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Love of the Community
Run traces the extraordinary story of Wilmot Collins, whose life carried him from the devastation of Liberia’s civil war to the mayor’s office in Helena, Montana. As both a writer and filmmaker, how did your background influence your approach to the book?
I came to this project without any direct connections to an extraordinary life such as Wilmot’s. But I DO have an abiding interest in stories about courage, resilience, and survival. And Wilmot’s is chock full of all those things. (I explored some of these themes in my feature documentary work, FEBRUARY ONE: THE STORY OF THE GREENSBORO FOUR, about the 4 young men who took on the entire racial order in the U.S. when they sat down for service at the Greensboro Woolworth Store on Feb 1, 1960, thus unleashing much of the youthful driving force behind the civil rights movement of the 1960s. So Wilmot’s treacherous journey from the Liberian civil war (which killed over 250k of his fellow countrymen, including two of his own brothers, one of whom was beheaded) was a powerful attraction to me: how could someone take on that much danger and not only survive an ocean way (in Helena, MT) but thrive, indeed LEAD an entire community? Incredible.
A recurring theme throughout the book is that leadership begins with service. How did you see that idea reflected in Wilmot Collins’s life? Why do you think so many people connected with his message?
People were attracted to him because over the course of more than 20 years living in Helena, they had come to know and respect, even admire, him. He demonstrated his love of the community and commitment to being an American citizen–by joining the US military; serving as a youth counselor, coaching youth soccer, even singing karaoke at local bars. To him, it was all about being a public servant–listening and learning what the community needed and wanted, and then serving those needs. NOT styling himself as some ideologue or professional politician. We could learn a lot today about his ‘politics of decency’, far healthier than our current polarized, hyper-partisan politics of destruction.
The book devotes considerable attention to the long process of immigration and family reunification. Why was that aspect of the story so important to include?
Family was and is a pivotal feature of Wilmot’s life–and that goes for his wife, Maddie, and their two kids (now grown), Jaymie and Bliss. Everything was done by majority vote in their household. The difficulty and long wait he had to endure (his own daughter, born two months after arriving with her mother, Maddie, was two years old before a patient, but long-suffering Wilmot, could join them in America for the first time. But being resilient, persistent, and pursuing education (which got Maddie over to the US in the first place–to pursue a nursing program at Carroll College in Helena, MT) were binding threads in their family tradition.
What do you hope readers will remember most about Wilmot Collins and his family?
I hope readers remember how love takes courage and resilience, and the Collins family epitomized those traits. Also, I hope people will see in their remarkable journey the essence of the American Dream at work – a fast-fading goal for many native born Americans, but on vivid and compelling display with Wilmot Collins!
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Run tells the inspiring story of Wilmot Collins, who fled the brutal and bloody Liberian Civil War in the early 1990s—where over 250,000 Liberians were killed, including two of Collins’s brothers—and managed to make it to Helena, Montana, one of the whitest places on the planet. Enduring and overcoming racism and xenophobia, he joined the Montana National Guard, became an active member of the Helena community, and in 2017 rose to become mayor of the capital city and the first Black mayor in Montana’s history.
Collins garnered a national reputation not only as a beloved Democratic politician in a ruby red state but also as a shining example of how being a racial and political outsider in a highly partisan society can be transformed into an effective and engaging form of political leadership.
Wilmot’s story highlights the tragic decision to abandon one’s homeland when it turns on its people. Collins came from a highly educated family and, when civil war erupted, he was fresh out of college working as a middle school teacher at Monrovia’s SOS Children’s Village School. He had recently found a great companion, Maddie Muna, whom he met after college graduation. They became fast friends and soon life partners in marriage. But they first had to negotiate forces threatening their very lives.
Through extensive interviews and his masterful command of storytelling, award-winning author and filmmaker Daniel Blake Smith tells how Wilmot and Maddie, through great perseverance, plenty of ingenuity, and inspiring displays of generosity, journeyed to the United States and have made their new home a better place for everyone. Run offers an emotional, inspiring, and deeply personal story of survival, racial injustice, political hope, and the challenges one family faced to realize the American dream.
RUN–The Wilmot Collins Story: From Liberian Refugee to First Black Mayor in Montana
Daniel Blake Smith’s Run is a compelling political biography and refugee narrative about a life shaped by survival, family, public service, and the search for belonging. The book follows Wilmot Collins from the violence of Liberia’s civil war to his historic election as Helena, Montana’s first Black mayor. Smith opens with scenes of hunger, gunfire, and desperate escape, then carries that urgency into the long bureaucratic struggle that separated Collins from his wife, Maddie, and their young daughter. It’s an American immigrant biography with a remarkable trajectory, but its emotional center remains the bond between Wilmot and Maddie as they keep building a future through uncertainty.
