Darkness in the Margins is storyteller magic, and Lola Rainey’s powerful command of voice in her poetry and prose makes her a literary conjure woman. Rainey makes darkness visible and silence speak.
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Ibi Zoboi (EEE-bee zoe-Boy) is a Haitian-American, young adult writer most famous for her books American Street, Pride, and Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America. Her newest title, My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich, centers on Ebony-Grace Norfleet, a Star Trek loving southerner visiting her father in Harlem for the summer.
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There is no doubt that Rod Palmer has this process on autopilot. His new book is a twist in the who-done-it and his response to making a change within the genre of Urban Fiction.
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Inspired by her life experiences and filled with several different kinds of poems, Worthy is the culmination of years patiently waiting to be recognized.
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If you can’t tell by now, I’m a bit of a library fanatic. I even have a post I wrote about the library hacks I use almost daily.
After you check that out (go ahead, I’ll wait), here are 4 reasons why my heart beats for LAPL:
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Matthew Williams may not be putting “writer” as his day job, but that could be changing in the very near future. This Los Angeles native has authored his first novel, The Bridge Home.
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Many people start their New Year resolutions with a reading challenge. But if you haven’t, or didn’t know this was a thing to do, you have plenty of time to decide. A reading challenge is an open-ended list of books based on specific topics or themes. Check out the list below for some of my favorite reading challenges.
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I found solace in books when I returned to them and I discovered some new favorites. Most of these books became my go to recommendations. This is a list of my favorite books of 2018, across multiple genres, in no particular order.
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I heard this story a few years ago during a Kwanzaa celebration. It stayed with me as a memorable way to introduce my own children to the holiday and I went searching for it. I grew up celebrating Kwanzaa in Florida, not knowing that it originated here in Los Angeles. See if Seven Spools of Thread is one you should add to your holiday book list.
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One of the best ways to change a person’s mind is by giving them a great story. Take a subject that seems also impossible and place that impossibility within reach with thoughtful steps and descriptions. Author Daines Reed put in the work to create a moving story of what happens when women in a small community take care of their own in more ways that one.
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Have you ever had a book hangover? You can't focus and you feel a little sick. I get them sometimes if the content is partially intense for the writing is so good that I have invested heavily into it. That was the kind of experience I had once I finished Kindred.
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It took me a little over ten days to read Between the World and Me in the summer of 2016. When you find something so real and moving and painful, you can't help but want the other people in your life to feel those very real feelings too. Here is a long review of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2015 memoir.
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Underground has a simple narrative that follows a group of enslaved people as they travel the Underground Railroad. Written for children in early elementary and younger, Evans moves us one page at a time through the struggle of escaping a plantation.
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This post is short and sweet- simply to celebrate 5 great LGBTQ writers that I admire and think you should too. Many are writers I read or follow on social media.
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In 2017, Hannah Ali published The Story of Us with Market Fifty Four, which launched in October of that year. She will be the first contemporary writer to be translated and published in Somali, her native language. The Story of Us is a collection of 4 short stories about womanhood from a Somali perspective.
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I love love LOVE books, but there are some bookish quirks that I like to keep in the dark. You can find what I'm reading or how I feel about my current book in multiple places around the web, but this is the only place I'll confess some of my uh oh's. Here are 6 weird confessions about my bookish life.
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Written by C.C. Lyons, Alpha Females Unleashed: From the Boardroom to the Bedroom takes a look at how strong women, known as Alphas, tend to take charge and what that might mean for life and future happiness. She presented a wide range of ideas, but all coming back to the notion that knowing the ins and outs of an Alpha Female can help both men and women be their best selves for their partners, coworkers, and families.
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This list is a (short) collection of fiction written by Black women about Black womanhood. Do I really have to say that I recommend them?
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So You Want To Talk About Race is a hybrid memoir and guidebook for discussing some of the toughest topics here in the U.S. Oluo uses her history and background to insert common racial topics onto her life, showing how the missteps of the majority population create a challenging world for people with Brown skin. Written to and for non-People of Color, So You Want To Talk About Race cuts to the heart of why this subject is so difficult.
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In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston traveled to Africatown, a small settlement in Georgia, to document the first-hand account of a man named Cudjo Lewis. Barracoon is the culmination of interviews Hurston collected over multiple trips about Lewis' life, including his capture, enslavement, and eventual release.
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