1 -- Push by
Sapphire
2 -- Purple Panties: An
Eroticanoir.com Anthology
by
Zane (Editor)
3
-- Head Bangers: An
APF Sexcapade by
Zane
4 --
Thug Lovin'
by
Wahida Clark
5 --Missionary
No More: Purple Panties 2
by
Zane (Editor)
Non-Fiction
1
-- Confessions of a Video Vixen
by
Karrine Steffans
2
-- The
Vixen Diaries
Rodney
was a Guyanese graduate of the University of the West
Indies, Jamaica. In 1963, he entered the School of
Oriental and African Studies, London University, and in
1966 he was awarded his PhD for his research into the
history of the upper Guinea Coast. He was tragically
killed during the summer of 1980 amidst political
turmoil in Guyana.
Rodney's most popular work How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa is a must read for anyone
interested in understanding how European imperialism has
lead directly to Africa's underdevelopment.
Look out for Perkins-Valdez's debut novel Wench
(due January 2010 from Amistad); which tells the
story of a lawyer named Elias P. Drake, who in 1851,
purchased a plot of land near Xenia, Ohio with the
intent to establish a summer vacation resort where the
country's elite could relax and enjoy the mineral
springs in the area. At the time, it was believed that
natural water could cure illnesses and bring about good
health. What made this resort unusual, however, was that
it became a popular vacation destination for southern
slaveholders and their enslaved mistresses. Ultimately,
these flagrantly open relationships offended the
northern abolitionists who also frequented the resort.
After four years, the resort closed.
Known for his thought-provoking coverage and his
commitment to exceptional storytelling, Pitts is a
multiple Emmy award winning journalist. As Chief
National Correspondent for CBSS Evening News With
Katiee Couric Pitts was an embedded reporter
covering the Iraq War and was recognized for his work
under fire.. Pitts
realized a life-long goal when he was named a
Contributing Correspondent to CBS'' 60 Minutes in 2009.in 2009.
Pitts' memoir
Step Out on
Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life's
Challenges, chronicles his astonishing story of
overcoming a childhood filled with obstacles to achieve
enormous success in life. Throughout Byron's difficult
youth�his parents separated when he was twelve and his
mother worked two jobs to make ends meet�he suffered
from a debilitating stutter. But Byron was keeping an
even more embarrassing secret: He was also functionally
illiterate. For a kid from inner-city Baltimore, it was
a recipe for failure.
Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda in
southern Nigeria. After studying philosophy and English
at Creighton and Gonzaga universities, he studied
theology for three years at the Catholic University of
Eastern Africa. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in
2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the
University of Michigan in 2006. "My Parents' Bedroom," a
story from his short story collection, "Say You're One
of Them," was one of five short stories by African
writers chosen as finalists for The Caine Prize for
African Writing 2007. Say You're One of Them won the
Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa
Region) 2009 and PEN/Beyond Margins Award 2009, and was
a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum
Award for First Fiction. In 2007, Akpan taught at a
Jesuit college in Harare, Zimbabwe. Now he serves at
Christ the King Church, Ilasamaja-Lagos, Nigeria.
In Eisa's debut novel,
Crystelle Mourning, we are presented with a
profound and intense story with deeply resonant
depictions of urban African American life.
(Recommended for those who can't find well written urban
fiction).
With her well-employed fianc� and a comfortable life
in New York City, Crystelle has a life most young
professionals would envy. She has come a long way from
the rough Philadelphia neighborhood where she grew up.
But she hasn't left the past behind her. A ghost from
her West Philly days continues to haunt her -- the
spirit of her high school sweetheart Jimmie, who she
watched get gunned down one unforgettable night years
ago. Emotionally distraught from her unsettling memories
and the suspicion she may be pregnant, Crystelle goes
back to her old neighborhood to reconnect with friends
and family. There, with the help of Jimmie's mother, a
woman who Crystelle loves like family -- and who makes a
prison visit to the young man who murdered her son --
Crystelle can finally come to grips with her past,
realizing the power of forgiveness and the need to move
on.
