Too much reading, too little blogging

Unfortunately, when everything else is in high gear in my life, this blog is the first thing to be cut. So, I'll keep trying to find my way back.

I was surprised to see the the latest Blair Underwood-Tananarive Due- Steven Barnes book is out next week. Apparently, according to Tananarive's blog, it's already in stock at Amazon.

I wonder how much writing Blair did on the novel. He "presents" these Tennyson Hardwick novels and is part of the process - but I wonder if it's just reading and providing verbal feedback to Barnes and Due.

The first one was a fun read. I love mysteries and am really happy when I find ones featuring African American characters. It's nice to have a new series to go to.

Deberry/Grant
I finished Virginia Deberry and Donna Grant's latest novel, Gotta Keep on Tryin', last month. It was a lot of fun. I haven't read any of their books since Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made, so I couldn't remember what to expect.

I really didn't remember much about the first story. But it started to come flooding back when a certain devious character re-appeared. Those sections actually made me anxious - good work on the authors' part.

If you have a chance to see them read or meet them - do. They're quite funny in person and will give a good event.

Want to write your book proposal?

Then head to Valerie Boyd's book proposal boot camp.


Book Proposal Boot Camp: How to Write a Proposal
That Sells Without Selling Out

Let Valerie Boyd—award-winning author of Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of
Zora Neale Hurston—show you how to transform your dream of writing a nonfiction
book into a reality.

The best-kept secret of the publishing world is the book proposal. Did you
know you can write a 15- to 100-page book proposal, submit it to literary
agents and publishers, and actually get paid to write the book of your dreams? With
a few months of effort, any writer who has a strong nonfiction idea and some
writing talent—even without a lot of experience—can research and write a
robust book proposal that will turn publishers’ heads. This Book Proposal Boot
Camp will teach you how.

When
Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 2 and 3, 2008
9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Where
Agnes Scott College
Alston Hall, Room 206
Decatur, GA 30030


For more information and to register,
www.valerieboyd. com

[I attended a shorter session that Valerie did on the book proposal at one of Tina McElroy Ansa's workshops. It was illuminating. If I didn't already have a trip planned, I'd make the drive to go to this workshop.]

Do you have a platform?

I stopped at MJ Rose's Buzz, Balls, Hype site - a bookmark authors and publicists should have, and saw her link to a NY Observer article about the importance of having a "platform" for authors. Apparently publishing houses (some anyway) are looking not just at the work, but at what the author brings to the table in terms of audience and publicity power. No big surprise, but it's good to hear the term and see an exploration of it.

I think Ta-Nahesi Coates is an example of an author with a platform. I used to read his column, so when I heard about his new book, it definitely made me want to read it. He's profiled in the LA Times. The book, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, is a memoir.

Lots of other links I will share, but I think I hear a little work calling me away ...

But I will say that I'm nervous about whatever Jesse Jackson said. I expect that's going to be a little mess.

Pearl Cleage's new site

I love to visit my favorite authors' web sites - and even sites of authors I haven't read yet. It amazes me sometimes when I see a site for a big name author and it is really out of date or just doesn't seem to match in quality the author's reputation, writing or popularity.

Pearl Cleage's web site used to be one of those.

Now do not start sending me daggers or evil comments. I love Pearl Cleage. There are no two ways about that.

But it made it hard to understand why she didn't have a better site.

All that is over, now. She has new site design (I'm just seeing it now, so it may be a couple of months old). It looks fabulous! See it here.

And, as a fan, I looked at all the pictures and, as usual, the appearances to see if she would be anywhere near my town.

Anyway - it's a great site and, I think, a much better fit for the wonder and wisdom of Ms. Cleage.

A movie deal and other notes

Carleen Brice's Orange Mint and Honey has been optioned by Lifetime TV. She has a brief note about that on her web site. I'm glad to hear it - and need to go and get the book :).

She's also taking a hiatus (on hiatus?) this summer. And she's holding a contest for her readers to send in ways they're taking care of themselves. The contest is detailed on her blog.

More on Movies
I'm really excited about the movie version of PUSH, so I've been reading about that and the "unknown" actress who'll play Precious in the movie. What an amazing story - and I can't wait to see how she does and where this leads her.