The early chapters are the book’s most intense, placing Wilmot and Maddie inside a Liberia where ordinary routines have been overtaken by terror. Smith writes these passages with the momentum of narrative nonfiction, moving between historical context and intimate moments of fear, grief, humor, and devotion. Once the couple escapes, the story becomes an immigration history centered on waiting: waiting for paperwork, interviews, sponsors, approvals, and the chance to reunite. That slower stretch has its own tension because every administrative delay carries a human cost. Wilmot’s persistence gives these chapters warmth, while Maddie’s determination and practical intelligence make her much more than a supporting figure.
When the story reaches Montana, it expands into a thoughtful civic leadership biography. Wilmot takes whatever work he can find, joins the military, becomes active in his church, counsels young people, coaches soccer, advocates for human rights, and gradually becomes part of Helena’s public life. Smith doesn’t separate this community work from Collins’s later political success. He shows that the campaign was built through years of conversations, service, and personal trust. The book also addresses racism directly, including threats and vandalism against the Collins family, while paying equal attention to the neighbors and friends who stood beside them. That balance gives the account a conversational honesty and helps explain why voters eventually saw Collins as one of their own.
As a political biography, Run is especially engaging when it examines Collins’s idea of leadership as service. His mayoral years, policy priorities, public meetings, Senate campaign, and responses to national debates all grow naturally from the experiences that came before them. Smith’s admiration for Collins is clear, and the book sometimes states its lessons more directly than it needs to, but the wealth of family memories and community voices keeps the portrait grounded. Ultimately, this refugee success story is about how citizenship gets practiced in daily life. It presents Wilmot Collins as a gifted connector whose political achievements came from showing up, listening closely, and treating public office as another way to care for his community.
Pages: 168 | ASIN : B0GFPCY9R1:
How Dreams Powerfully Shape Our Life
Crazy Love follows two lovers that want a better life away from crime, when their past catches up to them, can their romance survive? What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Crazy Love is a sort of a sequel, as its two lead characters, Danny Fenton and Dawn Robinson, appeared prominently (though not as the main protagonists) in my debut novel about the Fenton family, Mr. Wonderful (2018). They were the misfit dreamers, prone to trouble, offspring of that novel’s focus, Brian and Corinne Fenton. Many readers told me how much they enjoyed Danny and Dawn in that first novel and wondered what might happen to them in the future? I shared that interest. So, I began writing a novel about the troubled but charismatic nature of their relationship and put them on the run trying to reinvent themselves in the big city of St. Louis. It became Crazy Love.
What was your inspiration for the character’s interactions and backstories?
Like a lot of writers, my inspiration is a combination of real, observed people and pure fiction. My son, truth be told, served as a bit of inspiration for Danny—he’s always been a ‘shoot from the hip’, spontaneous, ‘figure it out on the road’ kind of guy and his taste in girlfriends includes equally brash and brassy women like Dawn. And I thought that taking their very different occupational dream worlds—Danny as a newly-minted private investigator and Dawn as a first-time restaurant owner—and putting them into unexpected, even dangerous, conflict would make for a strong, intriguing crime story as well as an engaging love adventure.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I’m a big dreamer myself—as I think a lot of people are—so I wanted to explore not only how dreams powerfully shape our life decisions but also how they can get us into trouble. Hence the book’s tagline: ‘What happens when your biggest dreams become your biggest problems?’ I also think the idea of reinventing ourselves is a quintessential American trait (perhaps even universal one) and that readers could really resonate with that sort of theme.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m not currently working on a book, but I AM working on an important next life for Crazy Love: I’m finishing up some rewrites on the dramatic film adaptation of the book—I work as a writer/producer in the film business as well as a book author. And I’m happy to say, we’re looking to go into production on Crazy Love, the film, by late fall of this year!
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
But they soon find that it’s not so easy to outrun their past as dangerous and depressing connections catch up with them. Dawn finds herself unwittingly entangled in an illegal scheme that Danny accidentally exposes in an off-the-books investigative effort. With criminal activity that Danny can’t ignore, Dawn finds her dream threatened by the very person she loves the most.
How they find their way through this tragicomic clash of their desperate but endearing ambitions reveals the magic of their crazy love.
