Category: what’s lit

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what's lit

The Women Headlining Jay-Z’s New Random House Imprint Roc Lit 101

Hip-hop mogul Jay-Z’s Roc Nation and publisher Random House have joined forces to create Roc Lit 101, a one-of-a-kind imprint promising to deliver entertainment literature that’s already putting women in the forefront as leaders and creatives.

Roc Lit 101 will be overseen by Jana Fleishman, the executive vice president of Roc Nation, and Chris Jackson, the publisher and editor-in-chief of One World, a Random House imprint that promotes diverse writers.

“The goal of Roc Lit 101 is to provide a creative outlet for acclaimed wordsmiths and artists to share their visions with new audiences,” said Fleishman in the Random House announcement. “There are so many untold stories and we consider it a true privilege to be able to amplify diverse voices while exploring the uncharted worlds that are about to open to us.”

The inaugural Roc Lit 101 list includes former Vibe editor and author Danyel Smith’s Shine Bright, in what the publisher is calling “a brilliant weave of memoir, criticism, and biography that tells the story of black women in music as the foundational story of American pop.” Baseball pitcher CC Sabathia also has a memoir slated for release in summer 2021, along with Danyel’s book.

Roc Lit 101 plans for fiction and nonfiction works across genres from rappers Lil Uzi Vert, Meek Mill, Fat Joe, and Yo Gotti.

Jay-Z, legally known as Shawn Carter and Beyoncé’s husband, is not the first rapper to form an imprint to feature diverse voices. In 2018, British rapper Stormzy announced a collaboration with William Heinemann imprint under Penguin Random House where he curates the selection for #Merky Books imprint. Penguin Random House is the parent of Random House.

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‘Big Girl, Small Town’ Debut Adds Dark Humor to Mundane Life

*Received an advance reading copy of the book for the blog tour*

One of the last much-publicized debuts of 2020 features a main character trying to find comfort within her body and town. Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen dives into detail of what it’s like to be a young Irish woman living in a village still impacted by an old conflict.

Majella O’Neill has a long list of dislikes including makeup and fashion, which reads like the equivalent to a 2000s young adult novel, but as the reader gets introduced to her life at the turn of each page, the reason why she’s developed such dislikes comes in clearly. “Other people” is the last and loudest dislike:

It was people who talked shit. It was people who made up rules that said you were cool or not because of what you wore. It was people who judged one half of the human race for not wearing make-up, and the other half for wearing it.

On Majella’s list of likes is her father and grandmother. In the first 10 pages, the reader learns that Majella’s father has been missing for the last decade and had never recovered from his brother’s death and her grandmother is being featured on the news as a murder victim. This is just an average morning where Majella’s name is being yelled by a critical alcoholic mother. Majella soon goes to work at A Salt n Battered!, a restaurant serving fish and chips in her sleepy hometown of Aghybogey. Behind the counter, she meets a host of customers she can’t stand. The rest of the book breaks down her likes and dislikes through every detailed encounter.

The author is from Northern Ireland and grew up during the Troubles, a 30-year conflict ending in 1998 between Protestants, who wanted the province to remain part of the United Kingdom, and the Roman Catholics, who wanted the province to become part of the republic of Ireland. The impact of the Troubles is felt in the fictional Aghybogey and by Majella and her family.

Publisher Workman Publishing of Algonquin Books dubs the novel as Anna Burns’ Milkman meets Netflix series Derry Girls and believes it will appeal to fans of Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh.

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How Moments of Racial Tension Are Shaping YA Literature

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Six well-known Black female authors with best-selling credentials came together to announce their joint project of a young adult novel surrounding the 2003 New York City blackout. Though the collaboration is a publisher dream, it also shows how moments of racial tension particularly in recent U.S. history are the moneymaking moves for authors of color to get their literary voices out into the world.

Angie Thomas of The Hate U Give, Tiffany D. Jackson of Grown, Nic Stone of Dear Martin, Nicola Yoon of Everything, Everything; Dhonielle Clayton of The Belles, and Ashley Woodfolk of The Beauty That Remains are teaming up for Blackout. The collection of six interconnected stories that will “bring the glowing warmth and electricity of Black teen love to this interlinked novel of charming, hilarious, and heartwarming stories that shine a bright light through the dark,” according to publisher HarperCollins Publishers and its imprint Quill Tree Books. The book’s release date is June 22, 2021.

Mistaken for terrorism almost two years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the Northeast blackout of 2003 was a massive power outage that crippled the East Coast, most notably New York City. This sent hundreds of thousands of people to the streets after many had been evacuated off the largest public transportation system or had left their vehicles since traffic lights weren’t working. With the dark atmosphere on a ninety-degree day in August, unease took over some areas as ambulances raced to destinations and people stole merchandise. Race and youth naturally became a concern.

Making race and youth the main elements in a young adult novel seems to be more common now, especially with the contributions of the aforementioned authors. Angie Thomas rose to literary fame when The Hate U Give explored the theme of unarmed Black boys being shot by police or racists as did Nic Stone’s Dear Martin. Another recent example includes Christina Hammonds Reed’s debut novel The Black Kids, which revolves around the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and includes a mention of the 1921 Black Wall Street massacre. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star Karyn Parsons recently spoke about her middle grade novel How High the Moon, which revolves around the 1944 George Stinney Jr. execution.

These historical events impacting Black communities were rarely taught in school but are seeing a resurgence in mentions amid the anti-racism movement. As students are learning from their homes, some YA authors of color like Dhonielle Clayton and Kelly Yang are speaking to classrooms via Zoom though they said they dealt with racial discrimination.

YA literature, particularly for children of color, is evolving to be a supplemental lesson on race and youth that will take moments from the not-so-distant past and use character voices to convey those missing perspectives.

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Book Review: ‘Grown’ by Tiffany D. Jackson

GrownGrown by Tiffany D. Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson rips a page from the Mute R. Kelly movement to create a traumatic storyline that brings a teenage girl in the crosshairs of the dangerously famous life of an R&B crooner with a penchant for attracting underaged girls.