This week, I saw the trailer for The Longshots, which stars Keke Palmer and Ice Cube. Will definitely have to see that. I am eating up stories with strong, smart, beautiful young African American girls. Hopefully I'll be able to have a good collection of those on DVD by the time my own daughter hits her tweens.

Kids books
I stumbled upon this beautiful book in the library on Thursday. It's called Hair for Mama and is by Kelly Tinkham and illustrated by Amy Bates.

The boy in the book wants to get/give hair to his mother, who has lost hers due to treatments for cancer. It's beautiful - I loved the imagine of the two of them together with bald heads. So, if you know anyone that could use that story (which might really be anyone of us - who hasn't been touched by cancer?), pass it on.

A few weeks ago, I found several Mildred D. Taylor novels in a bookstore. It was very exciting for me. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry was one of my favorite books as a child. It is also, unfortunately, frequently banned or protested. I never read (or even knew of) her other books. So I bought three of her other titles to hold until my children are old enough to read them. They are:
The Gold Cadillac
The Well: David's Story
The Road to Memphis

Do Progressives need a book club?

We'll see about that book club. The Progressive Book Club launches tomorrow. I'm curious about their selections, but have always been wary of book and music clubs. I always fear I'm going to be sucked into a contract that I'll hate later. I wonder how they'll combat that feeling - I can't be the only progressive who shies away from such.
Read the NYTimes story.


Obama Moment
Earlier this week I was in love with this article about the reaction to Obama by Blacks in France. And very pleased to see an author quoted in it - I hope her book is or will be available in English. Her name is Leonora Miano and the book title is “Tels des Astres Éteints” (“Like Extinguished Stars”).

Can't believe I missed it
Tananarive Due's book, Blood Colony, came out on June 3. I love her work and that storyline in particular. I can't believe I let the date get by me. I will get a copy in a week or so.

Upcoming and recent releases:
Palace Council, by Stephen L. Carter on July 8
The Importance of Being Dangerous, by David Dante Troutt on June 3 (love this title)
Catwalk, by Deborah Gregory on June 24
"Keeping Down the Black Vote: The Politics of Election Administration in America", by Frances Fox Piven, Lori Minnite, Margaret Groarke, Dec. 8, 2008
A Mercy, by Toni Morrison, Nov. 11, 2008 (set in the American past - that was the only description on Amazon - curious).

Will Scarlet ever fade?

I just read an article at Diversity Inc. about America's favorite books. The Bible is number one. No. 2? It's that old favorite, Gone With the Wind. It's the favorite across the whole group surveyed.

I still haven't read it. And I only saw the movie 8 years ago.

Maybe one day I'll read it. It is the second favorite book of our nation, supposedly.

Read the story for yourself.

Quick finds

My mind is on the theatre this week, so of course that's all I see out there in the world of the web.

Here's a new collection of essays on African American women playwrights:
Contemporary African American Women Playwrights: A Casebook, by Philip Kolin. Read an article about it here.

I was going to order it, but it's $120.00! So, it's to the library for me.

Laurence Fishburne is doing a one-man show on Thurgood Marshall's life in NYC. Read the NYTimes story.
I am a hopeless Fishburne fan - hopefully I can get up there to see him in this show.

And ...
Mediabistro's Galleycat has an interesting post up - short though - about whether women's fiction covers are anti-feminist. You know the focus on pink, the backs of women's bodies, body parts, shoes and shopping bags. I read it yesterday and today and it made me ask whether urban fiction covers are racist.
They often focus on hyper sexual images of Black people.
The books and the art are very focused on hard, thug life stereotypes.
Maybe they are actually anti-feminist and racist too. A two-fer in your local bookstore.

Don't Call It a Comeback

Yes - I'm slacker blogger of the week. It hasn't quite been two months - just really close.

But I'm willing to get back into this blog thing.

The Crime Sistah blog has a post up about book signings - apparently authors sell between 4 and 7 books at signings. THat seems really, really low to me. And hardly worth the travel effort. But the connections are worth it - I hope!

I'll be interested to see what kind of discussion follows that post.

Celebrity author - pro or con?
Tananarive Due's new novel, Blood Colony, will be out in June of this year. I can't wait to read that - it's the third in a series that I love.

She co-authored, with Blair Underwood and her husband, Steven Barnes, Casanegra. The mystery novel is the first in a series and the second will be out in September. Blair was quoted somewhere recently - unfortunately I can't remember where! - and mentioned his second novel would be out in September. He did not mention his co-authors, but I'm sure that's just because of space.

