Unfinished Conversations: Melvin E. Edwards on History, Justice, and Storytelling

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In this thought-provoking episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we sit down with Melvin E. Edwards, the founder of Media Well Done and the voice behind the award-winning podcast *Stories from Real Life*. Melvin shares insights from his rich background as a former columnist and his journey into the literary world with his debut novel, *Nuremberg, Mississippi*. This compelling narrative draws parallels between the Nuremberg Trials of World War II and the domestic struggles faced during the civil rights era in the American South.
Melvin discusses his unique perspective on history, treating it as an unfinished conversation that is deeply intertwined with the present. He delves into the motivations behind his novel, emphasizing the importance of understanding systemic injustices and the personal choices that shape our society. With a keen focus on the characters within his story, Melvin invites listeners to reflect on their own roles and responsibilities in confronting injustice.
We also explore his award-winning podcast, where Melvin interviews guests with remarkable stories of redemption and resilience. His passion for storytelling shines through as he emphasizes the power of creative questions to spark meaningful conversations. Join us for an enlightening discussion that encourages us all to engage with our history, challenge the status quo, and strive for a better future.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- The significance of viewing history as a living conversation
- How *Nuremberg, Mississippi* addresses systemic injustice in America
- The role of personal choices in the fight against discrimination
- Insights into the creative process behind Melvin's debut novel
- The impact of storytelling through the *Stories from Real Life* podcast
For more information on Melvin Edwards and his work, visit mediawelldone.com or podcastreallife.com.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today, my guest is Melvin Edwards. Melvin lives in Texas. He is the founder of Media Well Done and the voice behind the award-winning podcast Stories from Real Life. He is a former columnist, columnist with over 28 writing honors. So we're going to be talking to Melvin about everything that he's up to, about his bibliography and debut novel, podcasts, and everything that he's gonna be up to. So, Melvin, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Well, thanks a lot, Corbell. I'm I'm glad to be here with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Okay. And like you said, my name is Melvin E. Edwards, and and I always make sure I put the E in there and just distinguish myself from my dad, who's long passed away, but I still honor him that way. His name was Melvin Edwards, but he didn't have a middle name, so I'm not junior. But I'm I'm from Houston, Texas. Grew up in Houston, live in Tech, live in the San Antonio area now. And my family has been, as far as I know, my family has been in Texas for about eight generations. So our our roots are really deep here. Um most people think of longtime Texans as probably looking different than I do. But I one of my roles in life is to reclaim some of the lost history that people just didn't know existed. So my family was was certainly a part of that history. Um you mentioned that I I take history as an as an open conversation and unfinished conversation, and that's entirely true. I've always been interested in history, but it was from for a long time, it was from the the way that most people learn it in school, and the and the reason why did they dislike it is memorizing dates and events. But when it's really started to come alive for me was when I started realizing that history is just the lives of people who've gone before us. So when you think about individuals, history becomes much, much more living and and much more interesting. So that's that's the way I approach history.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

All right. Well, let's talk about your debut novel, Nuremberg, Mississippi. You know, what what made you want to draw the parallels between the WW, the World War II, you know, um you know, Nuremberg, basically. The uh the the trials with the uh domestic struggles of the American South.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Okay. I watched a movie called Judgment at Nuremberg. I I watched it like three times in a row. I was I was just so captivated by it. Came out in the early, early 60s, like 1961, right around the time of to kill a mockingburg. And then I watched a couple other movies about Nuremberg, and I started to think if, well, first of all, let me explain the Nuremberg trials for those who may not know. After World War II, the world wanted to hold the Nazis accountable for what they had done during the during the war. But most of the leadership of the of the Nazi regime had already been killed or had killed themselves. So this tribunal was formed, with the leader of the tribunal being an American Supreme Court justice. And he went in and tried some of the administrators of the Holocaust, people like judges and lawyers and and and clerks and everyday people who whose defense was we were just doing our jobs. And the Judge Robert Jackson said that if the law is immoral, following the law is immoral. And so I started thinking, what if I took those parallels and applied it with what he called crimes against humanity? Certainly the Jim Crow era were crimes against humanity. Black people are clearly human. I'm black, so I think I'm a human. So crimes against not just their constitutional rights, but their human rights were violated. And I thought, what would happen if we applied Judge Jackson's standard to things that were going on in the American South during the civil rights era? And I used the very end of a civil rights era when Martin Luther King was still alive, but I don't mention him in the book, because I thought it would be a cleaner story to tell. Um earlier, it's it's just too complicated. And I I wanted to tell the story without using violence because I thought that was just too easy for the reader. Anyone would condemn violence now, or almost anybody. If you hear of somebody being hanged or burned alive, just about everybody would say that was atrocious and that was wrong. But I wanted to write it in a way that people would have to think okay, this guy didn't kill anybody, he didn't hurt anybody, he just signed his name on a form, or he denied a permit, or he did this or that, which were all administrative things. But what would I have done if I were in a similar situation? And I want the reader to place themselves in that time period and think, what would I do if I were faced with that situation? Would I just go along to get along? Would I be willing to quit my job? Would I be willing to be someone who blows the whistle on what's going on? So I think my book places the reader as a character as much as any of the characters written on the page.