Hopeton Hay Podcasts: Recent Episodes
Hopeton Hay
Hopeton Hay Podcasts is the founder, producer, and host of Diverse Voices Book Review (formerly known as KAZI Book Review) which features interviews with a wide range of culturally diverse authors of recently published fiction and nonfiction, and Economic Perspectives, an audio interview show featuring discussions on finance, economic, and small businesses and policies.
Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed poet Amanda Johnston, author of the poetry collection ANOTHER WAY TO SAY ENTER. She is a writer, artist, and the 2024 Texas Poet Laureate. Born in East St. Louis, IL, and raised in Austin, TX, she began writing poetry while living in Kentucky. Her writing is published widely, and she has presented at numerous literary conferences and events. Johnston is also founder of Torch Literary Arts, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization established to publish and promote creative writing by Black women.
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed James Lee Burke, author of FLAGS ON THE BAYOU. Set in Civil War era Louisiana, Burke’s novel provides a kaleidoscope of narrators that reveals the violence, pain, suffering, conflict, and beliefs that haunt the characters in this epic story. Be sure to click on the hotlink of James Lee Burke to learn more about the novel and author.
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In a two-part show, Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay first interviews Richard Z. Santos, editor of A NIGHT OF SCREENS: Latino Horror Stories, and Ruben Degollado, who contributed the story Migrants to the collection. In part two of the show, he interviewed Flor Salcedo, who authored the story La Llorona Happenings for the collection. The horror stories—and four poems—contains a wide range of styles, themes and authors. Creepy creatures roam the pages, including La Llorona and the Chupacabras in fresh takes on Latin American lore, as well as ghosts, zombies and shadow selves.
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Kevin Strait and Kinshasha Holman Conwill, co-editors of AFROFUTURISM: A History of Black Futures. The book is based on the exhibition of the same name at the National Museum for African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. The exhibition, according to its web site “immerses visitors in a conversation that reimagines, reinterprets and reclaims the past and present for a more empowering future for African Americans.”
Kevin Strait is a museum curator who has worked on the permanent exhibitions "Musical Crossroads" and the "Power of Place,” as well as leading the Afrofuturism exhibition.
Kinshasha Holman Conwill is deputy director emerita of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed S.A. Cosby, author of the novel ALL THE SINNERS BLEED, published June 2023. In the novel, the first Black sheriff of a small town in Virginia responds to a school shooting but discovers there are even more sinister town secrets and a serial killer on the loose. Cosby said in our interview that ALL THE SINNERS BLEED was his attempt to talk about justice, race, and violence in the face of evil, and faith. With faith, he wanted to explore how the Sheriff, who is agnostic, and his father, who is a church going Christian, could have a strong relationship without being dismissive of each other despite their different opinions on faith. Click the book title hot link for ALL THE SINNERS BLEED web page. Please subscribe to Hopeton Hay Podcasts on your podcast streaming service of your choice.
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Tananarive Due, author of THE WISHING POOL And Other Stories (April 2023). Due's second collection of stories includes offerings of horror, science fiction, and suspense. In the interview Due discussed how she focuses on scaring herself when writing her stories. We also conversed about how the roots of many of her stories come from personal or family experiences.
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Hannah Gabel, Literary Director of the Texas Book Festival (TBF). Gabel, who joined TBF in March of 2023, discussed the process for selecting authors for the festival which is being held November 11 -12. She also shared some of her favorite books including BABEL by R. F. Kuong and THE VIOLIN CONSPIRACY by Brendan Slocumb, and we also talked about her popular Instagram account bookmarkparty.
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Ivy Pochoda, author of the new novel SING HER DOWN. As described on her web site, "SING HER DOWN is a spellbinding thriller setting two indelible women on a path to certain destruction and an epic, stunning showdown."
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Lan Samanatha Chang, author of the novel THE FAMILY CHAO. THE FAMILY CHAO is a drama about a Chinese American family in the Midwest, and the conflict between the eldest son and the father over inheritance and control of the family restaurant. Chang said the novel was inspired in part by the classic late nineteenth century novel THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Fyodor Dostoyevski and her experiences growing up in a Chinese American family in Wisconsin.
