AN enthralling tale of murder, mystery and romance has caught the attention of an American publisher and will soon take the world by storm, giving fame to the name of the Guyanese-born writer who penned it.

Charles Higgins never considered himself to be among the smartest boys in school. But the young boy, who grew up in the countryside on the East Coast of Demerara, was always recognised as a gifted writer in every school he attended. Now, with the passing of time, his skill has shown progress and has the potential to shoot him to economic success in the world of creative writing, even as he prepares for retirement in May, 2018.

As he spoke about his first full-length novel, ‘The Evidence,’ which is scheduled to be published in December 2017 by Pate Publishing, Charles told the Pepperpot Magazine that he looks forward to a beautiful life of retirement. Finally, he said, he will be able to place more effort on his writing, as he expresses his passion for what he does best.
Charles lived in Clonbrook Housing Scheme, East Coast Demerara, before he migrated to the U.S. with his wife Victorine some decades ago. They have six children, all of whom are adults, and lead humble lives along the Brooklyn corridor in New York City.

But, now at the age of 62, Charles Higgins has his name set to travel through cities and countries on the pages of a stimulating piece of fiction.
“It’s a beautiful story, I really enjoyed writing it. In certain areas it is sad and in other areas, it’s romantic, in other areas it’s exciting and in some areas dangerous,” he said.
During what he indicated has been a marvellous journey, he discovered another beautiful thing about himself.

“I never believed – yes I know I had the ability – but to complete such a project I didn’t think I could [but] I was into it. I enjoyed the creativity, because it’s not something that really did happen. It was something that I had to create. It was a friction [sic]. So I had to create everything in my mind and I had to visualise everything in my mind as if this thing really occurred. So I was having a conversation with myself, asking myself the questions and answering the questions,” he detailed.

Early days of writing
While ‘Charlie’, as he is popularly called, became aware of his gift in creative writing at a tender age in primary school in Ann’s Grove Village, he still did not understand his full potential.
One day in primary school each student was asked to produce an original poem and his story was praised as the best and read to the entire class. Something similar happened in secondary school and his poem was chosen as number one again.

Charles recalled his teacher saying, “I cannot understand why the majority of you in this class is [sic] smarter than Charlie and none of you can write a poem like him.”
Charles added, “But what I was really thinking about as a young man was playing cricket and things like that and still for all at that time I really wasn’t conscious of my ability to be so creative along that line.”
His life took a different direction as he tried other profitable fields meeting family needs before he finally established a deeper and permanent love for writing, penning lyrics for gospel songs and writing a play which gained community recognition.

Migrating to the USA, leaving four children behind, Charles and his wife worked on having the children join the family in New York. One song he wrote found favour with the American Songwriting Studio but he never followed it up.
“I continued working and I just gave up on that part of my life,” Charles recalled. One day in 2008, however, while at work, Charles felt a yearning for the art and stepped outside to secure beginners’ material.

“I came back and I started writing the book ‘The Evidence’ and I never stopped. The information just kept flowing. I picked up the pen and just kept writing and writing and writing line after line, chapter after chapter and I just kept going and going and going.”
It took five tedious but exciting years before he submitted the material and the publisher fell in love with the product immediately after reading the manuscript. Writing has now become the tool which will make his name great.

“I write night, I write day and I continued until I finished it… I would go back over it to see how it would sound, because I realised that if it doesn’t sound believable to me it would not be believable to anybody. I would ask my sons [and] my daughter-in-law what they thought. I went back over it five times [then] I just sent it to the publisher and it was immediately accepted by them,” the novelist related.

With the book about to be published, Charles now has his sights set on having his work of fiction turned into a movie.