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AALBC.com eNewsletter - December 23, 2001

Celebrating Our Literary Legacy! 

Read our eNewsetter Archives

 

NEW BOOKS FOR 2002!
http://reviews.aalbc.com/books.htm

There are enough new new novels coming out in early 2002 to keep you busy reading for the rest of 2002 and well into 2003!  Look for new work from; established authors Maya Angelou, James McBride (The Color of Water), and Elizabeth Nunez; great poets Mari Evans and Gwendolyn Brooks; the brilliant minds of Ellis Cose and Greg Tate; eagerly anticipated novels successful young authors Brian Keith Jackson, Colin Channer and Camika Spencer.  The list goes on and on.  We've compiled a list of almost 100 titles, due for release in early 2002.  Look out for AALBC.com reviews for many of these titles.  Also check out Bittersweet, a One World/Ballantine book due out in January 2002..

BITTERSWEET 
"Bittersweet by Freddie Lee Johnson III is a book to curl up with on a winter evening. It's an appealing tale of sibling rivalry and revelry from a man's perspective." -Essence 
A One World/Ballantine Books Hardcover 

Bittersweet link: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=0345445961&view=qa

 

 

REDISCOVER A TREMENDOUS AUTHOR - ALBERT MURRAY
http://authors.aalbc.com/albert_murray.htm

"The only way to appreciate the music of Murray's prose is to immerse yourself in long passages of dialogue, monologues, and lyric description of countryside and fireside, which are nothing so much as the rich end choruses of a blues artist translated into speech and action." -John Edgar Wideman, The New York Times Book Review

In Conjugations and Reiterations.  [Murray's latest novel] The poems sings, literally sings off the pages. Poems that immediately establish the rhythm and earthiness of the blues, with the soulful yearnings of gospel music with the concrete reality of history, living and loving. Murray pays tribute to the jazz greats, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. Murray examines Freud and turns the spotlight on William Faulkner, his writings. I don�t expect the range of mental musings, a pleasant surprise. Conjugations and Reiterations is remarkable! ~Thumper AALBC.com

Murray Photo: Lynda Koolish, African American Writers: Portraits and Visions

 

THE COFFEE WILL MAKE YOU BLACK ANNOUNCES THEIR READING LIST FOR THE FIRST HALF OF 2002
http://cwmyb.com/Reading_List.htm

January 2002
The Renegade Johnny Buffalo
Click to order via Amazon

by Dan Smith

After being shot and left for dead, Johnny Buffalo, a soldier in the United States Army, watches in horror as a lynch mob viciously murders his best friend and mentor. Bitter and disillusioned by the army's justice system. Johnny takes the law into his own hands and vows to bring the Texans who killed Iris friend to justice.

February 2002
The Return of Simple
Click to order via Amazon

by Langston Hughes

Jesse B. Simple, Simple to his fans, made weekly appearances beginning in 1943 in Langston Hughes's column in the Chicago Defender. This collection contains 62 of Hughes's magnificent Simple stories, many never before published in book form.

March 2002
The God Who Begat A Jackal
Click to order via Amazon

by Nega Mezlekia

Author Biography: Nega Mezlekia is the author of Notes from the Hyena's Belly, a New York Times Editor's Choice and winner of the Governor General's Award. He left Ethiopia in 1983 and is now an engineer living in Toronto.

April 2002
Dark Matter:
The Anthology of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction by Black Writers
Click to order via Amazon

edited by Sheree Thomas

This richly vibrant collection of stories and essays displays the brilliance of writers ranging from the early pioneers, such as Charles W. Chesnutt, W. E. B. Du Bois, and George S. Schuyler, to Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler -- whose classic sf became the springboards for their fame -- to such renowned figures of the African American literary tradition as playwright-critic Amiri Baraka and satirist Ishmael Reed. Dark Matter also highlights a wide spectrum of talents who have garnered both genre and mainstream acclaim, including Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Jewelle Gomez, Nalo Hopkinson, Walter Mosley, and Kalamu ya Salaam.

May 2002
Richard Wright
: The Life And Times
Click to order via Amazon

by Hazel Rowley

Acclaimed Biographer Hazel Rowley brings to life one of the most important writers of the 20th century: Richard Wright, the author of Native Son and Black Boy. Wright often found himself on the outside of things: a self-taught, learned man in the fundamentalist South; an African American married to a white woman in the North; an expatriate in France after WWII. Despite these seeming obstacles, Wright became a legendary voice in American letters. Rowley traces his path using journals, letters, and eyewitness accounts -- many of them newly discovered.

June 2002
The Glory Field
Click to order via Amazon

by Walter Dean Myers

One of the best reviewed books of 1994, the Newbery author's novel follows five generations of one African-American family from Africa to a South Carolina plantation through the Civil War, the end of segregation and beyond, to a moving finale, when a young drug-addicted cousin is brought home to the glory field for a day of reunion and renewal.

 

NEW AUTHORS TO CHECK OUT


Linda Armstrong-Miller
http://authors.aalbc.com/lindaarmstrong-miller.htm

Linda Armstrong-Miller realized at an early age that whatever we read affects the way we feel about people and situations. Linda wants her work to be imbedded in the minds of her readers so that they are forced to form an opinion and stand behind it. Writing for over seven years, Touched is Linda Armstrong-Miller's first published novel. She has completed two other novels and is currently writing a third.


