Sometimes music says it best

I just discovered Robert Randolph & the Family Band (Another party I'm a little late to, but that's what happens when your nose is always stuck in a book!) and am really digging them. This song put me in mind of a message about black authors, giving me an excuse to link here and tell more people about RRTFB. This song is totally kicking off my walking playlist this week! If you like R&B, blues & funk, check out Robert Randolph & the Family Band!

I first heard them on the Janelle Monae Pandora station. Speaking of, below is another song (which I first learned of on author Denene Millner's blog) that puts me in mind of black authors. Cause most days I sure do feel like I'm walking a tightrope!



Now if you like them, go buy these songs/albums. We artists and art-lovers need to stick together!

Moving forward creatively

Anybody who loves books and knows anything about the book biz knows it's changing. The technology is changing. What readers expect is changing, where they buy and how they buy is changing. Wars are being fought over rights. People are losing jobs. Shit is hitting the fan. But opportunities are also opening. And nimble, quick-thinking, innovative authors will survive.

Like Cheryl Robinson. She's serializing a novel on her blog that readers can read for free--a new chapter every Saturday--to let people know about her work since she has a new novel When I Get Where I'm Going coming in September.

Like Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes who have teamed with Blair Underwood. Their latest novel will be one of the first Vooks--video books. It will be part print and part film scenes. Check it out.

Like debut novelist Ernessa T. Carter, who's giving away a T-shirt a day in a contest for people who pre-order 32 Candles, a book I LOVED and blurbed.




In other news:

Tayari Jones reviews Andrea Levy's latest in The Washington Post. Check out Indiebound for more on The Long Song.

Pearl Cleage discusses her very topical novel Till You Hear From Me.

And a blogger reminds us that before there was Mma Ramotswe there was the housekeeper-sleuth Blanche White, the wonderful creation of author Barbara Neely.

Guest review of FROM CAPE TOWN WITH LOVE

One of my favorite book bloggers is the Happy Nappy Bookseller. She usually writes about children's & YA books, but she also reads adult fiction. She sent in this review of From Cape Town With Love by Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due & Blair Underwood. I'm reading an advanced copy now and getting a kick out of it.

Please check out the Happy Nappy Bookseller's blog and do check out the Tennyson Hardwick books (watch for upcoming webisodes too!). Everything below is from the Happy Nappy Bookseller:

This is the third Tennyson Hardwick mystery. In the first one, Cassanegra, published in 2007,Tennyson (Ten) is the prime suspect in the murder of a close friend. To clear his name Ten must find the real killer. Prior to that acquisition Ten was getting his life back together. He stopped having sex with women for money and was looking to become a sort after LA actor once again After Ten realizes he has what it takes to be a detective. Tennyson Hardwick is smart, handsome, trained in martial arts and has inherited some his dad's, a retired police captain ability. 

In From Cape Town With Love - Ten goes to South Africa to win back his girlfriend's heart back. The two take a trip to Cape Town. The writing places the reader firmly in South Africa and Cape Town. While in Cape Town, Ten accepts a job to bodyguard, Sofia Maitlin, a famous actress while she visits an orphanage to adopt a child. Sofia calls hire Ten again to be work, Nandi. her daughter's A list L.A birthday party. 

When Nandi is kidnapped, Ten is the only one who has the skills and connections to get her back. He gets to showcase some of his martial art skills. It's obvious a lot of research went into discussing various martial styles from around the world. 

From Cape Town With Love is exciting, sexy and intense. Two best selling authors and an award winning actor have come together to create a series with quality writing and great action. I could definitely see Tennyson Hardwick on the big screen. This is no accident, do check out what Underwood, Due and Barnes have to say about this wonderful series and the roll they play.

Read an excerpt via Tananarive Due's site. From Cape Town With Love will be released May 18. I highly recommend reading the Tennyson Hardwick novels in order. Cassanegra and In the Night of the Heat are both out in paper back.

Congratulations!

To Attica Locke, whose Black Water Rising is short-listed for the Orange Prize!

And to Victor LaValle who just won a Guggenheim fellowship!

Black Water Rising and Big Machine are both in paperback and are both excellent. Buy them!

News & a give-away!

Glorious is in the current issue of O Magazine! Congrats Bernice!

Mari Walker's new one Not Quite What it Seems is out today. Happy Pub Day Mari!

Pearl Cleage's Till You Hear From Me comes out a week from today!

Tananarive Due is blogging at a new site about writing. Prospective writers check it out.

If you like connecting with authors online, Reads for Pleasure has a link to lots of black authors who are online.

Here's a great trailer for the YA fantasy The Marvelous World by Troy CLE.

And if you like fantasy, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin looks good!

This blog was shortlisted for the Author Blog Awards. Voting ends Thursday. Blog, Facebook or Tweet your friends to vote for me and leave me a comment here to let me know you did. I'll do a random drawing of commenters for an advance copy of Red Hats by Damon Wayans (who knew he was a novelist?) or From Cape Town with Love by Due, Steven Barnes & Blair Underwood!

The Toni and Terry Solution

DeBerry and Grant often discuss what they call the Toni-Terry problem: Publishers who don't know what to do with an author who doesn't follow either Toni Morrison's or Terry McMillan's literary models.

