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Director, writer, playwright, and producer David E. Talbert has sold his memoir “Everything I Know About Being a Man (I Learned From a Woman)” for six figures to Storehouse Voices, a Penguin Random House Publishing Imprint. He is also developing a television show with the same title.

According to Deadline, Talbert’s memoir emerged from conversations he had with his son, which caused him to realize that his mother, a single mother, imparted to him all of the lessons he has learned about being a man.

According to its website, Storehouse Voices is focused on “promoting the richness of Black storytelling through intentional acquisitions and hiring efforts, strategic partnerships, and authentic, equity-minded community outreach,” which it accomplishes by issuing nonfiction and fiction books.

According to People Magazine, Storehouse Voices was launched in January 2025, created in partnership with Tamira Chapman, out of the success of Chapman’s Women & Words program, which was launched with support from Storehouse In A Box and Penguin Random House, which aimed to “demystify the publishing industry and its processes” for underrepresented authors.

A statement announcing the imprint reads, “Storehouse Voices is informed by a deep understanding of the unique cultural and historical contexts of the Black experience in America and committed to ensuring that literary works by underrepresented authors are presented authentically, respectfully and powerfully across the publishing and media landscape.”

This dovetails with the general arc of Talbert’s career, which, like Tyler Perry, began with stage plays aimed at telling Black stories to Black audiences.

In 2024, in an interview with Blex Media, the multihyphenate shared that “Jingle Jangle,” the 2020 Christmas movie he wrote and directed, which starred Forest Whitaker and Keegan Michael Key, was created because of his childhood experience of feeling excluded from the fantasy genre because he didn’t often see Black children represented in the media of his youth.

According to Deadline, in 2023, Talbert launched HBCU Next, a fellowship program that he founded and funded alongside his wife and production partner, Lyn Sisson-Talbert, to enrich the educational opportunities available to aspiring filmmakers at HBCUs by bringing them to USC’s School of Cinematic Arts Summer Program.

As Talbert told Deadline regarding the program, “Our overall objective is to foster an environment for students from HBCUs and USC to engage in cultural exchange learning from one another’s experiences and backgrounds, and to provide access to an education conducive to giving Black storytellers a pipeline to the entertainment industry.”

RELATED CONTENT: David E. Talbert ‘Next Fellowship’ Will Send HBCU Students To USC School Of Cinematic Arts

Pastor Keion Henderson and First Lady Shaunie Henderson are hosting Cry Out Con for the third consecutive year in Houston from May 1-3. The four-day event will feature nontraditional guests, women’s workshops, and sermons from notable speakers.

Pastor Keion and Shaunie took a moment away from organizing the conference to sit down with BLACK ENTERPRISE to discuss their hopes for spiritual restoration, their inclusive lineup of guests, and navigating marriage and business.

BLACK ENTERPRISE: Can we talk about how Cry Out Con began? What spiritual need led to the idea?

Pastor Keion: I was in a bad space. Pastor Mathew Stevenson stood in the pulpit and spoke about the children of Israel. He said God didn’t bring them out of the wilderness until they cried out. It was like electricity hit my body. I stood right where I was and started to cry out.

I had three staff members with me. I called them over and said, “That’s what we’re going to do.”

The conference includes family therapists and relationship experts. What need are you addressing with that?

Pastor Keion: We recognize a deficit in our community when it comes to emotional and relational health. And that’s not an accident — it’s part of a wider system.

Is there a message at Cry Out Con that people can take into their personal relationships to begin healing?

First Lady Shaunie: Yes, and that’s why we include breakout sessions focused on women’s healing.

Why is it important to center sessions for women?

First Lady Shaunie: More than half the room will be women. That’s just church, right? It was only right to create moments where we speak directly to them.

There’s so much healing we need. Our women’s panel is focused on healing everything from parenting to relationships, finances, self-care, and faith.

This year, you’ve chosen men who aren’t necessarily clergy, like D.C. Young Fly and Deion Sanders. What about their spiritual journeys led you to include them?

Pastor Keion: We can’t win the world if the only people speaking to them come from the church.

I think both Deion and D.C. would disagree that they’re not “of the cloth.” Deion will tell you he is a man of God who coaches football, not a football coach who speaks about God. It’s important to recognize that the cloth is represented not just in pulpits but on football fields, in comedy clubs —wherever people are.

You’ve both been public figures for a long time. You’re married, and you’re in a business partnership. How do you navigate that and stay grounded?