Griffith is a freelance writer and conference speaker
whose online columns and blogs reach thousands of women
each year. She is the author of the Shades of Style
series and Rhythms of Grace. Marilynn lives in Florida
with her husband and their seven children. She has
served as national Vice President of American Christian
Fiction Writers and has served on faculty at several
national writers conferences. When she's not writing
about friendship, family and faith, Marilynn blogs and
speaks to women and writers.
This well-researched historical novel, Am I Not A Man?,
goes into the mind of Dred Scott, an illiterate slave
who endured the agony of bondage and all of its cruelty
from his early days in Virginia until his classic legal
battles to over-turn the restrictive laws of slavery.
Shurtleff, a white author, never lets us forget
these black men and women were human beings. He
shows the reader that Dred and his wife, Harriet, were
loving, caring people. He takes us into their minds and
hearts and trusts us with their unrelenting humanity.
For those unfamiliar with the indecent American
institution of slavery, Shurtleff includes a brief
history of some of its landmarks of the political,
commercial, and legal highlights through the years. The
recreated dialogue with James Madison and Thomas
Jefferson of the strategies of possessing Blacks as
chattel is on par with any of the top-notch
practitioners of current historical fiction. Although
the novel is sometimes confusing in bouncing around in
its narrative timeline, Shurtleff paints a balanced
picture of the morally conflicted framers of the
Constitution and the creation of the flawed democracy
they envisioned. It provides a historical context for
the Dred Scott tragedy.
Pittman's debut novel, The Monkeybars Of Life, salutes the dual notions of
endurance and survival. Pittman's main character,
Nate LaChae, who is blessed with an immensely gifted
mind for things mechanical, plows ahead through all
kinds of obstacles and challenges to realize his dream.
Remembering his beloved mother's words that she would
pray for him �while he climbs those giant monkeybars of
life,� he allows nothing to stand in his way.
Angelia
Vernon Menchan who also has written under the name, acVernon
Menchan has just released an new novel that takes us further
into the world of the residents of Center City, Florida. We
met the usual suspects of Center City in her debut novel,
Black's Trilogy: Black's Obsession. The trilogy also
included Book Two: Cinnamon's Universe and
Book
Three: Brown's Possession . . . A Family's Progression.
What an interesting bunch the residents of Center City
have turned out to be. The author has developed a cast of
main characters that have layers of complex human traits.
Even her secondary characters are memorable.
It's not a good
sign when the author of a book is already making
apologies in the preface for what you're about to read.
That's what we have in the case of Barack Like Me by
David Alan Grier, a disjointed rise of Obama memoir
which might have sounded like a good idea a year ago,
but which amounts to little more than the unfocused
ramblings by a guy man who probably didn't have any
reason to sound so giddy about Barack Obama or even
about his own life.
This
ill-conceived tome's problems start with the front cover
photo, on which we find the author posed giving an "OK"
hand signal while wearing a powdered wig and a patriot's
uniform from the Revolutionary War Era. Based on the
title's play on words, I supposed the picture is
supposed to suggest that he's as patriotic as our new
president.
Today,
he is the sixth-highest paid athlete in the world,
behind only Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan,
David Beckham and Kimi Raikkonen (whoever that is).
Between his salary from the Cleveland Cavaliers and his
lucrative endorsements deals with the likes of Nike,
Sprite and Bubblicious LeBron is slated to rake in $40
million in 2009, meaning he will have made a total of
over $200 million before turning 25.
Given his phenomenal success, it would be easy to
understand if �King James� had a swelled head and forget
where came from. But this simply isn�t the case, as is
amply illustrated in Shooting Stars, a poignant memoir
chronicling his formative years and coming of age in
Akron, Ohio. But rather than focus merely on himself, LeBron saw fit to give his pals Willie McGee, Dru Joyce,
Sian Cotton and Romeo Travis equal time as subjects of
the book as well.
The author
argues that, in the ghetto, an adolescent girl's
survival revolves around the three R�s, not reading,
writing and arithmetic, but reputation, respect and
retaliation. And a well-adjusted female has learned how
to negotiate her way daily through dangerous waters
ranging from personal battles at school to fights with
boyfriends and baby-fathers to sexual assaults to
robberies, drive-bys, even the coincidence of being at
the scene of an unfolding crime.