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Crime Fictions Picks of the Month hosts Hopeton Hay, Scott Montgomery, Molly Odintz, and Amanda Moore discussed their favorite recently released favorite crime fiction ANYWHERE YOU RUN by Wanda Morris, SOUTH CENTRAL NOIR edited by Gary Phillips, and THE FAMILY GAME by Catherine Steadman.
Diverse Voices Book Review contributor Amanda Moore interviewed Yasmin Angoe, author of They Come at Knight, the second installment in the Nena Knight series about an intrepid female assassin who will stop at nothing to protect her family. Follow Yasmin on Twitter at @YasAWriter, on Instagram at @author_yas, and Facebook under Yasmin Angoe Author.
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Peniel E. Joseph, author of THE THIRD RECONSTRUCTION. In THE THIRD RECONSTRUCTION Joseph weaves in his personal experiences growing up in segregated neighborhood of New York City with three critical periods in history in American history he describes as reconstruction periods: 1865-1898, 1954-1968, and 2008 to the present. In the book he writes, “There is the America that we might call reconstructionist, home to champions of racial democracy, and there is the America that we might call redemptionist, a country that papers over racial, class, and gender hierarchies through an allegiance to white supremacy. Since the nation’s birth, its racial politics have been shaped by an ongoing battle between reconstructionist America and redemptionist America.”
Peniel Joseph’s web site is https://penielejoseph.wordpress.com/.
Twitter -@PenielJoseph
Instagram - @dr.penieljoseph
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Diverse Voices Book Review contributor Amanda Moore interviewed Margaret A. Burnham, author of BY HANDS NOW KNOWN. In the book, Burnham, director of Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, challenges our understanding of the Jim Crow era by exploring the relationship between formal law and background legal norms in a series of harrowing cases from 1920 to 1960.
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Host Hopeton Hay interviewed Gary Phillips, editor of the short story collection SOUTH CENTRAL NOIR. In his introduction to the collection, Phillips wrote: "...The settings herein reflect South Central today or chronicle its colorful past, such as the days of the jazz joints along Central Avenue . . . From South Park to East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, from the borderlands of Watts to the one-time Southern Pacific railroad tracks paralleling Slauson Avenue, take a tour of a section of Los Angeles that may be unfamiliar to you but you will get to know, at least a little, by the time you finish reading this entertaining and engaging anthology.”
Gary Phillips web site is Gary Phillips (gdphillips.com).
Diverse Voices Book Review
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After a three-month hiatus for Crime Fiction Picks of the Month, host Hopeton Hay and Crime Fiction Picks cohosts Scott Montgomery, Molly Odintz, and Amanda Moore opened the podcast discussing how they came together to edit or contribute stories to AUSTIN NOIR, a short story collection being published in May 2023 by Akashic Books. The rest of the show topics with time stamps were as follows:
At the 8:07 mark they discussed their summer crime fiction pick, THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME by Gabino Iglesias,].
At the 17:58 they discussed their September crime fiction picks: Scott picked HELL AND BACK by Craig Johnson, Molly selected KILLERS OF A CERTAIN AGE by Deanna Raybourn, Amanda chose THEY COME AT KNIGHT by Yasmin Angoe, and Hopeton picked VALLEY OF SHADOWS by Rudy Ruiz
At the 24:28 they discussed their latest projects.
Follow the Crime Fiction Picks of the Month hosts on Twitter:
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Molly- @mollsotov89
Amanda - @amoorebooks
Connect with Scott on Facebook and be sure to check out CrimeReads where Molly serves as senior editor.
Host Hopeton Hay interviewed Gabino Iglesias, author of THE DEVIL TAES YOU HOME. Published by Muholland Books, here is a description of the plot: "Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico." To read the full description of the book click here.
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Host Hopeton Hay interviewed Rudy Ruiz, author of the novel Valley of Shadows. "...Through luminous prose and soul-searching reflections, Rudy Ruiz transports readers to a distant time and a remote place where the immortal forces of good and evil dance amidst the shadows of magic and mountains..." More information on the novel is available at VALLEY OF SHADOWS | Rudy Ruiz.
Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Charlise Lyles, author of DO I DARE DISTURB THE UNIVERSE? Charlise’s memoir covers her rise from a struggling student to winning a scholarship to a prestigious private school through the lens of race, family, and poverty from 1968 to 1977. It reveals the role her father, though absent, played in inspiring her love of literature, the turbulent racial climate of Cleveland, and her coming of age. You can purchase the book at https://www.grayco.com/product/do-i-dare-disturb-the-universe/ or https://www.amazon.com/Do-Dare-Disturb-Universe-Projects/dp/159851041X#:~:text=A%20memoir%20of%20race%20and,riots%20and%20a%20neighborhood%20murder.
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Terry Dawson, author of THE AFTER: Poems Only A Planet Could Love. “Dawson's poems explore the beauty and fragility of our planet and remind us of our responsibility to protect it.”
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On Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Mark Pryor, author of DIE AROUND SUNDOWN. In the novel, French Police detective Henri Lefort is given five days by the Germans to solve the murder, in the Louvre Museum, of one of their own. More information on the book is available on Pryor’s web site, markpryorbooks.com/books.
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Host Hopeton Hay interviewed Meng Jin, author of the short story collection SELF-PORTRAIT WITH GHOST. From the publishers web page: “Written during the turbulent years of the Trump administration and the first year of the pandemic, these stories explore intimacy and isolation, coming-of-age and coming to terms with the repercussions of past mistakes, fraying relationships and surprising moments of connection. Moving between San Francisco and China, and from unsparing realism to genre-bending delight, Self-Portrait with Ghost considers what it means to live in an age of heightened self-consciousness, seemingly endless access to knowledge, and little actual power.”. More information on SELF-PORTRAIT WITH GHOST is available at https://www.harpercollins.com/products/self-portrait-with-ghost-meng-jin?variant=39727621308450.
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Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Salar Abdoh, author of the novel OUT OF MESOPOTAMIA. “Informed by firsthand experience on the battlefronts of Iraq and Syria, Abdoh captures the horror, confusion, and absurdity of combat from a seldom-glimpsed perspective that expands our understanding of the war novel.” More information on the book is available at http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/out-of-mesopotamia/.
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Hosts Maya Hay, Alex Winston and Alexis Winston interview Kelis Rowe, author of FINDING JUPITER. The novel “is a timeless love story set in Memphis, Tennessee where two hearts are threatened to be torn apart by old family secrets.” Kelis Rowe writes sweeping classic teen romance novels from Black teen points of view. FINDING JUPITER was launched out of Black Pearl Books in Austin, TX on May 31, 2022. Her web site is https://www.kelisrowe.com/.
Host Hopeton Hay interviewed Meg Gardiner, co-author of HEAT 2. “Michael Mann, four-time-Oscar-nominated writer-director of The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider, Ali, Miami Vice, Collateral, and Heat teams up with Edgar Award-winning author Meg Gardiner to deliver Mann’s first novel, an explosive return to the universe and characters of his classic crime film-with an all-new story unfolding in the years before and after the iconic movie.” More information on the novel is available at http://meggardiner.com/books/heat-2/.
Host Hopeton Hay interviewed Denise Mina, author of the crime novel CONFIDENCE. FROM DENISE MINA’S WEB SITE DESCRIPTION OF THE NOVEL: “When amateur film-maker Lisa Lee vanishes from a Scottish seaside town, journalists Anna and Fin find themselves at the centre of an internet frenzy to find her…On a thrilling chase across Europe to discover what happened to Lisa, Anna and Fin are caught up in a world of international art smuggling, billionaire con artists and religious zealotry.” Read more at http://www.denisemina.com/books.
On the second episode of the podcast of Travis County Commissioner for Precinct One Jeffrey Travillion, Tip of the Iceberg, hosted by Hopeton Hay, the focus was on COVID initiatives for Travis County, and health services available east of I-35. The guest was JodyAnn McIntosh, who formerly served as a FUSE Executive Fellow within Travis County Health and Human Services. In this role, Jody focused on equitable COVID-19 vaccine delivery focusing on black and brown residents.
Host Hopeton Hay interviews Jordan Calhoun, author of PICCOLO IS BLACK: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Pop Culture. Jordan Calhoun is Editor in Chief at Lifehacker and The Takeout, and author of Piccolo Is Black: A Memoir of Race, Religion, and Pop Culture. His newsletter in The Atlantic, Humans Being, searches for lessons in the most popular movies, books, TV shows, and video games. Find him on Twitter @JordanMCalhoun. His web site is https://jordanmcalhoun.com/.
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Host Hopeton Hay discussed how peanuts developed into a cash crop and impacted slavery in colonial Senegal in his interview with Jori Lewis, author of SLAVES FOR PEANUTS: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History. Jori Lewis is an award–winning journalist who writes about agriculture and the environment. Her web site is https://www.jorilewis.com/.
Host Hopeton Hay discusses the new novel AFTER THE LIGHTS GO OUT (published June 2022) with author John Vercher. AFTER THE LIGHTS GO OUT is “a harrowing and spellbinding story about family, the complications of mixed-race relationships, misplaced loyalties, and the price athletes pay to entertain.” Learn more about the book and author at https://www.johnvercherauthor.com
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Host Hopeton Hay discusses the new book SOMEWHERE WE ARE HUMAN: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings with its co-editor Reyna Grande (Sonia Guiñansaca also co-edited). The book is a unique collection of poems, and artwork by forty-one migrants, refugees, and Dreamers—including award-winning writers, artists, and activists—that illuminate what it is like living undocumented today. More information on the book is available at http://reynagrande.com/human/.
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In his interview with acclaimed author Don Lee, host Hopeton Hay discussed the inspiration for his short collection THE PARTITION. The collection explores Asian American identity in settings across the U.S. and Asia. Learn more about THE PARTITION at http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/the-partition/. Host Hopeton Hay cab be contacted at hbh@diversevoicesbookreview.com.
Host Hopeton Hay interviews award winning author Elizabeth Nunez about her latest novel NOW LILA KNOWS. In NOW LILA KNOW Caribbean professor Lila Bonnard arrives in Vermont for a short-term teaching position and is forced to confront the terrible legacy of American (in)justice. In the novel, Lila says “I know the game they're playing…I suspect white America is more comfortable with us, foreign blacks, with you, African Americans, they have a constant reminder of America's original sin.”
More information on NOW LILA KNOWS is available at http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/now-lila-knows/. Hopeton can be reached at hbh@diversevoicesbookreview.com.
Host Hopeton Hay discusses the SOUTHERNIZATION OF AMERICA: Democracy in the Balance with authors Frye Gaillard and Cynthia Tucker. In the interview they discussed how they went from the optimism of the civil rights movement to their deep concerns with the political trends of today. Also they revealed how the 1974 book, THE AMERICANIZATION OF DIXIE by John Eggerton was a source of inspiration for their book. We also discussed how former House Speaker Newt Gingrich discouraged bipartisanship and trained Republicans to use language that demonized Democrats. More information on the book is available at http://www.newsouthbooks.com/bkpgs/detailtitle.php?isbn_solid=158838456X.
My guest is James Lee Burke, author of the novel EVERY CLOAK ROLLED IN BLOOD. The novel is described on his web site as “IN HIS MOST AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL TO DATE, JAMES LEE BURKE CONTINUES THE EPIC HOLLAND FAMILY SAGA WITH A WRITER GRIEVING THE DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER WHILE BATTLING EARTHLY AND SUPERNATURAL OUTLAWS.” More information on his book is available at https://www.jamesleeburke.com/books/every-cloak-rolled-in-blood/.
Hopeton Hay, Host and Producer
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My partners in crime, Austin writer Amanda Moore, Scott Montgomery of BookPeople, and Molly Odintz of CrimeReads.com, joined me as they do every month to discuss the books we are recommending from May. Our crime fiction picks for May 2022 are BREATHLESS by Amy McCulloch, EVERY CLOAK ROLLED IN BLOOD by James Lee Burke, MY SUMMER DARLINGS by May Cobb, NOBODY’S PILGRIMS, by Sergio Troncoso, THE DEVIL HIMSELF by Peter Farris, and THE LIONESS by Chris Bohjalian. Tune in to learn more. Check out a great array of crime fiction reviews on crimereads.com, and purchase your books from Austin independent book store, bookpeople.com,.
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Sergio Troncoso’s first crime/thriller novel, NOBODY’S PILGRIMS, is about (from his web site) “Three runaway teenagers…chased in a road trip from the Texan frontera to New England, by a drug cartel planning to unleash chaos unto the country…A coming-of-age novel of literary fiction with a thriller twist, from preeminent Mexican-American author Sergio Troncoso.” I am hoping for a sequel. More information on Sergio and his book is available at https://sergiotroncoso.com.