Crazy Love
Crazy Love by Daniel Blake Smith is a story about a young couple named Danny Fenton and Dawn Robinson. After getting on the wrong side of Dawn’s former boss, the couple flees Memphis with everything they own packed in their car and the intention of starting over and making a new, better life for themselves in St. Louis. Using an inheritance Danny received from his grandmother, Danny plans to be a private investigator, and Dawn wants to open her own restaurant. Things seem to be going well–until their past catches up to them. Will Dawn and Danny be able to overcome their previous mistakes?
I liked that some chapters in this book were told from the point of view of Brian and Corinne (Danny’s parents), which gives the reader a bit of insight into how others viewed Danny and Dawn and their actions. When the couple was forced to leave their old lives behind, I liked that Danny and Dawn made an effort to turn their lives around since they had previously seemed to have no real direction or realistic ambitions.
After Danny’s history of dreaming of get-rich-quick schemes and making it big, I liked seeing how he paid his dues, investigating what he considered mundane cases, and trying to prove himself. I enjoyed reading about him, following the clues to gather evidence. In contrast, Dawn’s success with the restaurant happened so quickly that I felt it didn’t feel believable, so what happened next did not come as a surprise. Nevertheless, I liked how things turned out in the end for Danny and Dawn.
While I enjoyed the story I was a bit confused with the geography and the descriptions of where they were driving and directions, and by the relationship between Danny and Corinne, if she was his mom or stepmom. These aside, the story was entertaining and well-paced, making for an enjoyable read.
Crazy Love is a riveting adventure novel that includes a heartfelt love story and an enthralling mystery. All this together makes for a thrilling plot that will leave readers in suspense to see if Dawn and Danny can survive yet another run of bad luck.
Pages: 173 | ASIN : B09NJNRG5H
Crazy Love – Book Trailer
Danny Fenton and Dawn Robinson are two twenty-something misfit dreamers. They have fled their down-and-out existence in backwoods Arkansas, hoping to make a new life for themselves in the big city of St. Louis. Leaving sketchy jobs behind, Danny is starting afresh as a private investigator while Dawn schemes to open her own restaurant, The Dawn of Good Eats.
But they soon find that it’s not so easy to outrun their past as dangerous and depressing connections catch up with them. Dawn finds herself unwittingly entangled in an illegal scheme that Danny accidentally exposes in an off-the-books investigative effort. With criminal activity that Danny can’t ignore, Dawn finds her dream threatened by the very person she loves the most.
How they find their way through this tragicomic clash of their desperate but endearing ambitions reveals the magic of their crazy love.
Competing Desires
Daniel Blake Smith Author Interview
Mr. Wonderful is a touching story that follows Brian, a college professor, in the throes of a life crisis like none he has ever faced. What was the initial idea behind this story and how did that transform as you were writing the novel?
Initial idea behind the story: MR. WONDERFUL began as a memoir. I was a college professor and my father has recently passed with advanced dementia. I don’t have a ‘loopy son’ as in the book but I do have a son about that age and know many other millennials who behave a bit like Danny in the novel. But as I got into the writing of my memoir, I realized I wanted and needed the freedom to invent–a lot. A fictional story came into view about a professor’s world sort of closing in all around him and I decided to let my memoir morph into a novel and let it take me–and readers–into some unexpected but hopefully moving and memorable places.
What I liked about Brian was that his character was layered and his emotions were relateable. What were the driving ideals behind his characters development throughout the story?
Brian, like me, is flawed but, hopefully, someone readers would root for. So I focused on telling a story in which Brian’s world is full of conflict; in sorting out competing desires (he loves his son but realizes he needs some tough love, etc.) we often learn the most revealing things about ourselves. Good, rich, layered characters need inner problems–as well as outer conflicts–to resolve and overcome and that’s what I worked to create for Brian (and for Danny, for that matter). The driving ideal or goal for the characters, especially Brian, was how do I succeed as a respectable man in the world? How do I make the most of my time in this world? Can I/will I live a life as admirable and eventful as Brian’s father, ‘Doc’ Fenton?
I felt like all the characters in the novel were well thought out and developed. What were the morals you were trying to capture while creating your characters?
I’m not sure I was intent on capturing any particular set of ‘morals’ with these characters except perhaps to showcase them working to figure out how they can learn to care as much about others (at least in their family) as they do about themselves.