Thus, it
makes sense that Nikki Jones should conclude that, �If I
have learned anything from my years of researching and
writing this book, it is that the battle for respect,
dignity, and positive life chances is not one these
girls should have to fight on their own.� A sobering
discourse on the growing problem of social inequality
which must be addressed before our rapidly decaying,
urban infrastructure turns the prospect of the fall of
American Civilization into a culturally-irreversible
fait accompli.
After winning NAACP Image Awards for his best-selling
children's books �Letters to a Young Brother� and
�Letters to a Young Sister,� Hill Harper decided to
write one for adults. The Conversation: How Black Men
and Women Can Build Loving, Trusting Relationships does
dole out plenty of practical love advice, even though
the author's never been married and freely admits to a
checkered past in terms of dating.
Half how-to tome, half intimate memoir, The
Conversation is divided between the battle-of-the-sexes
and Harper's frustration at his own failure to find a
life mate. The latter aspect of the text proves more
compelling than trite, ubiquitous maxims like �Let your
feelings show� and �Think outside the box,� since Hill
eventually falls for Nichole, a single-mom from D.C. he
first met years ago at a friend's wedding.
Sidibe was born
in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn in 1983 to
R&B/Gospel singer Alice Tan Ridley, and Ibnou Sidibe, a
cab driver from Senegal. After her parents separated,
Gabby was raised in Harlem by her mother who supported
the family by teaching Special Ed and by singing in the
subway.
A graduate of Washington Irving High School, Gabby
was pursuing a degree in psychology at Mercy College and
working as a telephone company customer service
representative when she decided to try out for the title
role in the movie Precious. Her audition so wowed
director Lee Daniels that he had no hesitation about
picking her over the 400 other actresses answering the
casting call. Here, Gabby talks about the film and her
critically-acclaimed performance, both of which have
Hollywood humming with early Oscar buzz.
Daniels was born in Philly on December 24, 1959.
The iconoclastic director/producer's own life story is
every bit as raw as the films he creates. Overcoming
assorted childhood adversities, he founded and was
running his own health care agency by the age of 21,
providing nurses to private homes and hospitals while
simultaneously trying to become a scriptwriter.
Here, he talks about new movie, Precious, the
critically-acclaimed screen adaptation of Sapphire's
best-selling novel, �Push.� The picture stars
Gabby Sidibe in the title role, along with an
all-star cast which includes
Mo'Nique,
Mariah Carey, Paula Patton, Lenny Kravitz and Sherri
Shepherd. The movie has been the beneficiary of
considerable Oscar-buzz since winning three awards at
Sundance Film Festival last January, including best
picture.
Until 1994, South Africa's system of Apartheid forbade
people of different �races� to use the same stores, to
attend the same schools or to reside under the same
roof. Those oppressive segregation laws came to rip an
Afrikaner family apart after the wife gave birth to a
baby with dark skin and nappy hair in 1955.
Abraham and Sannie Laing raised a lot of eyebrows
when they brought a brown newborn back from the
hospital. While some neighbors suspected that the wife
must have cheated, doctors did a blood test which
determined that Abraham was in fact the father.
This real-life nightmare is the subject of Skin, a
heartbreaking bio-pic based on Judith Stone's best
seller �When She Was White: The True Story of a Family
Divided by Race.�
While most people are well aware of
the years of civil unrest which led to the demise of
Apartheid in 1994, not as many know about the secret
talks that simultaneously transpired for almost a decade
between the South African government and the African
National Congress (ANC), the political party
spearheading the independence movement. Since the racist
regime officially opposed the notion of negotiating with
terrorists, President P.W. Botha couldn�t let the white
minority know that he had, in fact, dispatched an
emissary to England to meet with a representative of the
outlawed ANC.
Liberia was founded in 1847 by former U.S. slaves
shipped back to Africa by the American Colonization
Society. Unfortunately, these repatriated blacks
considered themselves superior to the indigenous peoples
they encountered, and so they formed a society in which
the descendants of African-Americans enjoyed elite class
status.