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Well, I know you speak about unfinished history, so what is it about this specific era in Mississippi history that you feel that's being left in the dark by the mainstream narrative?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Okay. Well, first let me clarify that while the story does take place in Mississippi, I'm not directly picking on Mississippi. I just thought the sound of the Nuremberg, Mississippi sounded better than Nuremberg, Texas, for instance. But um, that being said, there are a lot of parallels. The story takes place mostly in 1965. Uh, right about the time the uh Voting Rights Act was passed, some civil rights, Civil Rights Act of 64 had been passed a year before. So it looked like there was progress being made. Signs were coming down saying whites only or colors only, but the infrastructure was still very much in place. And that's the part that's not really talked about. I want people to see that today in 2026, as we sit here, there aren't blatant signs separating people. But there are clearly some people who would not be upset if those signs returned, or at the very least, have society act as if there were a standard for one group of people and a different standard for somebody else, or punishment for one group of people, harsher punishment than for another group. So just because we are beyond the civil rights era, we are, I don't think we're ever going to be beyond the vigilance required to make sure that everybody is treated with respect and with honor. And that that goes for their civil rights, their um voting rights, their human rights. People well let me let me add something else here first before I go forward. Some of the things that happened, it's happened different times in our in our American history. Right now, if you take the immigration issue, and you just take out the word immigrant and put in the word black, or earlier put in the word Japanese, or earlier put in the word Chinese or Italian or Irish, you'd realize that it's always one group or another that's been ostracized and put on the outside. So, what I want people to know is just because we're not in that so-called civil rights era, we will always be in a right, in an era where somebody's rights are being minimized or just completely taken away. And I want people to realize that just because you don't see a sign or just because somebody doesn't specifically say it, doesn't mean it's not happening. And if you if your instincts tells you, your instincts tell you that something's wrong, you need to examine that. Trust your gut.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Well, how much of a character Silas Thorne's um legal preference uh precedence is uh you know real in your book?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Well, I I was talking to my wife about some of the characters the other day. She's she's just now reading it because I when I wrote it, I didn't I didn't have any I didn't want anybody to read it because it was I wanted it to just be sort of a bombshell for everybody, including my family. But the Silas Thorne character is the one that I had the most fun writing because he's the one who is completely from scratch. Some of the other characters I took from either my own experiences or the Henry and Helen, who are a married couple in there, their personalities are like my parents, like I remember my parents being. But Silas is completely different. He is a person who's very complex. He he's a he's a white lawyer who is hired to try the case for Henry Logan, which is the essentially the test case for applying Nuremberg principles to this civil to um the Jim Crow era. And Silas doesn't really doesn't want to do it, he doesn't want to be a part of it. He believes that it it needs to be done, but he doesn't want to be the one to do it. And so we follow along with his metamorphosis throughout the book, where he goes from sort of being detached to being in interested, to being involved, to being impacted, and finally he comes around at some point in the book where he finally gets it, and then everything changes after that when he finally realizes that this impacts lots of people, even if it doesn't impact him directly. But even if it doesn't impact him directly, the impact and influence of other people, hardships of other people, have a have a negative, can have a negative impact on his own life, on his own livelihood. So Silas is a person who has lots of layers, and I think when the readers start to read about him, they're gonna find him interesting. I think they'll find him frustrating, sometimes confusing. But ultimately, I think they will find parts of themselves within his personality.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Well, you're uh an award-winning podcast of stories from real life. So talk to the listeners about the podcast and what they can expect to hear when they listen to it and where we can hear it.