David Mark Brown

I’ve been promised big money when my book deal goes through.  From a reliable source – myself.  And my slice of the pie keeps getting bigger.  Today I worked hard to earn my 2% as head internet marketing specialist and another 2% as publicist.  I’ve also been working for flat fee (on futures of course) as social media consultant and graphic designer.  I’ve promised myself over $3000 in editing fees.  I even gave myself a friendly little sum for fashion consulting (my hair was getting a bit too long for writing speculative fiction, after all).  I have a friend who offers protection and enforcement services for free, so that’s a pretty good deal (writers don’t tend to be the toughest people, but we do piss others off a lot).  I was paying my wife for life coaching, but I had to fire her and take on the job myself after it got in the way of her bread-winning. read more…

German movie poster

What if natural fibers like hemp had won supremacy over petroleum in the 1930′s?  What if the marijuana tax stamp act of 1937 had never been passed?  What if cannabis had never been dubbed marijuana, as a racial slur against Mexicans?  Our fuel would be ethanol. Our textiles would be blends of hemp and cotton rather than cotton and polyester.  Our paints, plastics, cosmetics, food and countless other consumables would be petroleum free.  What about our path out of the great depression?  What about our entrance into WWII?  Would the war have even happened?

Welcome to the world of reefer punk, a series of alternative history novels revealing not only a fictional past, but a still possible future.

In Fist Full of Reefer (the first in the series), Manuel, a poor dirt farmer on the Texas side of the border, struggles during the late 1920′s to eek a living from the dirt while impressing the busty, young daughter of the nearest town’s sheriff. read more…