Enchanted Jones sees herself as a mermaid. She swims on her high school team and fosters a golden voice. One day her best friend Gabriella tells Enchanted about a showcase where she can win an opportunity for the singing career of her dreams. Enchanted tricks her mother into driving them to the showcase where she sings her heart out onstage but doesn’t get a coveted spot on a singing competition show. But 28-year-old R&B sensation Korey Fields does notice Enchanted and hands her his phone number when her mother isn’t looking.

That transpires into a flirty text message exchange with Korey dropping promises to catapult Enchanted’s career. Her parents agree for Enchanted to spend time with Korey in his home studio. Those experiences bring Enchanted and Korey closer while her parents are wondering why they can’t come into the session or why she’s staying hours longer. Once their relationship goes public thanks to a viral video Korey released without Enchanted’s knowledge, Enchanted joins Korey on tour. Her parents aren’t sure, but Korey’s female assistant Jessica agrees to be a guardian for Enchanted. Jessica is a woman, so the parents trust her to watch over Enchanted. But of course that’s not what happens.

Enchanted is transformed into the adult singer Korey wants her to be but so is another girl from the showcase that Enchanted finds in Korey’s mansion. They both are locked into their respective rooms. Jessica tells Enchanted she can’t leave the room for any reason—even going to the bathroom in which she’s given a bucket. The fairy tale romance Enchanted thought she had quickly is going south with Korey controlling her every move. She eventually breaks away but not before she’s a suspect in his murder.

The story mirrors what we know of R. Kelly’s alleged sexual predatoriness on teenage girls. Enchanted is promised the singing career of her dreams by the famous Korey Fields as he lures her into a manipulative relationship.

One factor here is that other characters around Enchanted are embarrassed by her faux pas of spending time with Korey such as her Will & Willow friends. The Black social group mimicking the real Jack & Jill have text exchanges throughout the book judging Enchanted and her parents for what’s taking place in the limelight. They say their parents are judging Enchanted’s parents for signing off on the tour and losing contact with their daughter. Enchanted’s younger sister Shea is totally embarrassed at Will & Willow and at their predominantly White school about what Enchanted has done. Gabriella demands Enchanted leave Korey alone, which puts stress on their friendship until Gabriella disappears from Enchanted’s life. And when Enchanted tries to find Gabriella after leaving Korey, nobody believes Gabriella even exists.

The trust Enchanted and her family have for Korey in the beginning also stems from the celebrity status. Korey is a known figure, so why would he hurt Enchanted? Like the real R. Kelly, the fictional R&B singer had allegations against him in the media brought by women who had inappropriate relationships with him when underaged, but his success overpowered that news. People confuse celebrity for trust because these individuals are famous and they wouldn’t break the law with so many eyes on their every move, but the last several years have taught us that a lot of men kept secrets pre-#MeToo movement and when their secrets rose to the public surface, they were quashed.

The edge of eighteen is another issue explored in this book with Enchanted getting too excited to enter adulthood and make her dreams happen instantly. Usually adults learn quickly that dreams don’t happen in a snap, but teens desire that freedom on the highest level. And many girls find themselves in the grasp of men who promise them that freedom, and in this case, that dream if they engage in a sexual relationship with those men. They believe it’s their only hope while they also get their hearts involved, which is what Enchanted does when she feels like she has to protect Korey’s feelings especially when he’s dramatically displaying them and blaming the outbursts on his past.

Overall, this book has triggering elements but heightens the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse a girl can go through while in a relationship with a grown man.

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‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ Stars Karyn Parsons and Daphne Maxwell Reid Talk Writing Life

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air co-stars Karyn Parsons and Daphne Maxwell Reid spent Saturday talking about their literary ventures at the National Black Book Festival on Facebook Live.

Known for playing the iconic wealthy Black girl Hilary Banks on the hit ’90s NBC sitcom, Karyn has enjoyed a second career as a novelist and biographer managing a nonprofit geared toward bringing Black stories to life for kids. Daphne played the second rendition of Hilary’s mother, Vivian Banks, also known as Aunt Viv to star Will Smith’s character. She also mentioned her self-publishing experience.

Karyn, the founder and president of Sweet Blackberry Foundation focused on literary education, discussed her 2019 debut novel How High the Moon, a middle grade historical fiction novel set in the Jim Crow South.

“My mother grew up in Charleston, and she always talked about how happy her childhood was, how great everything was,” Karyn said during the panel. “Always a positive light. It took many years when it finally dawned on me the time that she grew up in and the location. So I started asking more questions.”

After pushing for more information, she said her mother grew up in a small town outside Charleston, South Carolina. The idea of the book came from her imagining if she grew up in the same location in the 1940s as a preteen Black girl. She added she was able to weave into the novel the true story of George Stinney Jr., a Black 14-year-old boy who was convicted and put to death in nearby Alcolu for allegedly murdering two White girls. He was exonerated in 2014, 70 years after his execution.

Along with the release of How High the Moon, Karyn also wrote a new children’s book titled Flying Free: How Bessie Coleman’s Dreams Took Flight with illustrations by R. Gregory Christie. It will be released in December.

The publisher of both books is Little, Brown Young Readers under the Hachette Book Group.

“I was just writing all day now that I didn’t have a show,” Karyn said about her writing hobby blossoming post-Fresh Prince. “I guess I was always writing, but I never thought of myself as a writer because I always thought of myself as an actor.” She added that a friend she had met after her famous TV role had become a literary agent and convinced her to write a novel to complement her work with Sweet Blackberry.

Her passion to bring Bessie Coleman, the first African American female licensed aviator, started with a Kickstarter project for an animated short that debuted last year at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York.

Daphne, who has self-published four photography books and a cookbook, said she’s working on her memoir.