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Okay. I appreciate being able to talk about the podcast. I'm about to publish my my 200th episode soon. It's a weekly podcast. So 200 episodes is a lot of weeks of of regular publication. And I recently won, just a couple of months ago, the American Writing Awards Male Podcast Host of the Year, which I'm very proud of, specifically because it's it's done by a group of writers. And that's where that's how I always define myself first. I've been a communicator of various types throughout my career, but number one, my number one passion is writing. I've written as my my whole career, I write as a hobby, and it's something that's just a part of who I am. So being recognized by the American Writing Awards is is pretty special to me. And my podcast is called Stories from Real Life, because on each episode, I interview a guest, usually one guest. I think I'm out of the 200 episodes, I think I've had three guests that had more than one. I mean, three episodes that had more than one guest. So I I interview a guest, and that that person has either a very interesting story of redemption, of um finding their way at being lost, um, being broke, and then having a breakthrough and becoming successful. They have a very creative or unusual hobby. Um, they've written a book and they they want to tell me about the story of the book. And most of the time the books are nonfiction, so they are that person's life story. So all of my episodes are me interviewing the guests. So there's not a lot of interaction. It's not a discussion, it's certainly not a debate. I consider myself one of my strongest skills is coming up with creative questions for people. So I ask, I want to make them have to think before they answer. If they've been on a hundred podcasts, I want to be the podcast they come on when they say nobody's ever asked me that before. When I hear that, that that's a sign of success to me. And it's not, I don't ask trick questions, I just ask deep questions. I ask like questions like if somebody is has written a book, I don't say tell me about the book. I say, I might say to you, what what lesson did you learn from the character in the book? Or what do you wish you had said differently? Or what was the most emotional part of writing the book for you? So I want to have people think, I want it to mean something. I want the questions and answers to mean something to the guests so that they'll mean something to the listener. I don't want people to just listen because I've got an episode. I want them to listen because there's something said that's going to be meaningful. Not necessarily to them directly in every every instance, but something that they might make an attachment to somebody else they know, and then they can share the episode with somebody who's going through something similar. So it I I I want to make all the episodes relatable, I guess is the point I'm trying to make. So if it relates to an everyday circumstance, we can all learn together and we can all make make ourselves and therefore make our communities and and the world a better place.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Well, you studied journalism in a former sundown town in Arkansas. So talk about how living in the environment environment shape your understanding of the woven-in nature of systemic injustice that you describe in the book.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Well, that was I went to college in the 80s from 84 to 88. And thankfully, as I look back on it now, thankfully, I was very naive. So I think that naivete probably saved me a lot of trouble. If I knowing what I know now, if I had known it then, well, first I probably wouldn't have gone to school there. Second, if I had, I would have been much more forceful and in demonstrating for my rights and for other people. Just give you an example. When in one semester, I was dating, I had a girlfriend who was white. And whenever we would go out in this little town, I would get pulled over by the local police. And it wasn't for speeding, it wasn't for reckless driving, certainly wasn't even suspicion of alcohol and didn't drink or anything. But they would pull us over, walk around to the passenger side of the car and ask her if she was okay. So it was like they thought I was kidnapping her. So they never stopped and pulled, pulled us over and said, Let me see your driver's license and your registration and insurance. They never said anything to me. They would go and ask her, make sure she was okay, and then they would let us go. And then the next time we were out, they stopped us again. It may it probably wasn't the same officer, but it was the same police department. And one time we got we were coming from a midnight movie in Fayetteville, Arkansas. And the the town where I went to college was in Silem Springs, Arkansas. It was about 30 miles from the University of Arkansas. And so they they had midnight movies for college students sponsored by a radio station. So it was a really cheap interest price of like 92 cents, because it was like 92, I feel if I remember correctly. And so we were coming back to the dorms at about 2.30 in the morning after watching the movie. And I drove through a school zone and got pulled over. That was the one time they said I was speeding. It was 2:30 a.m. on a Sunday, on a Sunday morning. I was driving 25 miles an hour. They said I was speeding because the school zone speed limit was 15. And my response was, it's not school hours. How is it a school zone if it's not school hours? There's no school open on a Sunday, and there's no school open anywhere. It's 2:30 in the morning. And they said, Well, the sign says 15, so you have to drive 15. And he let me go with a warning. And again, he went over to the passenger side and asked her if she was okay. And after a while, that got annoying. But again, I was so naive, and I was just my my thinking was, well, at least I didn't get a ticket because I know I'd get in trouble if I got got a ticket. So that kind of thinking in that town was systemic because it was sort of last vestiges of that being a sundown town. And I didn't find out until much later that it had been a sundown town when I was doing research for one of my other books. And like I mentioned, my freshman year was 1984. And I think this place had been a sundown town as recently as 1979. So I only missed it by a few years. So clearly, the attitudes hadn't fully changed, even though the signage had come down, the laws had changed, but the attitudes of some people were still the same. And those vestiges were the things that they are the things that sort of elongate injustice throughout the country. And we sort of hope that when older generations pass that those things will pass along with them. But there are there's so much that's inherited. People gain thoughts and and ideas from their parents or grandparents without being without sitting down and and being told this is what you have to think. Those things are passed through almost through osmosis. And so you don't realize you've accumulated those kind of negative thoughts until you