First Lady Shaunie: If you had asked me when we first got married, I’d have said, “Oh, it’s easy.” But it gets complicated — until you acknowledge that it’s complicated. Once you acknowledge it and figure out a system that works, then it flows.

Pastor Keion: I’d add that she’s the boss of her, I’m the boss of me, and together we run the family.

When I married my wife, she was an individual with a functioning business, a skill set, and a family mantra. At no point did I believe marriage to me meant the release of her history. I had to embrace it, and she did the same for me.

As a facilitator of Cry Out Con, do you also feel spiritually fed?

Pastor Keion: My destiny is to help you find yours. I am absolutely fed by the fact that people come to this conference and leave empowered, engaged, and informed.

I’m excited about the transformation I anticipate, because I’ve seen it before. I know I’ll see it again.

First Lady Shaunie: Sometimes being fed is simply knowing you helped someone. If the experience resonates with just one person and makes them one percent better, then I’m fed.

Both Hendersons will lead multiple workshops and sermons. Joining this year’s lineup are some of the foremost voices in ministry, including Evangelist LaTrice Ryan, Lacy Tezino, Steven Speaks, Jordan Welch, Kirk Franklin, Pastor Jerry Flowers Jr., and Minister Vincent A. Casey Sr.

To register for the event, visit the official Cry Out Con website.

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One of the most interesting pieces of media in the world happen to be Christian Bale’s best film. I am talking about American Psycho, of course. And now the iconic Mary Harron film turns 25!

Released on April 14, 2000, American Psycho is an adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis book of the same name by Harron and co-write Guinevere Turner. It is, after all, the reason I think that women should always have a hand in telling American Psycho. The book by Ellis boiled down into his upset with New York and his own hatred of the world and what he actually created was a nearly perfect satire of rich white men and the villains they can become.

Fire Force has always been three things:

1. An endless inventive battle shonen that constantly innovated on the variations of pyrokinesis available to its characters resulting in some of the most visually intriguing fights ever conceived.
2. A stunning study into the complicated relationship between government, organized religion, personal loyalties, and the pursuit of truth of the mystery of spontaneous human combustion that has been at the core of its story since the beginning.
3. Plagued by some of the most egregious fanservice, largely because an individual character literally has a preternatural ability that predisposes them to be in compromising situations which actively bogs down the series to the point where it gets the same weight as the previous two points.

And this has not changed with the final entry of Fire Force, although, at least with the reintroduction to the world, it does err more on the side of focusing on the incredible combat sequences and resolving the central myth arc. However, there is also still fanservice, although notably less, but this is of course by one episode in the final go around so who knows what will happen later.

Still, if you need a refresher since it has been approximately five years since the second season and six or since the first: Fire Force focuses on the journey of third generation pyrokinetic (meaning he can generate fire himself, specifically by igniting his feet), Shinra Kusakabe, who after being ostracized as child for apparently killing his mother and brother, joins Special Fire Force Company 8, unique amongst Japan Fire Force in that they are looking to discover the root cause of humans spontaneously becoming Infernals (think fire monsters) while also investigating the other seven companies for potential corruption.

This quickly escalated into conflicts with a Doomsday cult, various entanglements with other crews, discovery of special powers, uncovering the history of the Great Cataclysm that started all of the current events, the exploration of a region called the Nether, various political scheming, and several training arcs, which all culminate in season 3 where all of the conflicts and revelations come down to a head blazingly fast.

The first episode of season 3 is very much an accelerated recap of the series at large. While it doesn’t cover everything that happened in the last forty-eight episodes in great deal, it does provide enough foundation to reacclimate you with the characters, the main plot points, and set the stage for the rest of the action that will inevitably follow.

It is everything I love about Fire Force. The blazing cinematics, the quirky characters, the momentous build-up of all of the core mysteries finally racing towards definitive conclusions. And it is a minimal amount of what I dislike about Fire Force, Tamki’s Lucky Lecher Lure Syndrome.

I have always been partial to Atsushi Ohkubo’s work, as Soul Eater is one of my favorite series, and any qualms I have with Fire Force are easily balanced out by how cool it is when it’s doing its thing. The action is gorgeous, the voice acting is great, the story is engaging and knowing that this is one of the fortunate times where we get to see the entire manga in animated form, I can’t help but be excited for the final chapter of this series.

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The post Adolla Bursting to the End – ‘Fire Force’ Season 3 Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.