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AALBC.com eNewsletter - December 16th, 2002

Celebrating Our Literary Legacy! 

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RECENT AALBC.COM BOOK REVIEWS & ARTICLES
AALBC.com publishes scores of articles, books reviews and author profiles each month.  Below is sample of the most recently added content.

Walk Through Darkness by David Anthony Durham
http://reviews.aalbc.com/walkthroughdarkness.htm

"Walk Through Darkness is a glorious novel! The world of slavery is brought to life in living color. Unlike many slave novels there is more at stake here than acts of violence and human degradation. Walk Through Darkness is a testament to the human spirit. The novel is a captivating, totally engaging adventure. William finds himself in one cliffhanger-type situation after the another, reminiscent of an old radio or movie serial. But the novel is in no way childlike or comedic. Durham prevents this by not allowing me to forget that the backdrop of the story is slavery and all of the ugliness that accompanies it. Durham interjects and maintains tension, and the senses of anxiousness and urgency which excellent drama inspires. I was truly sitting on the edge of my seat as I read the book."
�Thumper, AALBC.com

 

The Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: The Selected Works of Richard Bruce Nugent
http://reviews.aalbc.com/gayrebel.htm

"Richard Bruce Nugent is the best well-kept secret of the Harlem Renaissance. Nugent isn't unheard of in the annals of the Renaissance; he�s unseen. Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance solidifies the phantom of Richard Bruce Nugent by collecting a number of his short stories, articles, interviews, drawings and paintings. The anthology establishes Nugent's rightful place amongst Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, and other Harlem Renaissance luminaries."
�Thumper, AALBC.com

 

A Love of My Own - E. Lynn Harris
http://reviews.aalbc.com/aloveofmyown.htm

In his eighth novel, A Love of My Own, we dive once again into the heartache and pain that accompany the search for true love. The book's cover almost drips with class and it is apparent that E. Lynn's publisher spent the big bucks on this one. I was pleased to see my favorite character, Raymond Tyler, Jr., in the prologue, but surprised to find him in a hospital with a life threatening injury. Raymond is a fine brother, who just happens to be freshly out of the closet. Regardless of his gayness he still steals my heart. Thus Harris had me bent from the beginning."
�Linda Watkins, AALBC.com

 

AUTHORS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW

Clarence Major
http://authors.aalbc.com/clarencemajor.htm

Among his many honors and awards are a Western States Book Award for Fiction, a Pushcart Prize, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a National Council on the Arts Fellowship. Clarence Major is professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of California, Davis.

Rosa Guy
http://authors.aalbc.com/rosaguy.htm

Rosa Guy is the author of fifteen novels, including My Love, My Love, and is the editor and translator of several volumes. Guy, along with with John Oliver Killens, co-founded the Harlem Writer�s Guild.  Her work has received the Coretta Scott King Award, The New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year citation, and the American Library Association�s Best Book Award. She lives in New York.

Jewell Parker Rhodes
http://authors.aalbc.com/jewellparkerrhodes.htm

Jewell Parker Rhodes is professor of Creative Writing and American Literature and former Director of the MFA Program. Her stories have been anthologized in Children of the Night: Best Short Stories by Black Writers and Ancestral House: The Black Short Story in the Americas and Europe. Her short fiction has appeared in Callaloo, Calyx, The Seattle Review, Feminist Studies, Peregrine, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Shooting Star Review among others. Her work has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Her scholarly and non-fiction articles appear in various academic journals, Ms. Magazine, and in many composition texts.

Robert Fleming
http://authors.aalbc.com/robertfleming.htm

Fleming's poetry, essays, and short stories have appeared in such books as UpSouth, Brotherman: The Odyssey of The Black Man in America, Sacred Fire, In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African American Poetry, Dark Matter, Beyond The Frontier and the groundbreaking collection of black erotica, Brown Sugar. He is especially proud of being a contributor in Dark Matter, which was chosen as a New York Times notable book, because of its emphasis on science fiction and fantasy writing. He is currently working on a sequel to After Hours: A Collection of Erotic Writing By Black Men, which was named �Best Erotic Collection of 2002� by Black Issues Book Review.