actually focus on that. And then you can start to break it down in your own mind or or double down on it if you if that's what you believe. But what I want to do is get rid of people's passive thoughts and make sure put them in a position where they have to make a choice. So either they choose to go one way on the fork in the road or they go the other way. But you can't just stay in the center of the road. That's a dangerous position for you and for for other travelers. So I want people to be aware of what's going on around them. Well, first of all, I hope people understand that history is still alive. I think it was William Faulkner who said history is not over, or it's not not in the past. It's not it's not over. So things that happened before are happening now. They may be happening on a different level, different percentage basis, or even a different legal structure. But a lot of those things are are still happening. So I want people, again, I want them to be aware of what's going on around them, not just passively. accept things as they are if those things need to be questioned and then eventually dismantled. I I want I want people to understand that things they say and do impact somebody else's life. Sometimes in very small ways, sometimes in huge ways, sometimes in generational ways. But just about everything we do, sort of butterfly effect, has a has an impact on on somebody around us. And I want us to be aware of of what those things are so that we can correct them. Like just because we don't know something we don't know that we're doing something wrong it doesn't mean it's not wrong. We just don't know. And once we know we can make the decision to do something hopefully positive about that.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Well let's talk about media well done you you know kind of tell us about the uh company and what it does and what why was it so important for you to maintain creative control of your book through your own imprint.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Okay. Well media well done LLC is a business I just started this year. And it actually was an out outgrowth of the book. So when I went when I was started writing the book it was so fascinating the process the way my brain was working it had been a long time since I had ideas flow through me as fast as they did with this book. And and I just kept telling my wife I just got to be able to keep up with the ideas like as long as I don't mess this up this is going to be a great book. And and I wasn't patting myself on the back I I think I'm a great writer but in in this sense I was thinking more of the story not the form. So I was thinking as long as I don't mess this up this is going to be a good book. This could be a a generational book. So as I was writing down these ideas and I started putting them together and editing them and it took months I started thinking okay this this is this is what I had hoped it would be. And if I submit it to a publisher it's going to be two years at the least before it hits bookshelves. Or I can do this process myself and I could speed up the process. But it's not going to be taken seriously if it's just listed as a self-published book. So I want it to be under a name under a company. So I started the the name media well done because I thought that was clever because that's actually how I like my stakes medium well done. So I thought media well done was was clever and I'll and I put my podcast as the first imprint under that name. So if you listen to stories from real life it'll say a production of media well done. And then as started to get closer to the publication date for this book I listed that under Media Well Done as a different imprint and I've created a website and and it's open to other writers too eventually but for right now my focus is on this one book because I plan to enter it into different writing competitions including the Pulitzer Prize and and those types of major awards will only be accepted by if they're submitted by a publisher. So I I had to create a publishing company so that I could submit those books because I think in my own mind I think they'll at least be competitive I'm not going to say they're going to win because with the volume of books that are submitted the just the odds of winning are very long but it's more than I'll say it's more than zero and I wouldn't I wouldn't be satisfied if I just chose to not compete because the odds of of winning were not in my favor. I want to have a chance I'm I'm I'm one of the world's most competitive people. And so I if I'm going to be that I'm going to get in the ring and see how it goes. So with media well done that gives me that opportunity and then once I get through this season with the book once it comes out and I and it's entered into competitions and and the voting is announced either in the fall of this year or the or the winter of 26 and 27 then I'll start to accept manuscripts from other writers and and try to put them in a position so that in coming years they can come we can um enter their own books into competitive contests. Because one of my missions with Media Well done is to tell us tell stories that a lot of mainstream publications mainstream publishing houses either are not telling or just don't know exist. And I want these stories whether it's stories on my podcast or stories in my books or stories in future writers who who work under Media Well Done I want those stories to last. I want people to have like writers of the past we we read in high school we're assigned to read certain books by Hemingway and Faulkner and and even um Shakespeare who goes back hundreds of years I'm not saying I'm Shakespeare or I'm going to be in in contact with Shakespeare but I want books that future generations will read and they won't seem isolated to the current time. They're based on the human experience not on an individual experience. And so I want those stories to carry over and I want them to impact people for years to come well yeah and that leads into my next question. The global release is set for May 1st and like you said you're going for literary award so what do you want the legacy of this book to be for readers who might be discovering this history for the first time well for me personally this is the book that I want mentioned as the first line in my opinion when I die in 50 100 years whenever 20 