Random author events to share

Chris Abani will speak in Orlando on Thursday (3/6).

Check out Carleen Brice (Orange Mint and Honey) tour schedule.

And there's an interview on Bookslut with Natasha Trethewey.

Fact Checkers need not apply

This is really wild. It amazes me that there was such limited fact-checking on this story about a biracial (white and Native) woman's gangland memoir. Especially now, when some of the research is or should be so much easier with eletronic databases. I wonder how many publishers are scrambling to cover bases on recently published or about-to-be-published memoirs.

If you haven't heard about this, read or listen to stories about Love and Consequences, a completely fake memoir published last week. To good reviews.
NYTimes story (different than above)
Galley Cat surveys the reactions
NPR's report

I wonder ...
If the book would have gotten so much attention, or even been published if it was a Black woman's story?
Would it have been fact checked more closely?
Was the story marketable mostly because the woman is part white and looks white?
It's interesting to me that in some ways this seems like a story that boils down to:
Woman Raised by Wolves [Black people] Tells Story.
Somehow, telling her story as the outsider raised by the outsiders/savages, was really a good sell for her, her agent and publishing company. And no, I haven't read it, just riffing off the coverage and descriptions so far.

What do you think?

This and that for Monday

I can't wait to get a copy of Incognegro, by Mat Johnson. A graphic novel about passing? That is so in my vein - not to mention how many times I said "incognegro" in my 20s. It will be my first graphic novel, though. Read the review in the NYTimes.

Things I shouldn't have access to: mobile access to Amazon.com. That's not even right. I try to forget that I can get there from my phone, because it's too, too easy to buy. And we don't have enough shelves at the moment.

Quick hits on a couple of resources

Deberry/Grant - the two-woman writing team - has a new book out, Gotta Keep on Tryin'. It's the sequel to their first novel.

And on their blog, they referenced Connie Briscoe's blog - which is fabulous! She is interviewing authors and publicists. Recent interviews include Deberry/Grant, Lolita Files (who also has a blog) and Connie writes about writing. Go see - and bookmark it.

An unfinished work by Richard Wright has been pieced together and published. Tayari Jones says - leave dead authors' work alone.

Here's the review of the book, A Father's Law, from the NYTimes.

And from the review:

But context is one thing; text is another. In this case, text threatens to ambush context before context even gets to town. “A Father’s Law” is not simply an unfinished novel; it is an unfinished novel in abject need of revision. Its flaws are so many and so foregrounded that they all but dare the reader to work through them and engage the ideas with which Wright was grappling. Without having first read his thunderous classics, one might plausibly dismiss this author as a tendentious, technically naïve amateur and disdain the works that made him indispensable in American letters.

This and that

Mark Sarvas posted a link to an article in the Los Angeles Wave about African American authors, serious literature and the important role Black booksellers and independent publishers play in promoting our authors. Rosie Milligan, founder of Black Writers on Tour, and James Fugate of Eso Won books are quoted.
Read it here: Extending their shelf lives

Want more on the concerns about serious Black literature and street lit?

Check out the notes from the ringshout group - a new group that launched this year.

Their members have been writing about it, including Bridgett Davis' essay on theroot.com - which I haven't read yet, but will.

Thanks to Eisa Ulen for the links - she is a ringshout founder as well.

Promotion find of the day

I saw a reference recently to a site, www.bookmovement.com, that I hadn't heard of in all my trolling for book-related stuff. So I'm sharing it in case you haven't heard of it either.

Book Movement is a site for book clubs and allows clubs and members to list and rank the books that they're reading. So the site turns that into lists of the popular books among book clubs.

I searched a couple of African American authors names - by no means an exhaustive list, just a casual search.
Here's what I found on the site - titles by:
Pearl Cleage
Christopher Abani
Alice Walker
Carl Weber
Anthony Grooms
Walter Mosley

I didn't see anyway for authors to feed in to the system - other than paying for featured placement. But perhaps it would be a tool worth mentioning to fans in book clubs.

Quick hits from the last few days

NYTimes Review of Race Card by Richard Thompson Ford. Subtitle: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse.
From my quick read of the review, it sounds like the book is worth reading - though I am getting a bit of a conservative vibe from it. I'm working on doing more nonfiction reading and less escaping from reality, so perhaps this makes it to the to-be-read list.