“I’m still not a writer; I compile,” Daphne said. “What I started doing was taking photographs. I started this photographic journey, and from this journey, I was talking about the prints that I was making and what the relationship of the prints had to life. I was doing presentations before groups and talking a lot about the experience of taking the pictures. And finally I said, ‘I keep repeating the same thing over and over again,’ so let me write it down.”

Her photography books focus on doors from all over the world. “I was trying to encourage people to look at the details in their life. That was my main focus, so I wrote.”

Though she took the self-publishing route, Daphne said she may look for an agent for the memoir she’s working on.

The two actresses are not the only ones from the Fresh Prince world to become authors. Show producer and writer Maiya Williams, whose name also appears in the iconic green graffiti font in the intro, also became a middle grade author.

Karyn and Daphne can be seen on TV again with the Fresh Prince reunion airing Thanksgiving weekend on HBO Max.

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Gabrielle Union Adds ‘Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls’ to #BookToTV Roster

Actress and producer Gabrielle Union will be giving Anissa Gray’s debut novel The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls the TV treatment.

Entertainment news outlet Deadline reported this week that the novel has a first-look production deal with Sony Pictures Television and Gabrielle’s production company I’ll Have Another, a play off her 2017 memoir title We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True.

A first-look deal is a contractual agreement between a well-known actor/director/producer/writer and their production company and another production company, network, or studio that will have first rights to consider the project by financially supporting the project during development.

“Thank you @gabunion for wanting to bring the women of Care and Feeding to the screen,” Anissa wrote on her Instagram. “They could not have a better champion.”

Erika L. Johnson will be the main writer on the series and serve as executive producer. Her résumé includes book-to-TV show Queen Sugar based on the novel by Natalie Baszile.

https://twitter.com/ErikasWrite/status/1316781637871398913

I’ll Have Another has also acquired other bookish projects including The Idea of You by Robinne Lee and The Perfect Find by Tia Williams, which Deadline reported in June will be a Netflix film.

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Rachel True Shares Her Tarot Journey in New Guidebook and Memoir

Rachel True, the unforgettable star of teen witch cult classic The Craft and weed cult classic Half Baked, has released a tarot-reading guidebook accompanied with personal essays and tarot cards she helped design.

Appearing with another well-known hippie “mixed chick” actress Cree Summer, Rachel discussed her new book set True Heart Intuitive Tarot, Guidebook and Deck on Crowdcast with Los Angeles indie bookstore Book Soup. Approximately 450 attendees remained online throughout the hour-and-a-half webinar.

On her website, she describes the book and card set as “22 memoir essays from my Mixed Black Jewish chick’s mystic minded Hollywood life” that includes 22 major arcana cards. She said the set gives lessons to readers just learning about tarot or wanting to expand their knowledge of tarot.

A set of 78 cards, tarot involves the practice of reading tarot cards to gain insight into the past, present or future by asking questions then interpreting cards. Arcana is defined as “mysterious or specialized knowledge, language, or information accessible or possessed only by the initiate,” according to Merriam Webster. The major arcana cards in a tarot deck represents big themes and changes at play in your current, past and future life. The minor arcana cards represent the current day-to-day aspects that affect making decisions.

Wearing her signature turquoise butterfly necklace, Rachel described in the webinar how she became an occultist, in this case a tarot reader, as a child. She said between the ages of four and five, she would access her parents’ bookcase and pull out Beyond Good and Evil by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung.

“When a few years later, when one of my parents’ friends gave me a deck, I was like, ‘Oh, I know these. Wait, er,'” she said. “It kind of connected with me and related back to those two books because some of them, especially Man and His Symbols, had some images in black and white and some images that are on the tarot cards. And that’s how I really began getting into tarot.”

Rachel and Cree, who admitted she really got into tarot practice only in the past two years, said that tarot doesn’t align with any religion, so it shouldn’t be seen as devilish. Even if you get The Devil card, which could mean sins such as greed may be overtaking one’s attention.

“Black people and ethnic people quite often went to the soothsayer or the card reader in the neighborhood because they didn’t go to doctors and we didn’t have shrinks, so this is a long tradition here,” Rachel said, calling the practice a “shrink in a box and spiritual Xanax.”

Released Tuesday, the book is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt with illustrations by Stephanie Singleton. Rachel dedicated the book to Pamela Colman Smith, a key person in the early tarot movement when she illustrated the Rider-Waite tarot deck in 1909 for fellow British mystic and writer Arthur Edward Waite which became known as a standard. Rachel and Cree, who both identify as biracial calling their mothers dark-skinned Black women and their fathers White men, said Pamela’s story got buried in history as a biracial woman.

From 2002 to 2006, Rachel starred in the UPN sitcom Half & Half, which started streaming on Netflix on Thursday.

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How Sister Souljah’s ‘The Coldest Winter Ever’ Got Yandy Smith Her Break in Hip-Hop

Original Love & Hip Hop: New York cast member Yandy Smith-Harris says the Sister Souljah classic The Coldest Winter Ever contributed to her big break in the music business.

Yandy’s candid interview in the recent airing of TV One’s Uncensored revealed how she had worked since high school in The Gap’s retail management program, but once the program was eliminated, she found her way into the office of hip-hop management firm and record label Violator. She said she asked an assistant for an internship. After hearing no, she said she kept pushing for more information but noticed the assistant was absorbed in a book. And she knew taking note of the book could open doors.

“‘Hey, I just wanted to let you know I got that book, The Coldest Winter Ever,‘” Yandy said she recalled saying to the assistant the next day after borrowing money from her mother to buy the book. “‘I noticed you were reading it, and I’m like, ‘Girl, Midnight, he sound like he about to be a number.’ And she’s like, ‘Wait till you get to chapter six, girl. It gonna get crazy,’ or something like that. I don’t remember. You know I read chapter six in about a day or two.”

Once she finished that chapter, she called the assistant again and asked her to lunch, so they could discuss the book. The assistant instead invited her back to the office, where Yandy met veteran hip-hop manager and soon-to-be VH1’s Love & Hip Hop creator Mona Scott-Young. Mona interviewed then hired Yandy on the spot for an internship.