The tensions which ensued between the two groups
essentially remained unaddressed until everything came
to a head in 1989. That was when the first of two civil
wars erupted which combined would claim over 200,000
lives and last until 2003.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell recounts the story of how
a ceasefire was finally achieved, namely, through the
determined efforts of a coalition of Christian and
Muslim women fed up with having to beg for food and to
raise their children amidst incessant slaughter, raping
and looting.
Quite frankly, it felt like the end of the line for Star
Trek in 2002 when, Nemesis, the 10th film in
the fabled sci-fi series, proved to be such an
uninspired disappointment. After all, as any Trekkie
could tell you, the even-numbered installments, at least
until then, could always be counted on to be
substantially superior to their odd-numbered
counterparts.
So, it is easy to understand why loyal fans have been
holding their breaths with trepidation in anticipation
of the release of Star Trek 11. But they can now exhale
a collective sigh of relief, for this worthy adventure
not only resuscitates the flagging franchise but it just
might be the best Star Trek yet.
In this bittersweet bio-pic they [daughters,
Emily and Sarah] not only recount their father's
exploits, but how they had to grow up with the specter
of daily death threats and demonstrations in front of
their home. Sadly, their father would only be
posthumously vindicated for his spirited representation
of innocent Harlem teens accused of raping the Central
Park jogger.
But it is of little comfort to the African-American
defendants that their names were belatedly cleared only
after they�d already served lengthy prison terms. There
had been a rush to judgment at the time of the trial
which had the boys tried and convicted in the court of
public opinion by everyone from Mayor Koch to Donald
Trump who called for the death penalty in a full page ad
in the New York Times.
Joyner worked behind-the-scenes in Hollywood for seven
years. Her television credits include In Living Color,
The Wayans Bros and The Jamie Foxx Show. She
brings this experience to bear in her debut novel
Hollyhood. Hollyhood
tells the story of Tyrone Hart, who clawed his way up
from DC's drug-infested streets to the rich and
glamorous world of Hollywood. A producer and Tinseltown
heavyweight, he's got the cash to burn . . . but what
happens when the ratings drop?
Determined to live his dream, Ty uses his
street-sense and savvy instincts to keep control of his
career, his show, his life . . . and his friends.
Hollywood might be the land of dreams, but in Hollyhood
the only dreams you get are the ones you make yourself.
The
5th Inning is poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert
Miller's second memoir. Coming after Fathering Words:
The Making of an African American Writer (published in
2000), this book finds Miller returning to baseball, the
game of his youth, in order to find the metaphor that
will provide the measurement of his life. Almost 60, he
ponders whether his life can now be entered into the
official record books as a success or failure.
The 5th Inning is one man's examination of personal
relationships, depression, love and loss. This is a
story of the individual alone on the pitching mound or
in the batters box. It's a box score filled with
remembrance. It's a combination of baseball and the
blues.
These are proverbs about life, not about race. Here are
memorable truisms full of wit and wisdom. These are
pithy proverbs anyone can understand and powerful
proverbs everyone will be able to use. �Kalamu
ya Salaam, New Orleans writer/educator
With a foreword by Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, Lifelines: The Black book of
Proverbstravels to all corners of the
globe to reclaim and preserve African wisdom. This bookoffers the
remarkably wise heart of Africa and her children to
readers experiencing career changes, new births,
weddings, death, and other rites of passage. Readers
will find truth in the African saying, �When the
occasion arises, there is a proverb to suit it.�
Proverbs are presented in vibrant story-poem form;
and are uniquely arranged by key life cycle events such
as birth, initiation, marriage, and death. The proverbs
can be found under themes such as �wealth�, �parenting�,
�change� and �strength.� Inspired illustrations
introduce each section along with beautiful vignettes
showing how African proverbs comfort, inspire and
instruct during different phases of life.
The author of the #1 Denver Post
bestseller and Essence Book Club Pick
Orange
Mint and Honey explores the connection between love
and race, and what it really means to be a family.
Trish Taylor's white ancestry never got in the way
of her love for her black ex-husband, or their mixed
race son, Will. But when Trish's marriage ends, she
returns to her family's Denver, Colorado home to find a
sense of identity and connect to her past.
