Check Out Rasheed Newson’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rasheed Newson.

Hi Rasheed, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, and I am the eldest of three children. I showed an early interest in reading poetry and fiction. Nikki Giovanni and Kurt Vonnegut are among his favorite writers.

While attending a Jesuit high school, I realized that I was definitely a homosexual, and I immediately aimed to become a practicing homosexual. No mean feat in Indiana in the mid-1990’s. I once spent several hours sitting in a coffee shop because I’d heard rumors that gay people frequented the coffee shop. My loitering was fruitless.

I graduated from Georgetown University, where I wrote movie reviews for the school newspaper, The Hoya. During my time in Washington, D.C., I also worked in the communication and media departments for several non-profit organizations, including the Coalition for Juvenile Justice. For five years, I volunteered with friends as a tutor/playmate at Grandma’s House, a group home for foster care children who were HIV+ or living with AIDS.

In 2002, I moved to Los Angeles and joined the entertainment industry. I worked as a production assistant; an executive assistant; an assistant to a showrunner; and the second assistant to a network president. I have an ID badge from every studio lot.

My screenwriting career began when I partnered up with T.J. Brady, and together we were hired as staff writers on the Fox drama Lie to Me. As a writing team, T.J. and I have worked on Narcos, The Chi, and Shooter, among other drama series.

TJ and I co-developed Bel-Air, and we are currently executive producers on Bel-Air. The drama series has won three NAACP Image Awards and has been nominated several times for Best Drama Series.

Over the course of roughly two years, I wrote the novel My Government Means to Kill Me. My Government Means to Kill Me was published in August of 2022 and became a national bestseller. The novel was a Lambda Literary finalist for Gay Fiction and was named one of the “The 100 Notable Books of 2022” by The New York Times. My forthcoming novel, There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood, is slated for publication by Flatiron in 2026.

I live with my husband and our two children in Pasadena, California.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I don’t know that anyone in the entertainment industry gets to travel along a smooth road. I got fired from being the show runner’s assistant on The Bernie Mac Show. My boss said, “On a scale of one to ten, I think you’re a nine, but I really need a ten.” I thought my career was over.

I was the night production assistant on a show on UPN that got cancelled, and I couldn’t find another job for months. I thought my career was over.

After TJ and I spent two seasons working as staff writers, it took all summer before we landed a position on another series. I thought my career was over.

You get the picture. Every time I despaired I managed to keep searching for the next opportunity. Eventually, I learned that my career won’t be over until I decide to stop moving on from my failures and successes.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
In addition to being an author, I am a television drama writer, producer, and showrunner. As an author, I specialize in writing novels that explore the perspectives and experiences of gay, Black men in the United States.

My debut novel, the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me, explored the political and sexual awakening of 19-year-old Trey Singleton as he navigates a Harlem bathhouse and the growing AIDS crisis in 1980s New York City. The novel was a Lambda Literary finalist for Gay Fiction and was named one of the “The 100 Notable Books of 2022” by The New York Times. My Government Means to Kill Me placed people of color at the center of an era that predominately gets told through the eyes of white men.

There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood, my second novel (slated for release from Flatiron Books in May of 2026) follows the love and the reckoning between three closeted Black men in the motion picture business during the 1950s and 1960s. The book culminates with the raid of a gay bar called the Black Cat Tavern on New Year’s Day 1967; a violent and true event that proceeded the Stonewall Riots but failed to garner the same amount of attention.

Since I write historical fiction, I interweave my fictional characters into true events with real people. Bayard Rustin, Dorothy Cotton, and Larry Kramer appeared in My Government Means to Kill Me. Diahann Carroll and Sidney Poitier appear in There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I happen to get most of my joy and fulfillment from the creative process. I love blue skying story ideas and outlining and first drafts and subsequent drafts. I enjoy the elements of production be it for the screen or for a novel. How the show or book is received by critics and the audience can be lovely when you have a hit. But even when things don’t get the reception I’d hoped for, it is never a total loss. I had fun making it. I think this approach has made me resilient and it has kept me happy and excited when it comes time to write.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rasheednewson.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rasheed.newson.author/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@rasheednewson

Image Credits
1) My debut novel, My Government Means to Kill Me
2) Me on the set of Bel-Air in the Banks family mansion
3) Me with my writing partner, T.J. Brady
4) Me at a reading for my novel, “My Government Means to Kill Me