10 Books Published by Cleis Press on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

This powerful book couldn’t come at a more timely juncture. With our deep misunderstanding of racial identity, the murder of transgender women increasing at an alarming rate and the battle of faith and sexual orientation at churches across the country, we are in a cultural war of ideologies. Overwhelming prejudices have constricted our basic capacity for compassion and understanding.

Live Through This is a collection of intimate essays about one man’s journey to self-acceptance when his faith, sexuality, and race battled with societal norms. These insightful writings will plant seeds of consideration and inspire readers to stretch beyond stereotypes. By

Winner of the 2003 Lambda Literary Award for Fiction Anthology

Showcasing the work of literary giants like Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and writers whom readers may be surprised to learn were "in the life," Black Like Us is the most comprehensive collection of fiction by African American lesbian, gay, and bisexual writers ever published. From the Harlem Renaissance to the Great Migration of the Depression era, from the postwar civil rights, feminist, and gay liberation movements, to the unabashedly complex sexual explorations of the present day, Black Like Us accomplishes a sweeping survey of 20th century literature.

Making the Hook-Up heats up the pages with characters from every walk of life who get in where they fit in. With African American erotica that brings an urban edge to sweet kink, Cole Riley has collected a sensational, authentic set of stories that revel in all the richness and variety of black men and black women’s sexuality. Well-written, passionate, and provocative, this one-of-a-kind anthology is a feast for the senses and a treat for the soul. Cole Riley holds no bounds in this book of bold black erotica, with stories as creative as the soulful simmer of Nina Simone, as urgent as the barely concealed bite of bluesman John Lee Hooker, and as innovative as the muted moans of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis.

Two smart Black women break the Tyrone code ? with affection, with respect, but with no illusions.
Black men as fathers, sons, teachers, lovers, rap stars, professionals, fantasy objects, and cultural constructs ? a multifaceted picture of American Black men today.
You know Tyrone. Smooth-talking, irresistible Tyrone ? the swagger in his step, the sexy drawl, the poetry and rhythm in his essence ? the militant revolutionary of the 1960s evolved into the pimp/thug of the hip-hop era. Tyrone is the Black man seen through the media lens, through stereotype, through the eyes of Black women. He’s "Talk Show Tyrone," all muscle and defiance, ?an archetype converted to a hit single.”
In Deconstructing Tyrone, the authors, journalists Natalie Y. Moore and Natalie Hopkinson, examine Black masculinity from a variety of perspectives, looking not for consensus but for insight. With chapters on Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, on the complicated relationship between women and hip-hop, on babydaddies, on gay Black men on and off the down low, on strippers and their fathers, on Black men in the office, at school, and in jail, Deconstructing Tyrone presents a multifaceted picture of American Black men now.

A powerful collection celebrating sex between black men, Best Black Gay Erotica raises the standard for literary porn. From the slowly building heat of Reginald Harris’s love story, "The Dream," to the raw lust of Jay Russell’s "Rude Boys," in which two tops at a sex club negotiate which of them will give it up, these stories serve up a rich feast of erotic imagination.

The narrator of Canaan Parker’s "One for the Road" recalls the particular skill that made his finest lover, Marco the Magnificent, famous on the streets. And Samuel R. Delany’s "The Sleepwalkers" is a paean to the heyday of gay sex in New York, when a night among the burly beer-swigging men of the Mine Shaft ended only at dawn. With contributions by Thomas Glave, Belasco, and James Earl Hardy, Best Black Gay Erotica presents some of the hottest and best-written erotica in print today.

24 sex stories by some of the best-known lesbian authors writing erotica today. Past books include notables such as Dorothy Allison, Sapphire, Cherrie Moraga, Heather Lewis, Jenifer Levin, Shar Rednour, and Cheryl Clarke.

Prior to Melvin Dixon’s death from AIDS in 1992 when he was on the verge of breaking out as an acclaimed novelist, his talent was compared to that of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin. In Vanishing Rooms, the author amply demonstrates his literary promise with a compelling love story of interracial sex and urban violence set in Manhattan’s West Village in the 1970s.

Cleis Press’s Best Lesbian Erotica and Best Women’s Erotica series top bestseller lists, raising and exceeding the standards and expectations of readers of erotic fiction with each new edition. Now the African-American women’s erotica market will discover the same level of literate, provocative sex writing in this debut collection of a new series. Best Black Women’s Erotica showcases the hottest, most arousing, and most surprising erotic literature by African-American women writers. Representing a wide range of styles and voices, these 25 new stories offer a steamy assortment of fiction from popular authors such as Valerie Wilson Wesley, Bertise Berry, Tananarive Due, Diane McKinney-Whetstone, Barbara Neely, Renee Swindle, Vernise Berry, Julie Hare, and Terris Grimes, among others.

Ceremonies offers provocative commentary on highly charged topics such as Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs of African-American men, feminism among men, and AIDS in the black community.

"I have wanted to find my mother in every woman I’ve ever loved," writes Catherine Reid in the introduction to this refreshingly complex and original anthology. "I have ached to find traces of her smell, her touch, the way she would cradle the back of my head, her songs. I had to turn forty before I could admit that to myself or acknowledge how often a similar yearning shows up in the people around me. Relationships with mothers are complicated for everyone - men and women, heterosexual, gay and bisexual. But for lesbians, that core relationship is especially powerful, blessed (or burdened) with a multiplicity of emotions and desires. In Every Woman I’ve Ever Loved, an impressive line-up of lesbian authors examines the mother/daughter relationship …. in essays, poems and dramatic monoloogues, and even one photo essay. As women who love women, these writers bring passionate intensity and complicated depths to this fundamental, first love. Dorothy Allison, Gloria Anzalda, Claudia Bepko, Meg Daly, Jyl Lynn Felman , Marilyn Hacker, Holly Hughes, Audre Lorde, Laura Markowitz, Jane Miller, Cherre Moraga, Joan Nestle, Linda Niemann, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Mattie Richardson , Maureen Seaton, Mab Segrest, Shay Youngblood and others.