Darryl Fortson, a family physician, remembers when he first decided to write a book.
"I was talking to a fraternity brother at a Morehouse College reunion in Atlanta when he interrupted me in mid speech and said that I should write a book," recalls Fortson, president and CEO of Fortson Family Care And Wellness Center in Munster and a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity.
And so Fortson, a Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Morehouse, who says that before that aha moment his ideas had been "rattling around my head in an amorphous form," penned "Dear Cisco, Dear Keith: A Frat Brother's Letters On God, His Love, His People, And Their Struggles" (XLibris 2010, hardcover $30, softcover $20).
"I started writing letters about different topics that I wanted to speak to," says Fortson, also a graduate of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. "There were topics that my patients brought to me on such things as feelings, being overweight and on taking care of one self. I wrote letters to other fraternity brothers who I thought it would be appropriate to write to and letters to my sons, my daughter and my wife."
Fortson is so happy that his fraternity brother, Gerald Cisco Brown, started him on the path to writing his book that he dedicated it both to him as well as another friend, Keith Allen, who he has known since they were 6 years old.
Writing is a passion for Fortson and besides being a former opinion columnist, is the author of a screenplay based on a faith topic, wrote the five poems that appear in his book and is currently working on another book. Besides writing and medicine, Fortson also finds the time to teach a faith-based weight loss class at his church, Family Christian Center in Munster.
"My faith is very important to me," he says. "I dedicated all of my writing, all of my artistic expression to speak to what Jesus Christ has to do with our everyday life."
Darryl Fortson book signings
* Noon to 2 p.m. Friday at Methodist Hospital, Northlake Campus Gift Shop, (219) 886-4000
* Noon to 2 p.m. May 26 at Methodist Hospital, Southlake Campus Gift Shop, (219) 738-5500
FYI: To order a copy, visit www.dearciscodearkeith.com or stop by Dr. Fortson's office at 1950 45th Avenue in Munster.