 

AALBC.com BESTSELLERS 2002
http://aalbc.com/books/2002_by_month.htm

2003 begins our 6th full year selling books on-line.  It is still interesting, fascinating even, to so see which books turn out to be the top 10 selling books on AALBC.com for the year.  Often the books which sell well on this site are not the ones you'll see constantly promoted in the media -- and that is good.  This list reflects both recently and not so recently published books as well as the variety of interests and tastes of AALBC.com visitors.

#1
Long Train to the redeeming SIN Stories about AFRICAN women
by
Kola Boof

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

"Kola Boof is a Sudanese-American woman, an African woman writer, who writes boldly about the oppressions faced by the women of Africa. Her writing style is reminiscent of ancient allegories and folk tales, and provides a beautiful veil for the hideous description of abuse and demoralization enacted against the women in her stories.  Boof writes with the hissing anger of a coiled snake, poised to strike at each turn of the page. This is dangerous writing, in its rawest form."
�Jacqueline Jones LaMon 


#2
- Threesome: Where Seduction, Power and Basketball Collide
by Brenda Thomas
- http://authors.aalbc.com/brenda_thomas.htm

Thomas who worked as the personal assistant to NBA All-Star Stephon X. Marbury, give us a glimpse of the exciting, sexually charged underbelly of professional basketball, in her very popular novel Threesome.


#3
- The Heart of the Artist
by Rory Noland 

This book explores issues of character facing Christian artists who want to use their gifts more effectively in church ministry.


#4 - The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors

by
Dr. Frances Cress Welsing
- http://aalbc.com/authors/frances.htm

This important book, published by Third World Press, can arguably be described as the "definitive study on racism".  An absolute must have for any African-American home library.


#5
- Echoes of a Distant Summer
by Guy Johnson - http://authors.aalbc.com/guyjohnson.htm

Guy Johnson author of the critically acclaimed Standing at the Scratch Line is back with yet another trilling novel.  Read anything by Guy Johnson � you won't be disappointed.


#6
-  Brown Sugar: A Collection of Erotic Black Fiction
Carol Taylor (Editor)
- http://aalbc.com/books/romance1.htm

Brown Sugar brings together some of the most acclaimed voices in today's black literary world - Sapphire, Natasha Tarpley, Reginald Harris, and Pamela Sneed, among them.


#7
- The Words Don't Fit In My Mouth by Jessica Care Moore
http://aalbc.com/authors/jessica.htm

"Words" is the best selling book poetry book on AALBC.com and one of the best selling books of any genre.  "Words" is the only book to make our best sellers list each year since 1998!  Care Moore's work speaks to our young sisters in a voice that comes through loud and clear.


#8
- Addicted
by Zane

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

Zane has been tearing up bestsellers lists for the last couple of years.  If you want to find out why, visit Zane's web site www.eroticanoir.com


#9
- Thieves' Paradise
by Eric Jerome Dickey
http://authors.aalbc.com/eric.htm

"Thieves' Paradise is an awesome book. I was left ecstatic and wholly satisfied... A couple of years ago I stated on the discussion board that Dickey would grow as an author. Starting with last year's Between Lovers and now Thieves' Paradise, Dickey is bearing me out and proving to be one of our best writers."
�Thumper, AALBC.com


#10 - A Love of My Own by E. Lynn Harris

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

"Everybody! Yes, I mean, ev-ver-ry-bo-dy gets lonely sometimes and needs a little love. That's what author, E. Lynn Harris, has been telling us for a while. In his eighth novel, A Love of My Own, we dive once again into the heartache and pain that accompany the search for true love."
�Linda Watkins, AALBC.com


Also check out AALBC.com best selling books for November/December 2002

http://aalbc.com/books/bestsellers.htm

 

THE COFFEE WILL MAKE YOU BLACK ON-LINE READING GROUP 
http://thumperscorner.com/Reading_List.htm

January 2003 Selection

The Coffee Will Make You Black reading group is currently reading The Wake of the Wind by  J. California Cooper

Set in the South in the waning years of the Civil War, this is the dramatic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor. When Emancipation finally comes to Texas, Mor, Lifee, and their family set out in search of hope and a piece of land they can work and call their own. Miraculously, they manage not only to survive, but to succeed - their crops grow, their children thrive, they educate themselves and others. But the South during Reconstruction is not a place that takes kindly to the achievements of former slaves, and as lynchings and injustice become a plague across the region, time and again they must make the anguished decision to leave their land in search of a safer place.

