Showing posts with label Tayari Jones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tayari Jones. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A few new books I'm excited about

Pym by Mat Johnson. It's out now and getting loads of great reviews. For example, Salon called "a blisteringly funny satire of contemporary American racial attitudes," which I believe because I follow Johnson on Twitter and his tweets crack me up.


 
If Sons, Then Heirs by Lorene Cary. I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of this. I wanted to send a blurb that said "Love, love, love, love, love, it. You should totally, totally, totally buy it." Yeah, not really articulate. What I ended up sending in was:

"Every single character pops off the page in this amazing story. This masterwork of a novel made me laugh and cry out loud. Important, enjoyable, and wonderfully moving. An absolute delight." It's out in April, and you should totally pre-order it.



Coming in May is Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones, and it's already generating great buzz.



I'm really interested More Than Words because it brings writers of different races together. What a novel concept! It sounds really good too: "Each and every one of us has the ability to effect change—to make our world a better place. The dedicated women selected as this year's recipients of Harlequin's More Than Words award have changed lives, one good deed at a time. To celebrate their accomplishments, some of our bestselling authors have honored the winners by writing stories inspired by these real-life heroines."

More Than Words is on sale today!  


Adding Open City by Teju Cole, which came out last month and skipped my radar screen, because Martha Southgate just told me via Twitter that "it rocks!" A quick Google search shows rave reviews, but Martha's endorsement is all I need.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but y'all know how important pre-orders and first months' sales are. So if you can, go ahead and place an order or pre-order at IndieBound or Amazon or pick up one of these at your local bookstore.

In other news: Zetta Elliott posts an important essay on Women Doing Literary Things. An excerpt:
When I learned that the goal of this blog was to “celebrate and reaffirm the depth and breadth of women’s involvement in literature,” I knew I wanted to participate. Yet when I reflect upon my involvement in the literary world, I find that little of my time and energy has gone toward addressing “the fundamental wrongness of gender disparities.” When everyone in your world is female, gender tends not to be the focus. For me, the main problem isn’t that men are impeding my progress as a writer. The truth is, behind every door that has been closed in my face…there’s another woman.
Sometimes that woman looks like me, but more often than not, she doesn’t. She belongs to a different race, a different class, and a different culture.

Monday, August 30, 2010

ringShout kicks off new reading series (wish I was in Brooklyn)


RingShout: a Place for Black Literature kicks off its new reading series and celebrates the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival Join us for an evening of readings by four acclaimed African-American writers. 




Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tayari Jones, Jeffrey Renard Allen and *Danielle Evans  DJ Sounds by Rob Fields   Littlefield 622 Degraw Street (3rd and 4th Avenue) Friday, September 10th   7:00 pm – 9:00 pm Suggested donation: $5






The collection of stories is mentioned here in a list I can get with: 3, count 'em 3, black women writers recommended by indie book stores!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

July links

Since I'm busy overpacking for the National Association of Black Journalists' Conference in San Diego this weekend, I just have time for links. Luckily, there's lots of interesting stuff to link to!

If you're a woman writer, you probably know about SheWrites.com. (And if you didn't, now you do.) There's been lots of discussion about race & writing & publishing there, including:

A call for action from one of the SheWrites founders.

A black author asks for help from white people. Some people think it's funny. Some don't.

After Tayari Jones called for readers to "rise up," a white author starts to question what's going on with racial divisions.

Some other links:

Interesting interview with Nnedi Okorafor (whose book Who Fears Death Anika reviews below).

NPR reviews Bernice McFadden's Glorious.

Many congratulations to Olufunke Grace Bankole on winning the Glimmer Train new writer award!

Huffington Post names the most anticipated books of the rest of 2010.  I'd be curious to know: what books are you eagerly anticipating?

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Meet: Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of WENCH


I finished reading Wench last night and I still feel shaken. The language is spare, the characters hop off the page and live with you, and the story is powerful, powerful stuff. I definitely recommend it!

