Pitts
The Murderacracy
The United States has always presented a precarious kind of freedom to black men born within its shores. The Murderacracy chronicles one family's ubiquitous struggle to survive the pernicious killings scarring the family for generations. Bill Peas B, Wil B, and Mitterrick B, all fall, leaving the fate of their world to
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A Novel by R. L. Pitts
Of Fury and Faith
Love and hate, rich and poor, black and white, fury and faith intermingle to direct the trials and triumphs of Aman Peoples-Battle as he confronts addiction, love, and loss in this iconic coming of age story set in our dysfunctional American times. Filled with love, but stunted by an inconvenient relationship with an o
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Bio R.L. Pitts
The Beginning
I was born in 1952 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, back when the fields were white with cotton and the sky heavy with silence. It wasn’t peace — it was restraint. My folks moved north chasing something brighter, and Flint, Michigan didn’t blink when we arrived. It swallowed us whole and fed us grit. The factories roared day and night. The streets? They held their breath between violence and compromise.
Reading saved me before anything else could. My mama had a way with words — she stirred them like gravy, smooth and simmered. My father talked numbers and odds, put in hard shifts, and still came home knowing the world’s weight wasn’t in the paycheck, but in how you carried your pride. They didn’t preach it. They lived it. And I paid attention.
Northern High School taught me the game — not just the plays on the court, but the rhythm of language, the weight of a sentence. One teacher looked at me like I was more than just fast hands and quick feet. She told me to write it down, even if it hurt. So I did.
Michigan State gave me an Urban and Metropolitan Studies Degree — a title too clean for what I was really learning. Flint gave me stories. I soaked up Iceberg Slim’s raw truth, Baldwin’s grace and fury, Octavia’s bold futures. They taught me not just how to write, but how to remember — loudly, without apology.
The Writer
I came to Phoenix in the late '70s with more baggage than plans. The desert had its own kind of silence — not like Flint’s, where noise meant survival. Out here, the stillness echoed. I was dealing with devils then — addiction, legal trouble, the kind of pain that stains your name before you get a chance to sign it. But truth be told that mess was the forge. I didn’t write around it — I wrote through it. Stories poured out like sweat in July. Short pieces, essays, the kind that left burn marks on paper. I wrote what I knew: Black identity, justice that felt more like a gamble, and the price of breath in a country that treats it like a luxury.
Folks started noticing magazines and online joints. Not fame, but a kind of recognition. Like people finally heard the notes I’d been humming since Flint. Then came the novel. Of Fury and Faith, 2019. That book was me laid bare. Fictional, sure, but the pulse was mine. Aman Peoples-Battle might’ve been imagined, but every fight he had carried my bruises. Readers called it honest. I called it necessary.
The 2000s didn’t slow me down. If anything, I wrote harder — each story a reckoning. The Murderacracy dug into the way this country plays God with Black life. I didn’t flinch. Couldn’t. My voice sharpened, got heavier with empathy — not pity. These characters walk because I know what it feels like to crawl. Language became my shelter, and the page, a pulpit. I kept writing because the world kept asking questions it didn’t want answered. So I answered anyway.
Achievements and Testament
I never set out to be anybody’s beacon. Just a man from Pine Bluff who found a sharpened pencil and some paper with bruises in it. But over time, folks started calling what I do “literary achievements.” Fine. I’ll take it. What I really care about, though, is stirring something in people—especially the ones who’ve been told their stories don’t matter.
I’ve stayed loud when it counted. Been called “outspoken,” like it’s a hazard. But if you ain’t speaking out for justice, especially for young ones who look like me and grow up feeling like the world’s an eviction notice, then what’re you writing for? I’ve mentored where I could, showed up in classrooms and community circles—anywhere words are currency and curiosity is alive. Because literacy ain’t just books. It’s legacy.
Now I’m 73, still pushing the pen, still pushing the heart. My latest work, The Quest for Fruit, ain't just fiction—it’s a conversation with my grandson and anybody trying to figure out how to be a good Black man in a country that profits off telling us we ain’t. It’s about character, not performance. Legacy, not reputation.
I keep going ’cause storytelling don’t retire. It persists. It haunts. It heals. Through the books, essays, and bruised little truths I’ve poured out, I’ve tried to give voice to our victories and our bruises—especially Black men trying to navigate this tightrope called America. If folks see value in that, call it a testament. I call it necessary.