years whenever it is I want I wanted to say we're watching the the national news and and say author Melvin E. Edwards the the award winning author of the of the worldwide book Neuenberg Mississippi passed away today at the age of whatever I want that to be how my writing career is remembered. I've written literally millions of words over the course of my career but this book is how I want to be remembered. Of course I may write more books in the future and then I want all of them to be that way but as it stands right now that's how this book is how I want to be remembered because I want I think it can be the kind of book as I mentioned earlier that people students will be reading years from now high school students college students law students there's a lot of law in this in this book and I consulted with three independent lawyers in three different states so that I could get sort of a a comprehensive view of of statewide jurisprudence and and make it reasonable make it realistic in the book. So I want people to understand that my training as a journalist is how I investigate ideas. And then it's it's how I translate those ideas and those facts into a story. I've always believed that telling stories is the most memorable way of grasping history. So when people read my book I want them to remember the names of the characters. I want them to be able to mentally or vocally attach them to somebody they know and say oh this was Uncle Curtis's story. Now I understand him better now. I didn't understand some of the things he might have endured before but after reading this book I have questions for him and they can be informed questions. That's how I want my book to be remembered and that's how I want to be remembered.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Well tell us about any other upcoming projects besides your book that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of well the book is taking up almost all my time right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

So that as you mentioned the official release date is May 1st that's the launch date but if if somebody wanted to go to Amazon today they could they could get a copy of it it today it it went live on there sort of as a soft launch and I'll be going around the state of Texas doing book signings. I have three book signings scheduled in May after the book comes out one in San Antonio one in New Braunfels and then one in Austin. And then my family and I are taking a trip to Europe at the end of May through the middle of June and one of the places we're going is Germany. So since the book is called Nuremberg Germany and based on the Nuremberg trials that happened in Nuremberg Germany I'm hoping to do an episode of my podcast from the Nuremberg area and tie it into my book to make it to to make give give me more of an authority when I discuss something like this if I'm within the presence within the historical context of the foundation for this book. So I it's it's going to be an interesting year for me. This is I turn 60 at the end of the summer so this is a milestone wanted to have this book done by the time my birthday comes around. So it's going to it's going to be an interesting year. I'm looking forward to it my my plan is to be absolutely exhausted by the end of the summer because I've interacted with so many people I've I've done town hall meetings I've done book signings I've done speeches about the idea of not just writing the book but the concepts contained within the book well so people can keep up with everything that you're up to though that's your contact info. All right so you can reach me media welldone llc.com that's the website there's a a space on there that you can email me. That's probably the easiest way to contact me. The direct website for my podcast is podcastrealife.com again the the podcast name is stories from real life so the website is podcastreallife.com and so through one of those two websites you will you'll be able to reach me and I promise I will return your message if you want to be a guest if you want me to be a guest if you have questions for me if you want to find out how to get a copy of the book what whatever you whatever you want we can we can interact and we can have a discussion and that's how we're going to make the world a better place by sitting down with each other and talking.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

We'll close us out with some final thoughts maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Well first I appreciate you having me on here today to talk about mostly about the book. I'm really really proud of this I'm really proud of this effort. And what I want to say is I I want us all to understand that we're in this together this experience this American experience we're all in this together. We may have different strengths we may have different level different resources we may have different objectives but we're all in this together and when we remember that and we're not just self-interested we can have a big bigger impact on making things better for everybody. And that's that's what I hope our mindset becomes making things better for everybody not just for ourselves. Because if we make it better for everybody it would that will include each of us.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Absolutely ladies and gentlemen so y'all definitely go pick up this book when it comes out released on May 1st uh check out the podcast stories from real life podcastreallife com and media well done llc.com is the place to get in touch with Melvin and please be sure to follow rate review share this episode to as many people as possible hopefully he gets that podcast done from Nuremberg so we can all check it out. Also to keep up with everything about my podcast visit www.curveball337.com sign up for the newsletter if you haven't done so share the show on the website to everybody you know leave us a review or you know drop a line you can get in contact with me that way as well and thank you for listening and supporting the show and Melvin thank you for all that you're doing to try to make the world a better place and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Thank you. I appreciate you inviting me to be your guest today.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast visit www dot curveball337 dot com. Until next time, keep living the dream