Our chat session is scheduled for Sunday, January 12th, 2002, 6:00 PM, Eastern Standard Time. If you have already read The Wake of the Wind, and would like to participate in our on-line chat session; please join us in our new chat room http://www.thumperscorner.com/chat/

Visit http://thumperscorner.com/Reading_List.htm to view the rest of The Coffee Will Make You Black on-line reading group's reading list for 2003

 

POETS WORTHY OF NOTE

DuEwa M. Frazier
http://authors.aalbc.com/duewamfrazier.htm

DuEwa is Founder, Consultant and CEO of Lit Noire Publishing, a creative arts and publishing company. DuEwa began her experience in the field of publishing as an assistant editor for African American publishing company and bookstore, U.B. & U.S. Books and Communications, Inc. of Virginia (Publisher of Your Black Books Guide). She has also worked in the publishing field as a book publicist for Manhattan firm, Ruder Finn.


Heather Covington

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

Covington is the founder and CEO of Disilgold: A Bronx Publishing & Publicity Company Making Waves. She was born in New York and resides in the Bronx. Her hobbies for years have included The Arts, from designing clothes, writing and producing songs, developing a reading kit for children, interior decorating and motivational speaking, but her favorite love of all time has always been poetry which she accredits to Mr. Langston Hughes for inspiring her to infuse classic rhyme and reason with her original neo-perSOULnal poetry.

 

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 timing of the event and our work load). 

Upcoming events include:

African Voices Magazine Ellie Charles Artist Awards
http://www.africanvoices.com

AFRICAN Voices Magazine Ellie Charles Artist Awards 2003 Friday Jan 10, 2003 7pm Lerner Hall, Columbia University Honorees Amiri Baraka and Phyliss Yvonne Stickney

&

1st Annual Winter Book Bash Ski Trip
www.asthepageturns.com

Sponsored by the As The Page Turns Book Club from Philadelphia.  As The Page Turns welcomes readers and authors from around the country to be a part of the 1st Annual Winter Book Bash Ski Trip at Shawnee Mountain's Taminent Resort in The Poconos. When: January 17th -19th, 2003 Join book clubs and other book lovers for a social weekend with some of your favorite authors on the slopes! Not a skier? Not a problem. The Winter Book Bash features exciting author panels and discussions like "How to Write a Sizzling Love Scene". Visit www.asthepageturns.com for complete event info.

 

AALBC.com CONTEST
http://fun.aalbc.com/contest.htm

December's Contest Sponsored by Author Brandon Massey http://www.brandonmassey.com

Win an autographed copy of Brandon Massey's novel THUNDERLAND. THUNDERLAND is suspense fiction in the classic, bestselling tradition. With this dark, raw, and haunting tale of a family shattered by a mysterious menace, award-winning newcomer Brandon Massey takes readers on a sublimely scary journey deep into the heart of Dean Koontz and Stephen King territory.

If you would like to sponsor an AALBC.com contest -- contact us at troy@albc.com for more information.

 

CWMYB.com is now Thumperscorner.com
http://thumperscorner.com

AALBC.com has undergoing some software and hardware changes and upgrades.  During this transition period you may have noticed some services became temporarily unavailable � most notably our discussion boards, events calendar, and book club facilities.  Thanks for you patience.  Hopefully you will find our new and revamped services better than ever!

 

AALBC.com is 5!

December 19th 1997 marks the date that AALBC.com sold it's first book on-line.  Since then we've had millions of visitors and sold tens of thousands more books.  We've grown stronger while other web sites with more talent and money have fallen to the wayside. 

At 5 we are far from mature and just beginning to appreciate what we are capable of doing.  While we've learned a lot, we have many more lessons to learn.  As always, we thank you for your continued and increasing support over the years.

Peace, 
Troy Johnson, 

Founder AALBC.com

 

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