Hip-Hop Artist Turned Author: Stephanie Acon's Vision of Obsession, Torment and Redemption

NEW YORK, NY, March 22, 2013 (Press-News.org) "I write urban outside the cliche," says St. Louis author Stephanie Acon. "My books are written realistically ... I've dealt first hand in an urban world where the scenes and situations can get so perplexing, complex, intriguing, and real - that I have to represent, and represent right!"

After a decade on the Midwestern rap music scene, where she gained fame for her powerful rhyming raps under the performance name NinaRaw, Stephanie found redemption from a lifestyle fraught with risk and self-destructive pitfalls. Her arenas for salvation: Her reaffirmation of her deep abiding Christian faith, and her overwhelming belief in the powers of the written word - including her gift of making her witness through the art of storytelling.

"I write to display hidden and forgotten messages" she says. "I want to bring a point to the chaos. Many urban books sit in a box because they lack truth. Our urban ways of living are much more diverse than drug-selling and sex."

Her two published books in the urban fiction genre, Escape from a Nightmare (2011) and its sequel, Secret Sky (2012), vividly depict characters living the full range of experience in an urban context - from obsessive love to breathtaking materialism, from menace and manipulation to emotional chaos and implosion. Her character Gabriana Hilson is a young woman who dreams of the good life, and believes she finds it with her rapper boyfriend Scholar - but she is increasingly troubled by ominous and frightening dreams of terrible things to come.

"I left the Hip-Hop world to come here into literature for a few reasons," says Acon. "I love to read, and I love to write. But mostly, I'm here to drop jewels and stomp the stigma on the urban fiction genre lacking substance. There should definitely be something special to each experience we encounter, even reading, so I take that seriously. I pray everyone welcomes me."

Ultimately, Acon's goal is to author and publish a series of books under her own brand, logo and collection: "BGC," or "Black Girl Crossed." Her novels display a stylistic and generational authenticity that have captured Acon's target demographics of the young-adult, adult, inspirational, Hip-Hop, and pop audiences.

Stephanie 'Nina' Acon now seeks to bring her witness of the full urban experience to the New York region, reaching out to members of her own generation who have descended into the darkness of the spiritual void and are climbing their way back toward the daylight of spiritual redemption.

"I'm looking forward to sharing more of my writing," she says. "My goal and objective is to reach my generation - the lost generation - to help them step outside of themselves to see themselves."

To arrange an interview with author Stephanie Acon, or to obtain a copy of either of her recent books for review, please contact Patrick A. Berzinski at Tranquility49 LLC, patrick@tranquility49.com

Tranquility49, the "communications boutique for the 21st century," is a broad-spectrum media-communications firm located in the heart of New York City. For more information, please visit www.tranquility49.com