Yandy became “Mona’s assistant’s assistant’s intern” and eventually was elevated to junior manager touring the globe with famous artists like Missy Elliott. Years later, she’d be on Mona’s reality TV show about the women behind rising male rappers via the first version of Love & Hip Hop that’s now a highly rated franchise.

Sister Souljah

A hip-hop musician herself, Sister Souljah attracted attention when she spoke out on racism during the 1992 presidential election, the same year the Los Angeles uprising occurred putting a light on racial tensions. She took her words to books with 1999’s The Coldest Winter Ever, which became an instant best-seller, especially among the hip-hop industry and its fans. A movie based on the book has been up in the air since the early 2000s with actress/producer Jada Pinkett Smith being rumored to be involved.

Sister Souljah’s follow-ups include 2008’s Midnight: a Gangster, 2011’s Midnight and the Meaning, and 2013’s A Deeper Love Inside chronicling the lives of Winter Santiaga and her drug-dealing family and community. The long-awaited The Coldest Winter Ever sequel, Life After Death, is expected to drop in March 2021.

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Gold House Book Club Plans to Explore Works by Asian Writers

A nonprofit collective of Asian cultural leaders has launched a book club to study works exploring the Asian identity.

Los Angeles-based Gold House started a book club this month after a pilot event over the summer with award-winning author Amy Tan discussing her best-known novel The Joy Luck Club. The Facebook event featured the author accompanied by actresses Lauren Tom, Ming-Na Wen, Rosalind Chao, and Tamlyn Tomita who all brought the daughters of the book to life in the 1993 motion picture.

“This has been a year of reckoning for race in America, and many APIs have re-examined what it means to be Asian American,” said Gold House Book Club director Cindy Joung in the book club’s announcement. “We recognized this unique and galvanizing opportunity to create space for our community to explore the issues that inform our identity by leveraging the rich catalog of stories written by API authors. We’re excited to contribute these moments of discussion and introspection while highlighting our representation in the literary landscape.”

The book club will offer a series of curated book lists and virtual events with a focus to “help Asian Americans better understand their identity and culture in today’s political and social climate,” according to the announcement. The inaugural list features six books selected by an advisory council of Asian American writers including Amy Tan, activists, and academics. The book club is also highlighting children’s books to help spark conversations with families.

For October, the book club is reading Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas in honor of Filipino American History Month. The monthly theme is immigrant journeys.

For November, the book selection is Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong. The monthly theme is to unravel the definition of being Asian American.

For December, the book selection is How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee. The monthly theme is intersectional identities.

For January, the book selection is American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. The monthly theme is coming of age and coming of identity.

For February, the book selection is Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. The monthly theme is historical fiction about motherlands.

For March, the book selection is The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. The monthly theme is bridging generations and biculturalism.

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Author Couple Nicola and David Yoon Announce Forthcoming Imprint

Nicola and David Yoon. Publisher's Weekly.

The Sun Is Also a Star and Everything, Everything best-selling author Nicola Yoon will launch an imprint with her novelist husband.

With a 2022 debut date, Nicola and David Yoon, the best-selling author of Frankly in Love, plan to introduce Joy Revolution, an imprint dedicated to publishing young adult love stories written by and centering around people of color. Publishers Weekly broke the news on Thursday afternoon.

According to the literary publication, Joy Revolution will be overseen by Wendy Loggia, author and senior executive editor at Delacorte Press. The Yoons plan to partner with a Delacorte editor who has yet to be hired to acquire works for the imprint and shape its roster.

David Yoon’s sophomore young adult book, Super Fake Love Song, has a release date of Nov. 17. His adult debut, Version Zero, is coming out in May 2021.

Nicola’s books will continue to publish under Penguin Random House imprint Delacorte Press  and David’s under G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers.

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Book Review: ‘The Black Kids’ by Christina Hammonds Reed

The Black KidsThe Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed features a Black teen girl living in the wealthier outskirts of Los Angeles during the 1992 uprising, but the historical event’s impact falls between the cracks as the main character stays on the sidelines.

Ashley is a well-to-do Black girl living in the hills in an all-White neighborhood where even her own neighbors sit outside on the lawn as a pretend patrol. Ashley’s older sister Jo is considered rebellious and moves away to live in the Crenshaw and Koreatown area of the city, which eventually become hotspots during the unrest. Also, Lucia, Ashley’s nanny, is planning to move back to her native Guatemala with her family. And Ashley’s parents are off focused on their demanding careers. Then on April 29, 1992, the Rodney King verdict comes down. The unarmed Black man beaten by four LAPD officers the year prior doesn’t see justice as those officers are acquitted. Hours later, the city of LA is afire, dredging up a level of racial tension unseen in a generation. But Ashley still wants to fit in with her White friends at her White private school. She starts a rumor about Black male classmate with a promising basketball future being criminally involved in the uprising. Then all of a sudden she recognizes the microaggressions she had been dealing with for years from her White girlfriends. As she questions what’s happening to the city, her uncle drops off his daughter at Ashley’s home to stay focused on saving the family’s vacuum store threatened by the fires. How the uprising is affecting her family leads to even more revelations. She’s starting to see how race impacts her life. The tension pressurizes for days until it explodes at prom where Ashley experiences the ultimate betrayal from her so-called friends and realizes which friendships need to be killed and which ones need to be nurtured.

Ashley’s life and surroundings seem relatable today though it’s a story taking place almost 30 years ago. The author does a great job with framing the time element to make teen readers feel closer to the story.

The writing is flowery but gets convoluted with throwing the actual events of 1992 on the shelf in favor of character backstory every few pages. The amount of flashbacks bury the current moment. Though the flashbacks are interesting and intimate, they clog up the story development as it moves at a slow pace. With Ashley as the main character, she is also living the uprising precariously through other characters who seem to be more in the action or more affected like her sister Jo and her cousin Morgan. Showing the story from the characters who are in the heat of the uprising would’ve been more interesting. Ashley tends to be too aware where her voice comes off more adultish as she quickly picks up on the deep meaning of what’s going on around her. It’s noticeable via the audiobook where actress Kiersey Clemons gives the story a gloomy feel.

