Merry Month of May Round Up

I've been busy writing up a storm, so I haven't had a chance to really put a blog post together. Plus, I'm waiting to hear back from an author for an upcoming Q&A. In the meantime, here is a round up of some bookish stuff going on.

Children's Book Week
My handy dandy calendar tells me this is Children's Book Week. If you're looking for children's books with black characters, check out The Brown Bookshelf and The Happy Nappy Bookseller.

More new and upcoming releases

Since I posted a list of books I was looking forward to this spring, I've heard of more! Including Danzy Senna's new one You Are Free.

And somehow I left Hurricane, Jewell Parker Rhodes' latest off my original list, when I knew about it because I read an advance copy, which she autographed for me! It's about Dr. Marie Lavant descendant of the great Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau and, as the title suggests, is set in Louisiana immediately before and during Katrina.

Bernice McFadden is releasing a new edition of her novel The Warmest December. The new version has a forward written by James Frey. You can pre-order it now! Bernice is also raising money to attend a once-in-a-lifetime writing residency in Egypt. If you'd like to donate, go here.

Connie Briscoe's Money Can't Buy Love is one I can't wait to read. Most of us have fantasized about what we'd do if we won the lottery. Sounds like this story will make readers think again.

Booker T. Mattison's newest (out May 3) is called Snitch. Read it now before it's a movie!


"Snitch" Book Trailer from Booker T Mattison on Vimeo.

Terra Little's Jump is about a young woman from what you could call a really dysfunctional family (she shoots her grandmother!). You can read an excerpt here.

Kwei Quartey, author of Wife of the Gods, has a new thriller coming this summer called Children of the Street. This one sounds worth pre-ordering too. Michael Connelly says, "Kwei Quartey does what all the best storytellers do. He takes you to a world you have never seen and makes it as real to you as your own backyard. In Children of the Street he brings a story that is searing and original and done just right. Inspector Darko Dawson is relentless and I look forward to riding with him again."



Clarence Young sent me a funny email. I haven't read his book Neon Lights (a satire of urban lit), but if it's as funny as his email, then it's worth way more than the $2.99 download price.



Debut authors

Toni Meyer has a new novel called One Thing She Knew, which I've heard good things about.

Darlyne Baugh has one of the best titles I've heard recently: Black Girl @ the Gay Channel. Yep, she used to work for Logo. This one sounds fun!

Mother's Day
If you're on Twitter, use the #books4mothersday hash tag to Tweet your suggestions for Mother's Day presents. A few past suggestions from this blog are here.

If you're on Facebook, I'm holding a contest. You could win a $50 gift card for books!

Jewell Parker Rhodes reads from NINTH WARD

Jewell Parker Rhodes was in Denver today talking about her books and reading from her first children's book NINTH WARD.

Books about Hurricane Katrina

August 29 marks the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting the U.S. This year, there are a few books being released to coincide with the anniversary.

Jewell Parker Rhodes has a new children's book out this month called Ninth Ward that's getting rave reviews. (And isn't that a lovely cover?) Booklist's review: "New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina is the setting for this tense novel that blends the drama of the catastrophic storm with magic realism. Twelve-year-old Lanesha’s teenage mother died while giving birth to her, and, because her mother’s wealthy uptown family won’t have anything to do with her, she is raised in the Ninth Ward by loving Mama Ya-Ya, 82, who feels like her 'mother and grandmother both.' Born with a caul over her eyes, Lanesha is teased at school, but she is strengthened by her fierce caretaker’s devotion and by a teacher who inspires Lanesha to become an engineer and build bridges. Lanesha also has 'second sight,' which includes an ability to see her mother’s ghost. As the storm nears and the call comes for mandatory evacuation, Mama Ya-Ya envisions that she will not survive, but Lanesha escapes the rising water in a small rowboat and even rescues others along the way. The dynamics of the diverse community enrich the survival story, and the contemporary struggle of one brave child humanizes the historic tragedy."

I just finished reading Wading Home by Rosalyn Story. It's a novel about a young jazz musician who has left New Orleans seeking fame and fortune and goes back in search of his father after the hurricane. An accessible, uplifting story about family set against the backdrop of New Orleans immediately after the storm. It comes out September 1st. It's published by Agate Bolden and reminds me a bit of their novel Before I Forget.

The end of August brings LaTonya Jones' debut novel Southern Discomfort.  Click the title to read the first chapter and to enter the contest Plenary Publishing is holding. You could win a trip for 2 to New Orleans to celebrate its release!

Plenary says of this novel: "Set against the backdrop of a post-Katrina New Orleans that includes a colorful cast of residents, LaTonya Jones paints a raw and vivid picture of the rebuilding efforts, and what it means to be resilient, to breathe again despite the pain, and to move forward no matter what. SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT will make you laugh and cry over the daily challenges affecting Janae and Neo, and it will stir your soul as you cheer for the city of New Orleans and the people fighting for it to rise again."