A group of newspaper cartoonists are banding together to do strips on one topic this Sunday - the lack of diversity in newspaper comics. Read more in the Washington Post.

I went to John Ridley's blog on NPR.org for the first time today. And then went over to their NPR mobile set up - NPR content on your phone - that made me happier than I should admit.

Did you know that NPR has a "Race" page? Neither did I. Here it is.

Book trailer: Kimberla Lawson Roby

Here's the trailer for Kimberla Lawson Roby's new title, Sin No More.




She'll be in Savannah this weekend for the Savannah Book Festival - a first event for the city. See all of her tour dates here.

Other African American authors appearing at the festival include:

Tina McElroy Ansa
Cora Daniels
Michael A. Fletcher
Dr. Robert Franklin (Pres. of Morehouse College)
Kevin Merida

A couple of events and two promotion resources

Nathan McCall in Charlotte From an e-mail forwarded to me.
Hello to All,

Nathan McCall, the NY Times best selling author of "Makes Me Wanna Holler", will be in Charlotte Saturday to support The Brown Angel Center, which helps formerly incarcerated women become financially independent. McCall, who was formerly incarcerated, will be at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church talking about his life and his debut novel, "Them." A book signing will follow. The event starts at 1 pm and admission is $7. Books will be on sale. The church is at 3400 Beatties Ford Road. Please share this information!
I am sure you will find his story very motivating.

Thank you for your support.

Patrice Gaines
The brown Angel Center

And from another forwarded e-mail (both from Tina McElroy Ansa):
You are invited to hear:

Dr. Henry Louis Gates
W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois

Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University
Sunday, February 3, 2008
3:00 p.m.

St. John Baptist Church
522 Hartridge St.
Savannah, GA 31401
Free and Open to the Public
Followed by Catered reception with the speaker

For More Information:
912-234-8000
www.kingtisdell.org
www.savannnahblackheritagefestival.com
(Please forward to your contacts)


A former publishing executive has launched a web-based broadcast with and about authors. Read the NYTimes story here. See the broadcast here [actually, you can't see it yet - just sign up for notification]. It's called Titlepage TV and the tagline is "Passionate Conversations About Books."

A social networking and promotion site for authors - Red Room - got a lot of attention this week because of the site's involvement in a special blog effort to promote Patry Francis' book, The Liar's Diary. Francis is having a health crisis and won't be able to promote her book in the traditional way - so more than 300 bloggers did it for her today by writing about her and the book. If you visit Red Room and visit the blog section, you'll see many posts about her.

Shows what writers can do when they come together - what if authors did that every day of the year - gather to focus on one another's books?

Catching up - Karibu and The Root

Many of you have already heard about the news that Karibu books in the Baltimore-D.C. area is closing. If you haven't, here's the link to the store site, with a letter about the closing:
http://www.karibubooks.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp

And here are the articles:
Baltimore Sun: Readers say goodbye to a friend
Washington Post: Karibu Bookstores to Close Doors in DC Area
Publishers Weekly: Karibu Books to Close

With all the Black bookstore closings and the troubling news about the economy, it seems like a good time for someone to pull together a proposal to do a history of the contemporary Black bookstores in this country. And talk about what they brought/bring to the community and why they succeed or falter.

The Root
Henry Louis Gates and The Washington Post launched a new online magazine called The Root today. I didn't have much time to spend on the site, but I did like Kim McLarin's essay about Michelle Obama. She writes that it is Mrs. Obama who makes her (McLarin) really like the Senator - since he chose a sister who is one of us. One of those brown-skinned girls, "reglar" but not ordinary.

A new favorite thing

Booktour.com
I've become a fan of booktour.com, both as a tool for author publicity and as a cool way for readers to hear about authors on tour in their area. My new favorite thing on the site is "following" authors that I'm interested in - and the possibilities for fans, colleagues and organizations to leverage booktour.com for content on their sites.

Here's one of the things that caught my eye:



Putting an author's tour schedule on your site. This is great for small presses and authors who don't have the time or resources to update their information in multiple places - or who want an easy way to pass this on for use on affiliate, fan and other sites.

So if you haven't checked out booktour - go over now. It's easy, free, and puts authors names in front of readers - very likely new readers to many writers.