“On hot, sticky days in South Louisiana, the fire ants swarm.” That was the sentence Walter Mosley wrote in his mid 30s — a line he never used, but one that convinced him he might become a writer.
Then working as a computer programmer in Los Angeles, Mosley, now 74, liked the sound and cadence of the sentence and decided to try his hand in fiction and mystery writing.
“The rhythm of the words can take you somewhere,” he says. “And I discovered I love to tell stories.”
Mosley will be in Boca Raton for the first time on Tuesday, March 3, as part of the 2026 Boca Festival of the Arts Artists & Authors section, giving a talk titled “The Only True Race Is the Human Race.”
At this moment in history, he asks, as did Rodney King: Why can’t we all just get along?
“Most Americans – I would say, 80 percent are all in the same boat,” he says, alluding to the current political climate, which seeks to divide people. “We may not know we’re in the same boat, but most people are concerned about the same issues — family, earning a living and going about our daily lives.”
Audiences can expect a conversation that entertains, challenges and inspires, as Mosley reflects on how he builds his characters, gives them depth and his process of putting ideas to paper.
Though he had never been to Louisiana, those dozen words about fire ants led to his 1990 debut novel, Devil in a Blue Dress. The book became a breakout success, adapted into a 1995 film starring Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle and Jennifer Beals. It created a template for Black detectives in the genre and entered the cultural zeitgeist when then President Bill Clinton was photographed carrying a copy on the campaign trail and later invited Mosley to the White House.
That first unused sentence became the catalyst for a career that now spans more than 60 books across a range of genres and forms — literary and mystery fiction, science fiction, political monographs, writing guides such as Elements of Fiction and even a memoir told through paintings.
He has written for young adults (47) and has had his work translated into 25 languages.
Born and raised in Los Angeles to an African-American father and a Jewish-American mother, Mosley straddled both worlds, which gave him insight into his views on race, identity, religion and culture. And while he embraces both identities, he moves through the world as a Black man.
His latest collection of 17 short stories, The Awkward Black Man, explores his characters’ struggles with loneliness, relationships and social pressures while at the same time highlighting their intelligence, resilience and humanity.
Other books include his 2018 novel, John Woman, featuring a biracial man who reinvents himself as a college professor after a teenage crime, and Down the River and Unto the Sea, which won an Edgar Award for Best Novel.
Mosley is also the first Black man to win the National Book Award’s Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters. The author splits his time between Los Angeles and Brooklyn, N.Y., and makes it a practice to write every day for a minimum of three hours.
When asked what he likes to do while in New York, he says, “Mostly work,” but admits to occasionally visiting the museums.
“I wake up and write,” he says. He will mostly work on his computer, though he occasionally writes in longhand. He often records and listens to his work to hear the cadence and test how the dialogue sounds aloud.
Mosley has created a gallery of unforgettable characters, including Easy Rawlins, Mouse, Socrates Fortlow, Ptolemy Grey and Tempest Landry. Mosley says he creates characters he can appreciate.
“I write my characters and I like them. Every character must be full, like the novel itself, with a beginning, middle and end. I want to present them in a way that feels real,” he says, noting that it can be a balancing act between over-writing and presenting just enough content to advance the story.
“I’ve learned to condense my intentions and keep the story real but to make sure the reader feels like they’ve had the whole experience,” he says.
The overarching theme for Mosley is the ability to tell a compelling story — “it’s all about the storytelling,” he reiterates. He starts with a title and sees where the story goes; he has no preconceived agenda.
He paraphrases artists like Pablo Picasso who believed that while you must have an idea of your subject matter will be, it should be vague, rather than definitive, to allow for creativity to emerge.
And, while a fan of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, he says he doesn’t read contemporary mystery writers so as not to be unconsciously influenced. He does admit to appreciating Gabriel García Márquez, Langston Hughes and science fiction writer Roger Zelazny.
He also credits E.M. Forster’s 1927 book, Aspects of the Novel, as inspiration.
Mosley has also written and staged several plays such as The Fall of Heaven, based on his Tempest Landry stories, and worked on a number of TV and movies, including the HBO production of Always Outnumbered starring Laurence Fishburne and Natalie Cole.
“The easiest thing to write is a novel,” he says, while poetry, theater and drama are much harder to write. But, in the end, “the idea is to make something work.”
It was Irish author Edna O’Brien, one of Mosley’s professors at City College of New York, who spurred him on to write his first novel in 1988, Gone Fishin’, when she said to him, after critiquing one of his short stories, “Walter, go write your novel.”
And, so he did, writing it in a mere six weeks and debuting the character of Easy Rawlins.
“She was one of the best writers in the English language,” he says, “and she gave me the confidence I needed to write my first novel.”
In 2013, Mosley was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame, and he is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, The Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, a Grammy, several NAACP Image awards, and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, he was named the recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
His advice to other would-be novelists?
“Just keep at it,” he says. “Write every day and keep at it. If you can do that, then everything will be fine.”
As for his future aspirations, Mosley has no desire to retire and is satisfied by what he’s achieved in his life.
“I have no higher altitude,” he says. “I love writing and it makes me happy. I get to do something that I love every day — you can’t beat that.”
If You Go
What: Walter Mosley at the Boca Festival for the Arts
When: Tuesday, March 3, at 7 p.m.
Where: Mizner Park Amphitheatre, 590 Plaza Real
Tickets: $35; $50
For more information: festivalboca.org or 561-757-4762