Overall, the synopsis feels a bit misleading with the focus on the 1992 LA uprising since the main character is physically removed from the situation therefore trying too hard emotionally to be involved with it. The more exciting story would be around the characters in the middle of the uprising. It’s a novel where you would want another character’s perspective or have the perspectives change every chapter.

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Renée Watson’s YA Novel ‘Piecing Me Together’ Gets Film Treatment

An award-winning young adult novel by Renée Watson has received the green light for a film adaptation.

Variety reports the novel will become a film produced by Warner Horizon Television with the author serving as a consultant.

Piecing Me Together follows an artistic Black teenager coming-of-age in Portland, Oregon, where she attends a predominantly White high school on scholarship and lives with her family in a low-income Black neighborhood.

Released in 2017, the novel is published under Bloomsbury Children’s Books. The next year, it won the John Newbery Medal, which is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association. Renée also became the 2018 Coretta Scott King Book Awards Author Winner.

The TV film project is in the early stages, according to Variety.

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‘Paper Gods’ Author Goldie Taylor Shares Inspiring Words After Book Picked Up for TV

The Daily Beast editor-at-large Goldie Taylor will have her 2018 best-selling sexy thriller Paper Gods turned into a series produced by John Legend.

John’s production company is teaming up with actress/producer Nia Long to bring the novel to the silver screen. Nia will also star in the ABC series.

Once the news broke, Goldie tweeted her gratitude about the project but also inspired writers to begin their careers.

Paper Gods surrounds the life of a fictional Atlanta mayor who seems to be living the perfect life with her Ivy League credentials, heart surgeon husband, and twin daughters. Then her world is turned upside down when her congressman friend is gunned down. In the congressman’s Bible, she finds a “paper god,” an origami marker that turns up at the sight of other murders across the city. She has to solve the mystery before her own potential murder.

The novel is published under the All Points Books and St. Martin’s Publishing Group imprints with Macmillan Publishers.

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Two Books at a Time: August 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

More book clubs are selecting a second book for the month as some continue their promise of reading works by authors of color in the wake of the latest anti-racism protests.

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

“Jones is unflinching in his exploration of vengeance and justice, the realities of living and growing up Native today, as well as community and where tradition fits into the modern world,” Amerie wrote on the book club’s Instagram profile. “At turns poignant and difficult to digest, I found the story brimming with despair, anger, and, despite everything, hope.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

Luster by Raven Leilani

Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh

Actress Emma Roberts’ book club with Karah Preiss have taken the two-book route this month for the first time.

“Loving #luster 💖 are you?” Emma shared on Instagram in a selfie with the book.

GMA BOOK CLUB

The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis

“It’s set at the New York Public Library and it’s about a family that lives in an apartment deep inside the building, an apartment that actually existed,” the author told Good Morning America. “It’s about the magic of the written word and the power of women’s voices, and it’s dedicated to some of my favorite people: librarians.”

KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Teen supermodel Kaia Gerber selects several books throughout the month, and she has chosen a summer book club favorite. She also hosted author Brit Bennett on Instagram Live.

NONAME BOOK CLUB

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison

Indie rapper Noname is celebrating the first anniversary of her book club that focuses on social science books for readers of color. This month the book club made its two selections: The Vanishing Half from Noname and Playing in the Dark as the homie pick.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

“It explains why we are where we are in terms of racial injustice and inequality,” Oprah said on her book club website, “and it show us how to rebuild a world in which all are truly equal and free.”

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

The Comeback by Ella Berman

Here For It by R. Eric Thomas

Jenna Bush Hager, Today Show correspondent and presidential daughter, selected two books for August for the first time in the 2-year-old book club’s history.

“This beautifully written and compulsively readable book broke me from my pandemic blockage,” she said of The Comeback on Instagram.

Jenna partnered with Noelle Santos, the owner of The Bronx-based indie bookstore The Lit Bar, to pick Here For It.

“I just loved how she was bringing a new face to literature and I loved her passion for it,” Jenna said about Noelle in Today.

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

Recently Emmy-nominated producer for the Hulu miniseries based on the novel Little Fires Everywhere, Reese Witherspoon named the latest short story collection by Edwidge Danticat as the monthly pick for her book club.

“#EverythingInside is a collection of short stories anchored in Haitian culture about love, love loss and love of country,” the book club posted on Instagram. “#EdwidgeDanticat encourages you to find rays of hope in each story and to take moments in between to let the narratives sink in.⁠”

Reese’s Book Club also announced last week its young adult version, which chose You Should See Me in a Crown as its inaugural selection. Now, the book club will choose a novel for adult readers and another novel for the YA audience each month.

“I’ve been reading so many incredible, diverse stories in the YA genre and can’t wait to share them with you each month as an additional pick,” Reese said in the announcement of Reese’s Book Club YA.

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what's lit

Teen Magazine Posts Tweet Tagging Wrong Black YA Author

A magazine for teen girls mistakenly confused two Black young adult authors in a tweet that took six hours to come down.

Middle grade author Karen Strong chronicled the Twitter debacle on Sunday after noticing Girls’ Life Magazine had tweeted about a giveaway of the YA best-seller A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow. Except the social media team behind the magazine’s account tagged the author as Dhonielle Clayton, also a well-known YA author.

Dhonielle tweeted that she didn’t write the fantasy YA novel. Bethany quote-tweeted the tweet.

The magazine deleted the original tweet and soon put out a statement on the mishap.

Soon after the apology, the magazine posted a tweet similar to the original one with correcting the author’s name.

The mistake still resonated on book Twitter, especially among Black women writers, who said it’s another example of legitimate media outlets not tagging the correct Black person, in this case the author as Bethany C. Morrow whose name is on the cover.