Tayari Jones told me of Natasha Trethewey's upcoming Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, which reminds us that the devastation stretched beyond NOLA. From Octavia Books website: "Weaving her own memories with the experiences of family, friends, and neighbors, Trethewey traces the erosion of local culture and the rising economic dependence on tourism and casinos. She chronicles decades of wetland development that exacerbated the destruction and portrays a Gulf Coast whose citizens—particularly African Americans—were on the margins of American life well before the storm hit. Most poignantly, Trethewey illustrates the destruction of the hurricane through the story of her brother’s efforts to recover what he lost and his subsequent incarceration."

Hat tip to Tayari for the news about Patricia Smith's poetry collection about Katrina, Blood Dazzler, becoming a play that premiers in Harlem in September. If you're in NYC, check it out. If you can't make the play (and even if you can), read the book (it was a finalist for the National Book Award).

In non-Katrina news:

Denver peeps, on August 10th at 7 p.m. Colorado author Traci Jones will read from and sign her new novel for young readers Finding My Place ($16.99 FS&G) at the Tattered Cover Colfax store. Here's a synopsis: "It is October 1975, and while most teens are worried about their Happy Days Halloween costumes, Tiphanie Jayne Baker has bigger problems. Her parents have just decided to uproot the family to the ritzy suburb of Brent Hills, Colorado, and now she’s the only Black girl at a high school full of Barbies. But the longer Tiphanie stays in her new neighborhood, the more her ties to her old community start to fray. Now that nowhere feels like home, exactly where does she belong?" Jones was awarded the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award for her first novel, Standing Against the Wind.

Loads of love

I'm reading Black Water Rising by Attica Locke. (It's good y'all!) The opening scene includes the protagonist Jay remembering the black church ladies that came to court daily when he was on trial for being a young revolutionary. He remembers them looking at him like "We got you, son. We're not gon' let you fall."

It reminds me of the way black readers often are with black authors. One of the great joys of being a writer is having readers who prop you up when you feel like you're falling. I know we authors yell a lot over here about attracting other readers, but let me say for the record, we love, love, love us some black readers! And wouldn't make it at all without you!

I recently was blessed enough to receive an award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. The way those black librarians talked about books and writers! Oh my, it was balm for the soul! My brother-in-law attended and he said "the waves of love crashing over the podium" spilled out into the audience over to him and left him feeling warm inside.

So I offer a heartfelt thanks to all the readers who don't let us fall. And here are some links about some other authors that we (no matter our race) can share some love with:

E. Lynn Harris, who recently passed, gets a tribute from other writers at The Root.

Karen Simpson, friend o' the blog, recently announced the sale of her first novel! Read her story of deciding to go with Plenary Publishing after many rejections from mainstream (read mostly white editors/publishers) because they felt that black readers only wanted urban or romance and white readers won't read black authors. Oy. Act of Grace (speculative fiction) will be published in spring 2011 and we will definitely host a chat with Karen and/or review to celebrate!

Victor LaValle's 3rd novel Big Machine, to be released August 11, could be his big breakout. This Wall Street Journal article about the support he's getting is exciting. Here's a link to an excerpt from the book.

Yellow Moon Jewell Parker Rhodes' African vampire story comes out in paperback next month.

Cornered, Brandon Massey's latest thriller hits also stores next month.

Eisa Ulen lovingly reviews Paule Marshall's memoir of the writer's life, Triangular Road.

The Bottom of Heaven gives some geek love to Samuel R. Delaney's fantasy Nevèrÿon series.

Publishers Weekly showers the upcoming The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow with some pre-pub love.

Color Online is looking for love for authors of color. They're looking for reviewers for August who will read brown.

USA Today ran an interesting profile of author Stephen Carter, who is able to do something pretty amazing in his latest, Jericho's Fall: not identify the protagonist's race. I'm not sure less successful authors could pull this off. Publishers and marketers usually want to know the characters' race so they know how to position the book. So I'm willing to give Carter some love for breaking out of that box.

Speaking of publishers identifying race, by now you've probably heard of the YA book Liar with the black protagonist and the white author that has a photo of a white girl on the cover. But in case you haven't, I'll include a few links. First though my question: Does this mean the publisher believes that white readers will read a book by a white author about non-white characters, but only if a white person is on the cover? From the author of the book. Publisher's Weekly. Young, Black, A Reader responds. Another blogger asks white readers to respond to the publisher. I would suggest lovingly telling them that they're full of shit.

Now some love for a bookseller, a white bookseller who takes up the "White Readers Meet Black Authors" cause. The Inkwell Bookstore blog challenges readers to step outside their comfort zone: "I see this a lot at our bookstore. More often than not, White customers buy books by White authors. While this in no way makes them racist, their unwillingness to explore something outside their comfort zone does make them dull. What makes these FUBU buying habits even more frustrating is the fact that the majority of these White readers consider themselves to be highly liberal thinkers. They listen to world music, they donate money to Darfur, and they campaigned en masse to make Barack Obama the President of the United States. Still, I dare you to try and push Chester Himes' If He Hollers Let Him Go on a fan of Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays."