What are you reading next? Here are my thoughts on The Perfect Find by Tia Williams.
5 Black Publishers You Should Be Supporting
When Margaret Busby launched her publishing company in 1967, she was the youngest and first black woman to do so in England.
Decades later, when she was asked why she’d fought so hard to launch an indie publishing house, she said:
“So that you don’t only get one perspective all the time, with everything filtered through the usual gatekeepers— we know who they are, whether in London, New York or wherever… Other voices need to get a look-in, not just those that already have the power.”
5 Black Beach Reads for 2016
I’ve seen a number of black reading lists for summer 2016 and I have to say, they feature an overabundance of weepy, traumatic or painfully intellectual recommendations.
It doesn’t take a data analyst to find the causal link between the dearth of black genre fiction and the lack of light-hearted (yet clever) summer reads. Here, I’ll draw the correlative line for you.
Luckily, my spidey senses are always attuned to the light-read frequency so here are five genre novels for you to enjoy in the sunshine.
Chapters celebrates black writing
I was moseying around the Chapters in downtown Toronto today, just killing time before meeting a friend. It was great to see the variety of black authors on display for Black History Month.
The Motorcyclist
Carl Black is an intellectual and artist, a traveller, a reader and an unapologetic womanizer. A motorcyclist. He burns for the bohemian life, but is trapped in a railway porter’s prosaic existence. Taking place over one dramatic year in Halifax, Nova Scotia, The Motorcyclist recounts Carl’s travels and romantic exploits as he tours the backroads of the east coast and the bedrooms of a series of beautiful women.
What I’m reading this week
During summer my Twitter feed informed me Shonda Rhimes would be writing a memoir. I made a mental note to get it next year when it was released. I should have known that a woman who successfully juggles three primetime TV shows would be just as efficient about putting together a book. Still, I gave a squeal of delight when my friend waved the hardcover tome at me in the quaint bookshop we had been picking through.
3 Nigerian Travelogues
Any writer who sets out to capture the essence of the changeable, frenetic, off-the-Richter-scale nation that is Nigeria sets themselves a tall order. However, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Teju Cole – and more recently – Ifeanyi Awachie have each produced insightful, perceptive chronicles of their travel experiences in the West African country.
10 Black Beach Reads
It’s that time of year. Time to pack a bag, pick a good book and head off to a sunny locale.
However, summer isn’t off to a great start. My Twitter timeline blew up last week as a number of influential, literature-loving publications unveiled their summer reading lists. Like many others I was amazed at how strikingly white the lists were, especially when so many incredible books have been released in 2015 by writers of colour. So here’s the remedy, 10 book suggestions designed to compliment sun-loungers across the globe. Don’t forget your sunscreen.
Skies of Ash delivers the black, female detective the world’s been craving
Detective Elouise ‘Lou’ Norton works the homicide beat in South LA. Sometimes investigations pull her down into The Jungle, a neighbourhood once named for the surrounding vegetation, but now known for the drugs and gangs that give it a wild air. Other times her work daws her into the affluent neighbourhoods nestled in the surrounding hills. It is in these hills that she’s called to investigate a house fire.
Celestial Blue Skies by Maggie Collins
Tut is mentally ill. At least her family thinks so. In the small town of Belle Place everybody knows about her four fatherless children. The local pastor has refused to baptize her offspring unless she reveals their paternity. But Tut isn’t talking.
Q&A with Christina C. Jones
I first heard of Christina C. Jones when she wrote a guest post for Quanie Miller’s blog on Five Ways To Build Your Author Platform. I nodded agreeably to all her advice, then did a double-take when I came to the Author Profile at the end and read that she’d written nine books since 2013. I immediately raced over to Amazon to read an extract from her latest novel at the time, the romantic suspense story Catch Me If You Can. I swiftly confirmed that she was not only a prolific writer but also a highly talented one.