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what's lit

‘The Claudia Kishi Club’ Shows Love to Beloved ‘Baby-sitters Club’ Member

Asian American creatives describe how Claudia Kishi of The Baby-sitters Club series defined their upbringings in the 1990s.

The companion documentary The Claudia Kishi Club from director Sue Ding premiered Friday on Netflix, a week after the latest rendition of The Baby-sitters Club topped the viewing list.

Birthed in 1986 by Ann M. Martin, The Babysitters Club followed five middle schoolers then eventually seven who start their babysitting business in the fictional Stoneybrook, Connecticut as they deal with family issues, boy issues, and school issues. Of the original four is Claudia Kishi, who is Japanese American yet broke the model minority myth by failing her classes and prioritizing her art and fashion.

This is the sentiment of the creatives who participated in the 17-minute documentary. Those creatives include Naia Cucukov, executive producer on The Baby-Sitters Club series and executive vice president of development and production at Walden Media, the series’ production company; Yumi Sakugawa, comic artist; Sarah Kuhn, author of the Heroine Complex series featuring Asian American superheroes; C.B. Lee, author of the middle grade Sidekick Squad series; Gale Galligan, the illustrator behind The Baby-sitters Club graphic novels; and Phil Yu, the creator of the Angry Asian Man blog.

Claudia Kishi has been played by Jeni F. Winslow for the 1990 TV series that aired on HBO, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon; Tricia Joe for the 1995 motion picture; and now Momona Tamada for the new Netflix series.

In the 1980s and 1990s, girls of color looked for the girls of color that represented them the most on TV, films, and books. Claudia became the literary heroine to look up to for Asian American girls.

“Usually the Asian American character or the woman of color character is the one you sorta feel you have to be,” said Sarah Kuhn. “Like if you’re playing Harry Potter, then you have to be Cho Chang where I feel like Claudia is the one everyone seems to want to be.”

Also the limited representation, or faulty representation, made a lot of girls of color question their visibility.

“You don’t see mirrors of yourself, thinking I’m broken or I’m not normal or I don’t exist. These thoughts are kinda subconscious,” said C.B. Lee. They’re pervasive, especially when you go on thinking that the world—or when you perceive the world as a world without you in it.”

The faulty representation also came from the lack of women of color being in charge of these media projects with mostly White women controlling the narrative.

“There’s definitely that quality of othering for sure where you know a lot of these stories are being told from the perspectives of young White girls,” said Gale Galligan. “In terms of racial representation—how do I put this?—I noticed that most of the people were White.”

The Baby-sitters Club famously switched perspectives between the seven members by telling their backgrounds in all of their books. With her Japanese heritage, Claudia is always described by her Asian features, which the creatives in the documentary found as offensive language that struck a chord.

“They somewhat problematically described her as having ‘almond-shaped eyes’ and ‘jet-black hair’ and ‘super-beautiful skin’ though she eats tons of junk food,” said Yumi Sakugawa.

The members include Kristy Thomas, the bossy president and founder; Claudia the vice president; Mary Anne Spier, the shy secretary; Anastasia “Stacey” McGill, the fun New York City girl and treasurer; Dawn Schafer, the fun California girl and alternate officer; Mallory Pike, the writer and junior officer; and Jessica “Jessi” Ramsey, the ballerina and junior officer.

For redheads, Mallory is the picture of representation as Jessi is for Black girls. Mallory and Jessi were introduced into the club later into the series as eleven-year-olds, so they have limited appearances in the Netflix show that just focuses on the original members.

Claudia is the only one who owns a landline, so the meetings take place in her bedroom where the girls exchange candy and other junk food that Claudia provides. Along with being the artsy candy lover, she is a horrible student always competing with older sister, Janine, who exceeds in school and speaks Japanese.

Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World, wrote the sixth episode titled “Claudia and Mean Janine,” also the title of the seventh book in the series published in 1988.

The author and now TV writer will be a part of “A Celebration of Claudia Kishi” along with Momona Tamada, Naia Cucukov; Heather Jack, director of episode “Dawn and the Impossible Three,” and The Claudia Kishi Club director Sue Ding. Hosted by Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, Gold House, Japanese American National Museum, and Netflix, the webinar will be held Monday, July 13 at 5 p.m. PST.

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what's lit

Beach Reads, Memoirs Dominate the Summer: July 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

With the impact of the anti-Black racism protests last month, some of the celebrity-founded book clubs kept the focus on Black stories as others chose the top books of the summer including reads perfect for the beach (if it’s open) and texts exploring gender and sexual identity.

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

The debut novel features a Palestinian American girl who is yelled at by a group of men for showing her legs on a trip to Bethlehem. The experience eventually allows her to tell her mother she’s queer as she moves to different spaces to find her true self.

“I rooted for her and hurt for her as she tried to find her way through one bad decision after another,” Amerie wrote on Instagram. “The main character, whose name is never revealed, stayed with me long after I closed the book, as did her hope for yet another shot at love.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

The Dragons, The Giant, The Women: A Memoir by Wayétu Moore

The author of She Would Be King and founder of nonprofit One Moore Book has a new memoir about her experience living through the civil war in Liberia. At five years old, she’s waiting to be reunited with her mother, who’s studying in New York, then her world is turned upside down with the war. Her family flees on foot from their home and get smuggled across the border of Sierra Leone, where they get a chance to fly to the U.S.

Belletrist, founded by actress Emma Roberts and producer Karah Preiss, also chose the Black woman-owned Semicolon Bookstore in Chicago as its indie bookstore of the month.

GMA BOOK CLUB

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

The Crazy Rich Asians series creator’s new book takes place on the island of Capri with a half-Chinese, half-White woman trying to fall for the well-off White man her family likes while avoiding another man, who is Chinese, she keeps suppressing her feelings for.

“It’s a summer escape full of travel, food, fun and fashion,” Kevin told Good Morning America. “The outrageous characters will make your crazy families seem almost normal.”

KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB

Darling Days: A Memoir by iO Tillett Wright

Born female, the author comes of age in downtown New York with a young widowed mother and adopts the persona of a boy amid the 1980s “intersection of punk, poverty, heroin, and art.”
“In talking to him about his experience publishing this book, he taught me that writers who happen to be queer too often are dismissed as ‘queer writers’ and their books, regardless of the topics they cover, end up exclusively stocked on ‘LGBT author’ shelves,” Kaia wrote in an Instagram post. “Darling Days goes far beyond this—it is a story about neglect, creativity, internalized homophobia, and the beauty you can make out of pain. it is a New York story of growing up and out of the life you are born into.” 

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith

Rapper Noname picks Are Prisons Obsolete?, a book that calls for the abolition of prisons and how it will benefit society as a whole. The homie pick, Captive Genders, comes from Che Gossett. It studies trans and gender-queer people in prison with the most recent version including a foreword from CeCe MacDonald, who was imprisoned for killing a transphobic attacker, and an essay by Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army soldier who transitioned amid getting sentenced for espionage.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

This novel tells the story of a church deacon who shoots the neighborhood drug dealer point blank range in front of the community and the aftermath.

“In naming Deacon King Kong my latest Oprah’s Book Club selection, I am hoping readers will find in it what I did: sorrow, joy, resilience, humanity, and an understanding that while we struggle with pain and trauma, we can find shelter in one another—just as the characters in the Cause housing project in McBride’s Brooklyn do,” Oprah wrote in the Instagram announcement. 

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan

Jenna Bush Hager’s book club via her Today Show gig is one of the hottest books of the season. The main character is a new mother who hires a college senior as a baby-sitter. As they grow close, the baby-sitter’s relationship with the mother’s father-in-law leads to a betrayal.

“I wanted to explore American life in the pre-Trump years and sort of how we got here,” the author said in an article introducing the book club pick. “The book very much digs into the gig economy, the shrinking safety net and the notion that privilege takes many different forms.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

After the book club delayed its selection announcement in June, actress Reese Witherspoon directed her book club to make two selections—a first to recognize current events. Both books will be read over June and July.

“Elevating women’s stories is at the core of Reese’s Book Club. I love how this community champions the narrative for women and we are just getting started,” the book club placed in a graphic on Instagram. “Unity and understanding through the lens of storytelling is how we will continue these meaningful conversations.”

Readers expressed their disappointment in the comments over the book club adding a book by a Black woman author last minute and not pushing back the book by a White woman author to another month.

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what's lit

‘The Vanishing Half’ Highlights Racial Passing Along with Previous Well-Known Novels

Perched on The New York Times Best Sellers list for the past four weeks with an HBO miniseries in the works, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is the anti-racism novel we need right now as the country grips with another tide of facing race relations.

The Vanishing Half, a novel in the 350-page range in the hardcover format, follows light-skinned Black twin sisters as they run away from their unique Louisiana town with only people of their complexions to New Orleans in the 1950s. As they adjust to their new lives, one twin disappears without a trace to pass as White to marry her White boss while the other one returns home after her abusive marriage to a dark-skinned Black man.

The colorism conversation when it comes to “passing”—when someone decides to disguise themselves in another race or ethnicity for a better quality of life—has been seen in previous books from decades prior when the act was practiced more often.

Passing was more common in the early 20th century amid the Great Migration and European immigration defining the big cities. Mostly when passing is mentioned, it’s in reference to Blacks with complexions light enough to pass as White, but European immigrants also practiced this with some considered to have darker skin like Italians passing for Jews, Jews passing for Gentiles, Poles passing for Germans, and Whites passing for Blacks, according to Neither Black Nor White Yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature by Werner Sollors.

At the end of The Vanishing Half, Brit says she was inspired by Imitation of Life, more the 1959 film rather than the 1933 novel it was based on by White Jewish author Fannie Hurst, who came under fire at the time for stereotypical presentations of the Black mother character as a Mammy figure and her light-skinned daughter as a tragic mulatta passing as White. Culturally, it’s become a cinematic classic with Black mothers using the film as a cautionary tale for their Black daughters to not neglect their matriarchs under any circumstances, especially for White privilege.

During the Harlem Renaissance, Fannie also was a secretary for now-celebrated author Zora Neale Hurston while famed poet Langston Hughes created a satire play of Imitation of Life that reversed the roles with a Black family and a White maid. For insight on the tumultuous friendship of Zora and Langston mainly due to their relationships with others in the movement and their disagreements about their plays, check out Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal by Yuval Taylor.

The practice of passing has left holes in Black families since the end of slavery, and it’s a topic that’s still relevant today as people may or may not defend their ethnicities based on their looks. Nella Larsen, a biracial author from the Harlem Renaissance wrote a 1929 novel called Passing, a tale about two Black childhood friends in 1920s New York who are both light-skinned enough to pass as White. One woman does pass while the other stays in the Black community, similar to The Vanishing Half. Starring actresses Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga, Passing will be a film set for release this year, according to IMDb.

Nella, a daughter of a Danish woman and a Danish West Indian man, was considered a rising star in the Harlem Renaissance with Passing and her only other novel Quicksand. After becoming the first Black woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship that she used for an artistic journey through Europe, she returned to New York and her nursing career, shedding her novelist life. With growing up in an all-White family after her father died and her mother remarried, her novels are considered semi-autobiographical.

The Passing film’s directors, Deborah Riley Draper and Jennifer Galvin, are also developing a TV series on the book described as “Downton Abbey meets Get Out.” And with The Vanishing Half also being turned into a miniseries for TV, stories on the history of racial passing, particularly for Black women, may gain more attention.

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music reviews what's lit

Halsey’s Poems May Dive Deeper into Her Biracial Identity

2019 AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS.® - Hosted by Ciara and broadcasting live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, Nov. 24 at 8:00 p.m. EST, on ABC. (ABC/Image Group LA) HALSEY

Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Halsey announced she will have a poetry book come out later this year called I Would Leave Me If I Could. With the poems hitting shelves on Nov. 10, will it touch on race and her fight to be understood as a biracial woman?