I'd like to talk today about the Toni-Terry solution. How Morrison and McMillan support new black authors. Here is video of Morrison talking at the National Black Writers' Conference, which recently took place in Brooklyn (with thanks to Stafford Battle for the video), accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award and encouraging new writers. (For more, read Grace Ali's essay about what the conference meant to young writers.)



Terry McMillan has recently come online on Facebook and Twitter, where she shares writing tips with aspiring authors. She also uses her fame to spread the word about other writers, as she does in this article. She's also quick to send congratulatory notes or leave comments on other writers' Facebook pages if she likes their work. (Her sequel to Waiting to Exhale, Getting to Happy comes out in September!)

Brava and sincere gratitude to both! Would that more writers of their stature would support those who are coming behind them.

In other news....

Poetry Month

Looking for a little poetry to start your day? Try Sonia Sanchez' latest: Morning Haiku.

New and upcoming novels
Lots of good stuff coming soon. Including giveaways! I got a couple of advance readers copies that I will share. I feel a contest coming on. In the meantime, APOOO Book Club always keeps a good list of upcoming releases. Here's their spring/summer list.

Preston Allen has a new novel out called Jesus Boy. Booklist says, "Allen has created a consummate tragicomedy of African American family secrets and sorrows, and of faith under duress and wide open to interpretation. Perfect timing and crackling dialogue, as well as heartrending pain balanced by uproarious predicaments, make for a shout-hallelujah tale of transgression and grace, a gospel of lusty and everlasting love."

I know a lot of you like literary fiction, so don't sleep on this one!

Guest blog post by Trisha R. Thomas

Last week's essay from Margaret Johnson-Hodge sparked this response from Trisha R. Thomas. (Thank you Margaret! That is a first here on the blog!) Thomas is author of the "Nappily" series of books. The first of which, Nappily Ever After, was optioned for a feature film by Halle Berry. The latest Un-Nappily In Love is available for pre-order and will be out in May.

Everything below is from Thomas:

Since we're on the subject...I've become weary. I know this sounds incredibly silly. Who wouldn't want my job? I'm a published author of several novels that have done quite well with a few awards under my belt.

Yet, every year, I go through the melt down of having to market myself. Time to contact the media, magazines, radio shows, news outlets, and booksellers with hopes of being featured so my book will rise to the top of the very large pile of newly released choices for readers. It's time for me to announce who I am, what I've written and why they should be interested in reviewing my latest great work of art, which inevitably boils down to the color of my skin.

In this day and age, one would think we are past color coding, but it's more prevalent than ever. I've thought about displaying my multi-racial plaque. It seems to be popular and a quick area to move ahead of the pile since President Obama became our leader. But I have too much pride for shuffling race cards. Once that's established I quickly get tossed onto the African American pile, skipping the women's fiction, romance-comedy, and long running series pile. I skip the area of live and laugh out loud characters and become the black author whose subject matter doesn't matter at all. I was asked by a white associate if my next book would still be about black characters. When I told her yes, she seemed disappointed, like she would love to support me, "but ummm, sorry, it's out of my hands."

That's when I realized that it was out of my hands too. I've written characters, with a strong vivid plot whose race didn't matter. Something in the style of Barbara Delinsky, Jude Deveraux, or Susan Elizabeth Phillips who get to write without announcing the color of their character's skin. These manuscripts lay in stacks in my closet. In the past, even to mention that my characters were less than a deep shade of beige, I would be struck down by the all mighty publishing manifesto. Black writers must only and always write about black characters. Please leave my sight until you have repeated this one hundred times. And while you're out, write it down so you won't come back with that foolishness again.

Occasionally, one exception will get past the powers that be. Jericho's Fall by Stephen L. Carter would be a fine example. I'm sure he's also proof that it cannot ever, ever, ever, work, no matter how many degrees you have or what Ivy League institution is your employer. This is the proverbial ONE-WAY street.

Hats off to books like The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Help, Secret Life of Bees, and James Patterson's Alex Cross series. Hats off to their publishers who thought nothing of it to publish these black stories by white writers. My only question:

Why aren't these black character driven books sequestered to the African-American section in the bookstores? Why do they get a pass to freely roam about the cabin skipping the colored-only signs entirely? Why do they get to skip the pile?

Don't get me wrong, I am comfortable in my skin. I find it pleasing to the eye and extremely desirable proven by the constant new tanning products introduced every year. But that's only skin. On the inside, we are the same. We experience hurt, rejection, awareness, hope, faith, and rebirth, all the same. The human experience we write about surpasses skin deep motivation. I don't make a judgment whether to buy a book based on the color of the characters on the cover. Is it a good story? Is it recommended? I'm good as long as the lead character doesn't die in the end. That's where I draw the line. I don't discriminate. I read because I love to read. On my bookshelf it's about fifty-fifty of black and non-black writers. There are few white readers who can say the same. I am a black writer hear me roar, or sigh as the case may be.

Signed Trisha R. Thomas

Aka, Weary in Publishing

March 23, 2010 1:52 PM