I'm delighted to introduce you now to the author, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, who was kind enough to answer some questions for the blog.

White Readers Meet Black Authors: Tell us about Wench. How did you come to write this story? What subjects/themes do you explore? What's your writing style like?

Dolen Perkins-Valdez: Wench began when I stumbled upon a fascinating footnote of history. While reading a biography of W.E.B. DuBois, I learned that during the 1850s, there was a summer resort near Xenia, Ohio notorious for its popularity among slaveholders and their enslaved mistresses. I was stunned to learn this little-known historical fact. I decided to do a bit of historical excavation and learn more. At the time, it was very popular among the country's elite to visit natural springs. This particular resort opened in 1852, and became popular among southern slaveholders and their enslaved mistresses. I knew that Ohio was a free state and many of the northerners were abolitionists. Yet I was fascinated to learn that because they did not enjoy vacationing with the southerners and their slave entourages, they stopped coming and business declined. The place closed in 1855. I began by asking myself: If the women entered free territory, why wouldn't they attempt to escape? Is it possible that they actually loved the men? As I made my way through draft after draft, I discovered that these were not questions easily answered. Even the answers I thought I would find turned out to be much more complicated than I'd imagined. (You can learn more in this NPR interview.)

WRMBA: What's your goal(s) as a writer? Do you set out to educate? entertain? illuminate?

DPV: Of course I set out to entertain. Always. I come to writing as a reader first. I judge any book by whether or not I am able to lose myself in it. I have a reading chair at home. With a good book and a stretch of time, I can disappear into that chair. I hope my book does the same for other readers.

WRMBA: What's your biggest surprise-good or bad- (so far) about the publishing biz?

DPV: My biggest surprise has been how nice other writers are. I was always a bit frightened by published writers. Yet I have met so many who are just the nicest people you'll ever meet. I suppose my fear was all in my head. There is a lot of love among writers in this industry, especially among women writers. It's a beautiful thing.

WRMBA: What's next for you?

DPV: At the moment I am concentrating on promoting Wench. Once things slow down a bit, I'll get started on the next one. By summer, I hope to be deep into my next project.

WRMBA: What's the best book (or whose the best writer) that not enough people know about?

DPV: There are so many!!! You are one, Carleen! I'm always telling people about you. Also, I am a huge fan of Tayari Jones. I hope people recognize her brilliance. [For Black History Month, I'm blogging about other writers you should know about over at The Divining Wand. Please stop in.]

WRMBA: Thank you!  Any advice for aspiring novelists? Someone asked me the other night how do you maintain some confidence through the long process of writing a novel. How did you do it?

DPV: So far, I have answered this question by saying "keep the faith" to every interviewer who asks it. But how does one keep the faith? There is no easy answer to that. I am driven by a passion for reading and the act of writing. Find what drives you. Gain energy from that. It is all that matters.

WRMBA: What else do you do with your time besides write--work? family? hobbies? Anything you want to share with readers?

DPV: When I'm not working/writing, I am spending time with my husband and daughter. That's about all I can handle.

Thanks Dolen and continued success with this book and all the ones to come! See you in April!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Blurbs in black and white

Blurbs are on my mind, as we are seeking them for my next novel. I'm thrilled to report we have a great one so far. I'm grateful for any author of any race who takes the time to read my work and lend their name to help out. But the process has got me thinking. This blurb is from a white author. My first novel also had blurbs from black and white authors. A quick look on my bookshelves finds Stephen King blurb My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due; Dorothy Allison blurb The Untelling by Tayari Jones; Jill McCorkle blurb Ugly Ways by Tina McElroy Ansa. First question it raises is: Does it matter to white readers to have a white author say, "hey this is a good book"? Second question is: Why? Third question is: Are there white authors who have blurbs from black writers? Maybe Walter Mosley, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison. Anybody know?