Halsey’s poetry collection will explore “longing, love, and the nuances of bipolar disorder.” Publisher Simon & Schuster describes the book as:

In this debut collection, Halsey bares her soul. Bringing the same artistry found in her lyrics, Halsey’s poems delve into the highs and lows of doomed relationships, family ties, sexuality, and mental illness. More hand grenades than confessions, these autobiographical poems explore and dismantle conventional notions of what it means to be a feminist in search of power.

The “family ties” part looks promising for Halsey to share her story on being half-Black and half-White and the criticisms she received about her racial identity while famous.

In an August 2017 Playboy interview, Halsey said she was “White-passing” and that she has “never tried to control anything about black culture.” At first, it sounded like a Rachel Dolezal situation until she cleared up that her father is Black and her mother is White and that her light complexion on first impression does not show her Blackness.

After she emphasized her biracial identity, she complained about hotels in 2018 for having toiletries that “entirely alienates people of color.” She goes on to say she “can’t use this perfumed watered down white people shampoo.” The hair care industry still marks products for “normal hair,” meaning it’s designed for the hair of most White people, for example.

She quickly corrected those who said she is White and didn’t believe racism exists in the hotel toiletry business with clarifying again that she is biracial. Months later, she revealed a photo of herself in her natural curls, where again she faced attacks from fans who didn’t know her biracial identity.

Over the past few weeks, Halsey has been sharing content surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement and the latest protests by supporting Black artists and activists on Twitter and Instagram. She even participated in a protest in Los Angeles which she shares in a post on June 1 where she treated protestors hit with rubber bullets and tear gas with a massive first aid kit. The post has 1.5 million likes.

Halsey joins other singer-poets such as Jhené Aiko, the author of the poetry collection 2Fish, and Lana Del Rey, who plans to release her poetry collection and spoken word album Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass later this year.

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Literary Agents Who Accused Another of Racist Act Start Legal Defense Fund

Photo by Life Matters from Pexels

Days after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, the city exploded into protests. An argument on whether or not to call the police when civil unrest becomes destructive exploded between literary agents and now has led to legal action.

Red Sofa Literary Agency owner Dawn Frederick tweeted May 28 on a now-deleted Twitter account that she called police on alleged looters during a night of unrest in the Minneapolis area.

Another literary agent Beth Phelan, who works with the Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency and the Twitter pitch party #DVpit creator, tweeted that Dawn’s actions were “disingenuous and gross.” As agents began to quit from Red Sofa Literary, the business was mentioned throughout book Twitter with the allegations by other literary agents, authors, and prospective authors. Now those agents who helped those tweets go viral have received cease-and-desist letters.

Beth; Laura Zats, founder and literary agent of Headwater Literary Management and co-host of the award-winning Print Run podcast; Kelly Van Sant, a former Red Sofa Literary agent who resigned over Twitter; and Isabel Sterling, young adult author of These Witches Don’t Burn and the upcoming The Coldest Touch, said they all received cease-and-desist letters from Dawn’s defamation specialist lawyer, Marshall H. Tanick of the Minneapolis firm Meyer Njus Tanick.

From the letter posted on Twitter by Laura, Dawn is requesting the group stop accusing her of racist acts and being racist, remove all tweets related to the accusations, and “prepare and post a corrected statement indicating that she did not make any racist or other improper statements, casting aspersion on her, her character, or her reputation.” Laura added in a subtweet that Dawn had told her to “back down” when an agent threatened legal action against her over sharing a link.

The group started “A Bookish Legal Defense Fund” GoFundMe page to pay for their legal costs and wrote their own letter. Their lawyer is J. Remy Green, a partner with New York firm Cohen & Green, who also specializes in defamation. The fund has $15,000 out of its $75,000 goal with over 400 donors as of June 18, a week after the fund was created.

The definitions between protestors, rioters, and looters and the overall situation have been disputed like in previous periods of civil unrest. YA author Kimberly Jones had a viral video interview earlier this month where she explains the reasoning behind the differences of who’s participating in the unrest and why they’re participating.

Dawn posted an apology in a letter on Red Sofa Literary’s homepage on May 30.

I’m deeply sorry for anyone I hurt with this careless action.

 

The authors and agents who may now question whether or not we share the same ideals have every right to feel this way. My actions were tone-deaf and the product of my own privilege—even if they were unintentionally so.

Book Twitter kept buzzing about the sincerity of the apology days later while authors like Foz Meadows who worked with Red Sofa Literary in the past shared their issues with Dawn and the agency. Dawn is closed to queries and three other agents still work at the agency.

The social media battle happening across industries and circles around the civil unrest has led to plenty of cancel culture, but book Twitter is moving fast with its cancellations.

Another literary agent, Marisa Corvisiero of Corvisiero Literary Agency, also received backlash for representing The Maze Runner author James Dashner, who had been accused of sexual misconduct and was dropped by his literary agent at the time in 2018. After agents also began resigning over Twitter, Marisa let go of all her agents, according to an internal email retained by Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America’s Writers Beware.

Last week, the National Book Critics Circle lost more than half of its 24-member board after 15 members resigned over drafting a statement in support of Black Lives Matter. One board member, Carlin Romano, called “the full benefits of white supremacy and institutional racism” and “white gatekeeping had been working to stifle black voices at every level of our industry,” as the statement read, “absolute nonsense,” according to photo screenshots from Hope Wabuke, a Ugandan-American author who suggested making the statement and eventually stepped down from the board.

The National Book Critics Circle wrote in a statement that it would delay its awards to focus on diversity efforts.

“The NBCC Board is committed to reimagining the entire organization and restructuring in a way that modernizes the NBCC and demonstrates a clear commitment to racial and social justice. We will not move forward as an organization unless we have met the ideals we aspire to.”