What is the next story that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’ve recently begun a bit of a sequel to MR. WONDERFUL, focusing on the ‘next generation’ of the Fentons story: that of Danny and Dawn out on the road trying to reinvent themselves as ‘respectable’ people while still living the free-wheeling lifestyle that is so central to their identities. Probably won’t be done until early 2019. I’m also working on finding financing for my next major feature film, BLOOD BORN, about a young man who’s world is turned upside down when he discovers that his blood can cure cancer. My first feature film, TEXAS HEART, starring John Savage (THE DEER HUNTER) and Lin Shaye (INSIDIOUS), is now available on Amazon Prime and on DVD. Very proud of that film.
Author Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads
![Mr. Wonderful by [Smith, Daniel]](https://i0.wp.com/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51AodVPG8wL.jpg?w=604&ssl=1)
In spite of the world’s struggle and sorrow, life sometimes shows us the wonderful.
Brian Fenton’s life is falling apart. A professor at a bankrupt “directional school,” Brian suddenly learns he must either take early retirement or double his workload. As he confronts the embarrassment of his job going south, Brian discovers that his loopy son, Danny, is paying a surprise visit—which can only mean a hand out for money and a need to crash. To top it all off, Brian is fielding frantic calls about his aging father who’s declining rapidly with dementia.
Once a family doctor in Juniper, the small Texas town where Brian was raised, “Doc Fenton” is going down fast—forcefully reminding Brian of his own mortality and the painful issues separating him from his domineering father—a man only his loving wife could call “Mr. Wonderful.”
When Brian’s father passes, the gathered Fenton family partakes in a volatile small-town Texas funeral—at once hilarious and poignant—which produces startling revelations about Doc Fenton that propel Brian and the whole family into a new direction, a new path forward.
In the engaging vein of Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth and Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You, Daniel Blake Smith’s debut novel is at once a comic and heart-wrenching family saga. It offers a piercingly honest window into how we struggle to make sense of ourselves, our families, and our life purpose. If we’re lucky, we discover Mr. Wonderful.
Mr. Wonderful
![Mr. Wonderful by [Smith, Daniel]](https://i0.wp.com/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51AodVPG8wL._SY346_.jpg?w=604&ssl=1)
Mr. Wonderful, by Daniel Blake Smith, is the touching tale of Brian Fenton, a college professor in the throes of a crisis like none he has ever faced. Brian and his wife, Corinne, are parents to a thirty-year-old son, Danny. The two adopted Danny as an infant at Brian’s insistence. From the beginning of Danny’s life with the Fentons, Corinne struggles to find her motherly instincts and is, for lack of a better word, relieved when Danny becomes a self-sufficient adult and leaves them as empty nesters. Danny’s return to their home turns Corinne and Brian’s lives upside down as Brian, in turn, deals with his elderly father’s declining health and the increasing pressures of a career he, may or may not, still love.
Smith weaves an intricate story of love lost between parents and children. The first person narrative is highly effective at drawing the reader into Brian’s sorrow, frustration, and his panic at being the voice of reason both at home between Corinne and Danny and long distance as he goes head-to-head with his brother, Jeff, over his father’s care. It is hard to watch Brian ponder the differences between his memories of his father’s treatment of him and his brother and the way in which his stepmother, Claire, speaks so lovingly of Robert, his father, as she cares for him. His emotions are raw, real, and easily relatable.
Corinne–not my favorite character. Her coldness toward Danny and her disdain at having to see him again in her home is as amazing as it is heartbreaking. Danny, not the best behaved boy on the block, is not welcomed by Corinne, and the blame she throws at Brian is somewhat misplaced and a struggle to witness. I found myself wanting her turnaround to come–and to come soon. Smith has written a memorable, if infuriating, character in Corinne.
Brian’s relationship and subsequent discoveries about his father’s past are poignant. Robert, ailing and entering the stages of dementia, is also hard to like. The manner in which Brian describes his past with his father left me wanting desperately to not feel sorry for Robert. Here, again, Smith crafts a turn of events that left this reader feeling a sense of compassion she did not see coming–but appreciated in the end.
I have to admit I saw Brian as weak. I didn’t want to, but I found myself wanting to shake him and jerk him upright from the downhill slide he was surely taking as the days passed him by. By the story’s climax, in Brian’s hometown of Juniper, Texas, I was more than ready for Brian, and Corinne, to show growth. Smith creates the perfect opportunity for self-awareness and life-changing decisions with his choice to bring his characters together in Juniper.
I have to give Mr. Wonderful an emphatic 5 stars out of 5. Smith’s use of the alternating first person points of view creates a deep connection between readers and characters. The Fenton family and their trials are not to be missed.
Pages: 164 | ASIN: B077Z3WK9N
