EX-DRUG DEALER EMERGES AS LITERARY FORCE

Ten years ago this month, the high life ended for Columbus drug queen
and madam Vickie M. Stringer.

But she's back at the top of the hustle. Instead of plying cocaine and
prostitutes on the city's streets, it's author Vickie Stringer pushing
her books and her own publishing house's stable of authors at the
forefront of the "hip-hop" genre of literature -- writings from the
urban streets.

Triple Crown Publications, named after Stringer's former street crew,
has 14 authors and has published 21 titles and sold 300,000 books the
past two years.

Stringer used to begin her workdays talking to her prostitutes and the
dealers supplying dope to one of Columbus' most notorious criminal
gangs.

It was the 1990s. Stringer, a single mother, had been abandoned by the
child 's father, a drug dealer she met the summer she moved to
Columbus from Detroit to finish college.

She adopted the street-hustling ways of that ex-boyfriend, starting
out as a prostitute.

"I was so addicted to the game," she said.

Within a short time Stringer was running one of the city's largest
drug pipelines, supplying the notorious Short North Posse gang. Her
ring used vehicles equipped with electronically controlled secret
compartments where drugs and cash were hidden.

Her status led Stringer to lavish hotel stays and meetings with drug
connections in New York City and a posh home with closetsful of
designer clothes and shoes.

But the riches ended as quickly as they came.

On Sept. 16, 1994, Stringer dropped her 2-year-old son, Valen, off at
his day care. She never picked him up. Police and federal agents,
intent on smashing the Short North Posse and its associated gangs,
arrested Stringer in the parking lot before she could drive off.

The next year she was sentenced to federal prison. It turned out to be
four years well spent.

Behind bars she penned Let That Be the Reason, a fictionalized
autobiographical tale of a desperate single mother who becomes a call
girl, then madam and drug-ring leader. She published it herself in
2001 after her release.

"I felt compelled to tell my story because as I was leaving prison so
many people were coming in that looked like me," she said. "The Holy
Spirit told me to use my story to warn others from the drug game."

Her second book, Imagine This, was published in July by Simon &
Schuster.

The bravado that helped Stringer peddle flesh and drugs has propelled
her career as a writer and publisher of hip-hop literature. Such
novels feature urban characters, themes and language.

Tammy Fournier, office manager at Stringer's North Side business, said
Stringer's aggressive leadership style has positioned the company to
succeed.

"We're constantly brainstorming to keep reinventing ourselves and keep
ourselves fresh, and 90 percent of that comes from her creative mind,"
Fournier said.

Fournier and Stringer were roommates in the Franklin County jail
during Stringer's two-year trial. "We saw a lot of stuff (for the
future), but we never saw this," Fournier said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Burns, who prosecuted Stringer, said she
sanitized her New York drug connections and deals in Reason.

"It's not an easy life, and it's a dangerous life with the violence,
danger and the pure meanness of some it," said Burns, who has read the
book. "The people that she was dealing with were some very, very
dangerous folks, and I don't think that came through."

But Stringer didn't glamorize hustling, he said.

"She lost everything," Burns said. "The message is that this is not
the way to live your life. Fame and fortune are fleeting. Freedom is
all you really have."

After Stringer lost that freedom to prison, Valen was raised by his
grandmother. Stringer saw him only once while serving her sentence in
Bryan, Texas. They now live together on the North Side, and Valen
attends Wellington School in Upper Arlington.

Stringer said she has started The Valen Foundation with $30,000 to
help caregivers of children whose parents are incarcerated at least
100 miles away from them.

She started writing in prison after her attorney told her how well she
expressed herself in her letters to him.

After prison, Stringer sent her manuscript to publishers and received
26 rejection letters, including one from Simon & Schuster. So she
reverted to her street marketing skills, selling 1,000 copies in three
weeks from the trunk of her car and at beauty salons in Columbus.

Last year, Simon & Schuster signed Stringer to a two-book deal.
Imagine is a sequel to Reason, and Dirty Red is slated to be in stores
next April.

Stringer's honesty resonates with readers, said Malaika Adero, senior
editor of Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. "The passion
comes through. You can't manufacture that," Adero said.

Stringer has helped position Triple Crown authors to mirror her
success. Five have signed with bigger publishing houses. She is the
agent for four of them.

By printing urban tales and moving them to crossover audiences,
Stringer is establishing a presence in publishing, said Calvin Reid, a
news editor at Publishers Weekly. "Publishers like Vickie have exposed
to mainstream book publishers that (they) have not known what the
market wants."

There has been criticism of hip-hop literature, though.

Reid said the books remind him of a new form of black exploitation,
the second coming of street fiction made famous by Donald Goines, a
former pimp and drug addict who wrote 19 paperbacks in the 1970s.

But stories by Stringer and others deserve a place in the literary
canon, said Max Rodriguez, editor and publisher at QBR The Black Book
Review.

"To not tell those stories is to not fully express who we are, and
that sort of hiding only diminishes us," he said.

Stringer's first book also recognized readers who had not often seen
themselves on the written page, particularly black men, Rodriguez
said. "Let That Be The Reason galvanized and tapped into an audience
that was waiting to be recognized," he said.

The popularity of hip-hop literature and Triple Crown books has led to
film options for Reason and Gangsta, by Triple Crown author K'wan,
Stringer said.

Japanese companies, she said, have expressed interest in making a
documentary about Stringer and translating some of Triple Crown's
books into Japanese.

MTV, Stringer said, has discussed doing a reality television show,
Making the Author, with her publishing company, which receives about
65 manuscripts a week.

Adero confirmed that Stringer is in talks with Simon & Schuster to
establish a book distribution deal. Stringer also has plans to develop
a system to transform her books directly to video.

"She is creating a publishing empire," Reid said.

Despite her accomplishments Stringer's ambition and work ethic won't
let her rest. "The money I make now as a publisher is as much as I
made as a drug dealer," she said, "and it went away."

But Stringer is savoring her success with a fairy-tale ending happier
than any one she could have imagined. "I beat the odds," she said,
smiling.

For more information on Vickie M. Stringer, visit
www.triplecrownpublications.com
or www.simonsays.com