What
she finds there shocks her to the very core: her mother
and newborn sister were not killed in a car crash as she
was told. In fact, her baby sister, Billie Cousins, is
now a grown woman; her grandparents had put her up for
adoption, unwilling to raise the child of a black man.
Billie, who had no idea she was adopted, wants nothing
to do with Trish until a tragedy in Billie's own family
forces her to lean on her surprisingly supportive and
sympathetic sister. Together they unravel age-old layers
of secrets and resentments and navigate a path toward
love, healing, and true reconciliation.
After dating several good-looking men with serious
deficiencies, Sherry Johnson, the Executive Director of
a transitional housing program, vows to leave the
pretty-boys alone. That is until she encounters
generous, kind hearted Keith Blair, whose family owns a
chain of sporting goods stores. Keith admittedly has no
interest in serious, long-term relationships and only
wants a long-term fling with Sherry who rejects his
advances. However, after several futile attempts to
resist each other, the couple marries. Initially, they
seem blissfully in love with a fairytale life until
Keith's deficiencies are revealed and they separate,
leaving stubborn and proud Sherry almost as helpless as
the people she serves.
All AALBC.com Surveys include a
drawing for a cash prize!
Winners of a $25 prize from the last survey are
Deetra of Los Angeles, CA and Vsa of
Chicago, ILCongratulations!
BlackWriters Reunion & Conference
2010 - Atlanta, GA - June 23-26, 2010 CALL FOR SESSION PROPOSALS
http://www.blackwriters.org
Black Writers Reunion & Conference is accepting
proposals for workshops and seminars on the craft and
business of writing to be presented at the 6th BWRC in
Atlanta, Georgia, June 23-26, 2010. We invite
presentations that demonstrate insight and expertise on
the craft and business of fiction, nonfiction, writing
for the web, songwriting, blogging for profit,
play/screenwriting, food writing, copy writing, and
inspirational writing with interactive workshops that
will allow participants to engage in hands-on writing or
related activities wherever possible. We also welcome
sessions that would permit attendees to receive feedback
on their work, whether during or following the
conference. Workshop styles may range from a modified
traditional presentation to skill-building training.
Proposals will be evaluated on the following:
A well-defined topic with
focused objectives
Consistency with and
significance to the conference emphasis areas
Presenter credibility and
experience to engage the audience and deliver an
outstanding and informative workshop
Join us for the next Self-Publishing Symposium,
March 7th, 2010 at The Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture. Take advantage of what this important
business event can do for your publishing company.
Whether you�re a self-published author,
small/independent press or writer considering
self-publishing, you won�t want to miss the only
conference that focuses on the business of publishing.
Learn successful business strategies from
industry experts
Network with peers and
professionals and make powerful connections
Grow
your business to new heights
2010 National Black Writers Conference
- Brooklyn, NY - March 25- 28, 2010
The theme of the 2010 National Black Writers Conference
is And
Then We Heard the Thunder: Black Writers Reconstructing
Memories and Lighting the Way. Through
a series of panel discussions, roundtables, author
readings and storytelling, the National Black Writers
Conference will use the metaphor of thunder, memory and
light to examine the historical representation of the
literature of Black writers and the representation of
new and future directions for contemporary and emerging
literary voices. With Toni
Morrisonn as
the Honorary Chair, the National Black Writers
Conference will also honor AmiriBarakaa,
KamauBraithwaitee and Dr.
Edison O. Jacksonn. Black writers will come from
throughout Americaa,
the Caribbean, Europe and Africaa.
The magazine cover may not have been a conscious
conspiracy on the part of ESPN but it was an idea
motivated by the pre-conceived notion about black women
being "brazen hussies", a notion that would further
foster an assumption that if pictures of naked white
non-entities sell magazines, just think how much can be
made from a nude cover featuring a famous woman who is
not only voluptuous but who is also - black! A triple
treat. Man! "Have our people call Selena Williams'
people." �Cynique
Many have been shocked to see recent photos of retired
major league baseball player Sammy Sosa. Not only is he
wearing green contact lenses, but his skin tone is
considerably lighter than usual, something which he
claims is the result of a skin "rejuvenation" process,
some reports say. The once dark-complexioned, undeniably
African-looking Sosa now looks more like Ricky Ricardo
from "I Love Lucy". As the late Nigerian activist and
musician Fela Kuti would have said, it appears that Sosa
is guilty of having a "colonial mentality."
