Breaking the Silence on Unspoken Pain with Author Kern Carter

Introducing Author

Welcome everybody to the show. My name is Maccabee Griffin  Marccella is not feeling good today. So I'm going to be running this show solo today, which would probably be good. Cause I don't have to worry really worry about her shade being thrown my way and her ego getting in the way. But I digress. I know she's going to hear later and she's going to give me a call, but we'll figure, we'll deal with that.

So, but today, Today's book is something. I think a lot of people, especially those that are parents of children that have dealt with trauma in their lives, or just themselves with trauma in their lives. This is a book that I believe a lot of. Schools need to have a lot of children.  Young adults, teens need to read and feel more empowered by the lives of these specific characters.

And so I want to go ahead and just get into this because I really am excited in a way, because it's going to help with my healing because as you people know, as everybody knows, I have a little. Background of trauma in my life. So it hit me on a couple of things, but it also made me think about a few things too.

So let's get into it, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, Mr. Kern, Carter current, thank you for being on the show. We really appreciate you being here. 

Yes and thank you for having me. I'm excited actually to have this conversation 

Good because you know what, it's a conversation that everybody needs to have in their lives. Like I said with people that have had some type of trauma in their life, either when it was young or if it's a little bit older, whatever the case may be, this opens up a gate to everything that's happening in our world. That a lot of people just not wanting to have a conversation about. And especially with next month being mental health awareness, I think this is definitely the best way to kick off that month. So, before we get any further within in your book, would you  just introduce yourself to our listeners a little bit and tell us briefly, you know, maybe something that they can't find about you on. 

Oh, good call. So, I mean, my first of all start with my name. My name is Kern Carter. I am a full-time writer, which I am very proud of. That's why I say it like that.  It's something I really worked hard to say. So, so yes, that is the first thing. Three time author. This book is my first published book.  I'm also a single father to a now 19 year old, soon to be 20 year old daughter of which is insane.  But I had I had it when I was a teenager. So it's not, it's not that crazy.  And then maybe something you won't find on the internet is, or maybe you'll find something on the internet. I actually played division one college basketball for two years at St. Bonaventure university.  We're in the NIT this year. We did pretty well. So yeah, that's, that's something that's pretty interesting about my life and another little tidbit, if you ever want to do a fun fact, my older brother played in the NFL for the Seattle Seahawks for four years. So yeah, we have a pretty athletic. 

Book Summary

Sounds like it, also got a very intelligent family of course. So, here's another thing I want to allow you to do instead of me, just trying to explain it to everybody. Please tell everybody what your book is called and just give us a quick summary of it. 

So the book is called Boys and Girls Screaming. It's a YA novel, young adult novel.  The quick summary is just, there's a group of friends three friends and siblings who get together. And they decide to form this group called boys and girls screaming. And the group is for students at their school  to come together in real life, which is very important. They come together in real life to try to  to share their traumas, to share all their struggles that they've gone through and they try to heal. So it's essentially like a teenage healing group  with no adults, no parents, no nothing. It's just the teens that are trying to heal themselves and get through their problems on their own. And then all the adventures and ups and downs that happen with that. 

Mother's Mental Health

You know, I love that because a lot of times teens just need to talk to teenagers and feel that connection comparative to, you know, it feeling like therapy with an adult. But when I started reading your book, I did what many people do and saw what you wanted us to see. But then when I was going to pick up my son from school, I started to think about some things that most people don't see or even think about. For instance, the main protagonist mom. What was her reason for saying," you shouldn't be here, I'm leaving"," Do you hear me?", and leave a very young Candice alone in an apartment by herself until the property manager and her teacher found her?

Yeah. Wow. Great question.   You know,  The real reason is the mother has some mental  health problems. So she's struggling with mental health. And we don't know that at the beginning of the story, but she struggles a lot with mental health herself. And she comes from a family , where her mother was also abusive and stuff like that. So her mental health struggles is kind of passed on from her parents and now she was struggling with it. And she was just at that point where she couldn't take it anymore. And she, she walked out, she walked out in a very young, young little girl and left her on her own, literally.

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