Other Gigs.
Anyway, noting the lack of…flavor, shall we say, DopeReads put together its own list of what famous authors were doing before they were writing! Peep game.
Literature Archives
Random Midday Hotness: This Is How You Describe Her.
Terryn Denise of DopeReads.com created a tumblr called ThisIsHowYouDescribeHer, where she uses Junot Diaz’s writing to describe famous women. YAAAAAASSSS.
This Is How You Lose Her.
Cross-posted from Feminist Texican [Reads]. Anyone familiar with either of Junot Díaz’s previous books will remember Yunior, the Dominican kid coming of age in Drown who goes on to become the narrator of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Back for his third starring role Díaz’s work, Yunior is the link connecting most of the stories in This Read More
Great Literature. Bad History.
“The Daily Show” senior black correspondent Larry Wilmore covers Jim’s absurd literary promotion from nigger to slave: Did anyone know prior to this clip that CBS aired a TV movie version of the book in 1955 that completely eliminated Jim and slavery from the story? Consider my mind buh-lown. For sure, that’s some creative writing. Read More
Quote of the Day.
Michael Steele on his favorite book: Hmmm…War and Peace, you say? Because that quote is from A Tale of Two Cities. Doh!
Some Sing, Some Cry
Some Sing, Some Cry is a sweeping family saga that spans seven generations of the Mayfield family. It begins with Ma Bette, the Mayfield matriarch, and her granddaughter Eudora as they leave Sweet Tamarind, the planation where they’ve spent their entire lives, and head to Charleston to begin their lives anew. In the generations that Read More
Read This, Before You Suffocate.
I first stumbled across Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, when its author, Danielle Evans, a 26-year-old professor of creative writing and literature at American University, wrote two blog posts about MFA programs that were tweeted by a friend of mine, and I found myself saying “yes!” multiple times out loud when I read Read More
On Dialect, Dialogue and Good Books.
The conversation last week about Ebonics got me to thinking about Faulkner and James Baldwin, and the way certain dialects in this country get no respect. I’m teaching undergrad creative writing for the first time, and this summer I spent a good amount of time wondering whether I knew enough about writing to provide an Read More
Who’s Allowed to Tell the Tale? (And Which Tales Should They Tell?)
There’s a game I like to play when I walk into a bookstore. Based on the the title, cover and store placement I can always interpret the marketing intention for a book meant for a black American audience. The best part of this game is that the books will, typically, fit into the following categories Read More
Maaza Mengiste’s ‘Beneath the Lion’s Gaze.’
About seven months ago, I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun. Primarily, it was the fictional story of how wealthy Nigerian twin sisters and their lovers (one Nigerian, one White) dealt with the harrowing effects of the Biafran-Nigerian War (1967-1970). Before reading the novel, I knew nothing about this conflict or how Read More