�Serenasailor
Gladwell is a writer of many gifts. His nose for the
untold back story will have readers repeatedly
muttering, �Gee, that's interesting!� He avoids shopworn
topics, easy moralization and conventional wisdom,
encouraging his readers to think again and think
different. His prose is transparent, with lucid
explanations and a sense that we are chatting with the
experts ourselves. Some chapters are master�pieces in
the art of the essay. I particularly liked �Something
Borrowed,� a moving examination of the elusive line
between artistic influence and plagiarism, and
�Dangerous Minds,� a suspenseful tale of criminal
profiling that shows how self-anointed experts can
delude their clients and themselves with elastic
predictions. (More on
Malcolm Gladwell)
Smith endured unwelcome pressure to become the voice of
multicultural Britain, which must explain why she makes
no secret of her mistrust of identity politics. The
telegenic Smith became an instant celebrity who cut an
articulate, if sometimes haughty, public figure (she
could be cranky to a degree that would make V.S. Naipaul
proud). Inevitably, praise was more muted for her next
two novels, "The Autograph Man" and "On Beauty."
Today, Smith flits across the Atlantic to teach and
lecture at Ivy League schools. To judge by "Changing My
Mind: Occasional Essays," her new collection of writings
for a range of periodicals, she hasn't been idle on the
writing front. Smith's reflections on, among other
things, Greta Garbo, literary trends, Oscar parties and
a trip to Liberia, fall more or less gracefully into
ostensibly banal categories of "Reading," "Being,"
"Seeing," "Feeling" and "Remembering." Taken together,
they reflect a lively, unselfconscious, rigorous,
erudite and earnestly open mind that's busy refining its
view of life, literature and a great deal in between.
(More on
Zadie Smith)
I had no political axe to grind: if you worked in the
sex business, and you had a story to tell, and you had
the skill to tell it, you were welcome in our book. As a
result, I have writing by 15-year-old girls who were
raped, beaten, burned, starved, degraded and exploited
by the worst scum of the earth. And I have women who
used sex work to pay for their master of fine arts
degree at Berkeley. And everything in between: Working
class, meat-and-potatoes sex workers; fabulous rent
boys; phone-sex operators; former Olympic athletes;
undereducated and overeducated.
Fiction
Non-Fiction
Dr.
Walter Rodney
Dolen
Perkins-Valdez
Byron
Pitts
Uwem
Akpan 
Eisa
Nefertari Ulen 
Marilynn
Griffith
Am
I Not a Man?: The Dred Scott Story by Mark L. Shurtleff
The
Monkeybars of Life by Ted Pittman
Mrs.
Black by Angelia Vernon Menchan
Barack
Like Me: The Chocolate-Covered Truth by David Alan Grier
Shooting
Stars by LeBron James and Buzz Bissinger - Book Review
Between
Good and Ghetto: African-American Girls and Inner-City
Violence
The
Conversation: How Black Men and Women Can
Build Loving, Trusting Relationships
by Hill Harper
Gabby Sidibe - The �Precious� Interview
Interview
with Producer Lee Daniels
Skin -
Apartheid Poses Problem for White Couple with
Black Baby 
Endgame
- South African Docudrama Chronicles
Demise of Apartheid
Pray
the Devil Back to Hell - DVD Review
Star
Trek - DVD Review
William
Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
Hollyhood
by Valerie Joyner
The
5th Inning by E.
Ethelbert Miller
Children
of the Waters by Carleen Brice 
The Pretty-Boy Blues
by Renee Sellers
View
Results of the AALBC eNewsletter Feedback Survey 
Black
2010 National Black Writers Conference
- Brooklyn, NY - March 25- 28, 2010
Sammy
Sosa: The "new" Michael Jackson
What
the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by
Changing
My Mind' by 
Hos,
Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals
Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex