Toppnotch: The Voice of Urban Literature
Welcome to the official site of Damien "Toppnotch" Hodges, a prolific writer and ambitious entrepreneur destined to redefine Urban Literature. Born and raised in Chicago's Cabrini Green Projects, Toppnotch transforms adversity into artistry, capturing the raw essence of inner-city life through his powerful storytelling.
In a literary landscape crowded with voices, Toppnotch stands out for his authenticity and relentless dedication to his craft. With a mission to paint vivid pictures of his reality, he navigates the challenges of his past, showcasing the resilience and triumph of those often overlooked.
Join us on this journey as Toppnotch continues to inspire and uplift through his unique brand of Urban Reality Literature. Discover stories that resonate, empower, and pave the way for dreams to become a reality. Please follow @toppnotchwriting on Instagram!
Explore. Engage. Elevate. Welcome to Toppnotch Writing Inc.
In a literary landscape crowded with voices, Toppnotch stands out for his authenticity and relentless dedication to his craft. With a mission to paint vivid pictures of his reality, he navigates the challenges of his past, showcasing the resilience and triumph of those often overlooked.
Join us on this journey as Toppnotch continues to inspire and uplift through his unique brand of Urban Reality Literature. Discover stories that resonate, empower, and pave the way for dreams to become a reality. Please follow @toppnotchwriting on Instagram!
Explore. Engage. Elevate. Welcome to Toppnotch Writing Inc.
Current Available Books
A story of a black family that migrated from the South to Chicago in the 1920s. One of the family members, a teen named Ace was taken under the wing of a notorious huster and taught lessons in the games of street hustling and racketeering to take over the operations ran by the biggest Italian and Irish mobsters. While Ace ran the street business, his brother Charlie Boy lived out his ambition of being a famous musician playing in clubs from Chicago to New York in establishments that were not too welcoming to black artists at the time. It's a story of survival, wit and taking lessons learned and overcoming obstacles unheard of by blacks at that time.
Eighth-grade basketball phenom Marsuan has a bright future ahead of him, but the elements of his environment—Sedville, Cabrini Green projects in Chicago, Illinois—were shifting around him as he prepared to enter high school. A chance encounter to help his family placed him in the passenger seat with a known drug dealer, opening his eyes to a life he wanted no part of.
As he attempted to focus on hoop ball, coaches vying for his talent—one using illegal tactics to build his team and another with compassion to see him succeed—Marsuan struggled to keep his head above water as his childhood friends and teammates started to veer off the path to survive the game of the streets.
In this coming-of-age hood story, get ready to take a courtside seat into the battles of basketball rivalry, gang violence, and drug dealing. Follow the life of a talented thirteen-year-old as he makes a desperate attempt to rise above it all. Despite the challenges, Marsuan's story is one of hope, a beacon of light in the darkness. His journey toward the golden brick road of the major leagues is a testament to the power of hope and the possibility of a better future.
As he attempted to focus on hoop ball, coaches vying for his talent—one using illegal tactics to build his team and another with compassion to see him succeed—Marsuan struggled to keep his head above water as his childhood friends and teammates started to veer off the path to survive the game of the streets.
In this coming-of-age hood story, get ready to take a courtside seat into the battles of basketball rivalry, gang violence, and drug dealing. Follow the life of a talented thirteen-year-old as he makes a desperate attempt to rise above it all. Despite the challenges, Marsuan's story is one of hope, a beacon of light in the darkness. His journey toward the golden brick road of the major leagues is a testament to the power of hope and the possibility of a better future.
Blinded By The Lights: A Diamond In The Rough is a fictional story of two childhood friends that discover rap music is the way out of their environment of drug dealing and gang violence. Their rise to stardom comes with the pitfalls the music industry and fame provides. An in-depth look at every aspect of the music business and the toll it takes on the artists, along with the allure of sub coming to the street life. Their struggle and triumphs to overcome are uniquely documented as the try not to get Blinded by the Lights!
With manipulation and deceit, Lingo and 360 is finally free from Boss Up Records. They survived club shootings, drug deals, and murder but that was only the beginning. Lingo is learning first hand just how shady the music business could be. From the outside looking in, they are living the life but it’s not what it seems. Aside from those issues within the business, 360 is also dealing with his own family business back in Chicago. With the police on their bumper, Lac and Deville conjures up a plan to try to shake them loose, but can they, or will they all be Blinded by the Fame?
The prequel and final novel in the Blinded bythe Lights trilogy. The story of three brothers (Fleetwood, Deville and Lac) trying to find their identity in the midst of the Black Power movement of the 1960s in Chicago. After witnessing their mother die of a heroin overdose, Fleetwood and Deville took up with gangster named Rollin to raise them. Lac at the tender age of 13 followed in their dope fiend father's footsteps as a pimp prodigy. The lessons learned and the work they put in during the birth of the black organized crime developed their reputations that would shape their lives in the Cabrini Green projects for decades to come. On their rise to power. they were taught not to get . . . Blinded by the Game.
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I’m Damien “Toppnotch” Hodges, author of the “Blinded By The Lights: A Diamond In The Rough” trilogy series. I’m interested in networking to find innovative ways to gain exposure for my brand of Urban “Reality” writing as well as assistance with Post-conviction relief from this illegal sentence I’m confined to. It’s because of my position of incarceration that its relatively impossible to maintain an active marketing plan to maximize the potential of my novels or shed light on the injustice I’ve suffered and still endure.
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