Brenda Thomas
http://authors.aalbc.com/brenda_thomas.htm

Ms. Thomas is a native of Philadelphia and currently works as a marketing professional at a global law firm. She previously worked as a senior executive secretary for IBM and went on to establish the marketing edge of the basketball footwear and apparel company, AND 1. In addition to creating her own business, Admin Ink, she also worked as the personal assistant to NBA All-Star Stephon X. Marbury. Threesome: Where Seduction, Power and Basketball Collide is Thomas' first novel


Yvonne Blackwood

http://authors.aalbc.com/yvonneblackwood.htm

She is a newspaper columnist and wrote for The Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper with more than two million readers. She currently writes for The African Connection. Yvonne has published several short stories. She was the winner of the Canadian Authors, Toronto Branch, Millennium 2000 short story contest with a fascinating story, Old Friends. Check Blackwoods novel Into Africa: A Personal Journey

 

RECENT ARTICLES AND REVIEWS
AALBC.com publishes scores of articles, books reviews, chats and author profiles each month.  Below is sample of the more recently added content.

Transcript of On-line Chat Featuring author Solomon Jones
http://cwmyb.com/chatarchive/solomonjoneschat.htm

Transcript of On-line Chat Featuring author Delores Thornton
http://cwmyb.com/chatarchive/deloresthornton.html

Transcript of On-line Chat Featuring author Mat Johnson
http://cwmyb.com/chatarchive/matjohnsonchat.htm

Baby Boy Movie Review by Marvin X
http://www.aalbc.com/reviews/baby_boy.htm

Traffic - Movie Review by Marvin X
http://www.aalbc.com/reviews/traffic.htm

Every Tongue Got To Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States
by Zora Neale Hurston - reviewed by Thumper

http://www.aalbc.com/reviews/every_tongue_got_to_confess.htm

I Wish I Had A Red Dress by Pearl Cleage - reviewed by Thumper
http://www.aalbc.com/reviews/i_wish_i_had_a_red_dress.htm

Too Beautiful For Words by Monique W. Morris - reviewed by Thumper
http://www.aalbc.com/reviews/too_beautiful_for_words.htm

Touched by Linda Armstrong-Miller - reviewed by Walter Benefield
http://www.aalbc.com/reviews/touched.htm

Hot Johnny (and the Women Who Loved Him) by Sandra Jackson-Opoku - reviewed by Thumper
http://reviews.aalbc.com/hot_johnny.htm

 

LITERARY EVENTS CALENDAR
http://www.aalbc.com/events/

Our events calendar allows visitors to learn about up coming African American literary and cultural events. Visitors may even post their own events and include a link back to their web site. If you don't have a web site AALBC.com can build one for you, for a nominal fee (often for free depending on the event and our schedule). 

Upcoming events include:

The 11th Annual Etheridge Knight Festival of the Arts 
http://www.aalbc.com/events/EKFestival.htm

Wednesday, April 17, 2002 until Saturday the 20th 2002
The Etheridge Knight Festival of the Arts is an annual event which promotes the arts and appreciation of the arts through awareness, creativity and education. 

Friday's event will be held at the Indiana Historical Society. Saturdays event will be held at the Brookside Family Center, 3500 Brookside Parkway S. Drive. For other Etheridge Knight Inc. events in Indianapolis, visit the Etheridge Knight Homepage http://Community.starnews.com/525/ Sponsored by The Etheridge Knight Inc. Indiana Historical Society, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis, IN. Info: EKFestival@aol.com

 

The RaW Advantage is conducting workshops on self-publishing, marketing, and promoting literature.
For those of you in the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area, I'm presenting a readers and writers conference on March 16th and 17th, 2002.  The conference includes workshops on self-publishing, marketing, and promoting literature as well as book signings by self-published and mainstream authors.  For more information visit www.therawadvantage.com.  Cost is $25.00 per day. 

 

THE COFFEE WILL MAKE YOU BLACK ON-LINE READING GROUP 

Next Monthly Book Chat Session January 9th, 2002
http://cwmyb.com/Reading_List.htm


Where I'm Bound

The Coffee Will Make You Black reading group is currently reading Where I'm Bound by Allen B. Ballard.  

Where I'm Bound, a stunning and engaging Civil War novel, is the first work of fiction to focus solely on the soldiers of an African-American regiment. Throughout the war, more than 180,000 African-American men fought for the Union Army. Many were escaped slaves, others were freed men; yet all voluntarily enlisted for one cause: freedom. For the first time in fiction, their experiences are successfully portrayed in a manner befitting the grandeur and scope of their contributions. Inspired by the true story of a black cavalry unit in Mississippi, renowned African-American historian Allen Ballard weaves factual events with the fictional account of an escaped slave, Joe Duckett, who flees to join the Northern Army.

Our chat session is scheduled for Wednesday, January 9th, 2002, 9:00 PM, Eastern Standard Time. If you have already read Where I'm Bound, and would like to participate in our on-line chat session; please join us in our new chat room http://www.aalbc.com/vchat/.

 


If you read our newsletter to the end you deserve a special reward:  A free issue of Mosaic magazine (http://www.mosaicbooks.com).  The first 25 people to send an email with the subject "Mosaic Prize" to books@aalbc.com will receive a free copy of the most recent issue of Mosaic Literary Magazine.  Don;t forget to include your name and address.  Your free issue will arrive in 4 to 5 weeks.

 

Enjoy the Holiday Season.
Peace, 
Troy Johnson, 
Founder AALBC.com

 

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The African American Literature Book Club's goal is to increase everyone's knowledge of the richness of African American Literature, satisfy your on-line book buying needs and serve as a resource for aspiring authors and professional writers. There are NO membership fees -- just continue reading the work and sharing your ideas. To learn more about AALBC.com visit: http://www.aalbc.com/aboutus.htm