CITY ON FIRE is the first of a planned trilogy on an Irish and Italian mob families based in Rhode Island. In our interview Winslow discussed how his novel is based in part on an epic poem by Roman poet Virgil, The Aeneid, written sometime between 30 and 19 BC. CITY ON FIRE’S protagonist, Danny Ryan, is based on the protagonist of the Aeneid, Aeneas. More information on Don Winslow is available on his web site https://www.donwinslow.com/books.
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My guest is John Harris, co-author of a memoir of Hall of Fame football player, Edgerrin James, FROM GOLD TEETH TO GOLD JACKET: My Life in Football and Business. In his new memoir, James shares his unique, no-holds-barred perspective in becoming an all-time NFL great while also building a financial empire while raising six children. Edgerrin Harris played running back in the NFL for 11 seasons. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a member of the class of 2020.
Co-author John Harris is an award-winning journalist who covered sports for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Toledo Blade, Tampa Bay Times, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Austin American-Statesman, Lexington Herald-Leader, Booth Newspapers, Youngstown Vindicator, ESPN's Andscape (formerly the Undefeated) and CBS Sportsline. A native of Philadelphia, Harris resides in Austin, Texas. More on the book is available at From Gold Teeth to Gold Jacket | Book by Edgerrin James, John Harris, Peyton Manning | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster (simonandschuster.com).
On June 2 at 7 p.m. at the Austin Central Library, the Library Foundation and the PEN America Austin Chapter are partnering to host a discussion about The 1619 Project and free speech. I interviewed Timothy Staley, Executive Director of the Library Foundation and Jennifer M. Wilks, an English professor and director of the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas, who will moderate the discussion. The program, entitled The 1619 Project: Who’s Afraid of Black Books?, will feature two contributors to The 1619 Project: acclaimed author ZZ Packer and award-winning poet Danez Smith. More information on the event is available at https://austinlibrary.org/at-central/.
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Nancy Bilyeau’s latest novel, THE FUGUTIVE COLOURS, is set in a fascinating time in English history, the 1760s. Its protagonist, Genevieve, is a young married woman who finds herself entangled in a web of intrigues, spies, and deceit. A Huguenot living in Spitalfields, Genevieve one day receives a surprise invitation from an important artist. Grasping at the promise of a better life, she dares to hope her luck is about to change and readies herself for an entry into the world of serious art.She soon learns that for the portrait painters ruling over the wealthy in London society, fame and fortune are there for the taking. But such high stakes spur rivalries that darken to sabotage and blackmail—and even murder. And watching from the shadows are ruthless spies who wish harm to all of England. A sequel to Nancy Bilyeau’s The Blue, The Fugitive Colours again reveals a dazzling world of glamour and treachery in Georgian England, when beauty held more value than human life. Nancy’s web site is http://www.nancybilyeau.com/.
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In Aaron Philip Clark’s novel, UNDER COLOR OF LAW, a black police detective in Los Angeles is assigned to investigate the murder of a black police recruit. Set during our current times, the novel explores the black communities deep concerns about police violence, racism, and discrimination. It is also about the many faces of Los Angeles, and the way black and brown communities, are marginalized and demonized in the media. Clark, a native of Los Angeles, was inspired to write the novel by his experiences as a new recruit in the Los Angeles police department. Aaron Philip Clark is a novelist and screenwriter. UNDER COLOR OF LAW is his fourth novel.
Aaron Philip Clark is a native of Los Angeles, CA. He is a novelist and screenwriter. A self-described "son of the city," Clark takes pleasure in exploring the many facets of Los Angeles and enjoys hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains. Clark’s web site is https://www.aaronphilipclark.com/.
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Teens Choice Book Show producer and host Maya Hay interviews Natalia Sylvester about her latest novel BREATHE AND COUNT BACK FROM TEN. In this novel, Verónica, a Peruvian-American teen with hip dysplasia, auditions to become a mermaid at a Central Florida theme park in the summer before her senior year, all while figuring out her first real boyfriend and how to feel safe in her own body.
Learn more about the book at https://www.nataliasylvester.com/books-by-natalia-sylvester.
Formerly a monthly show on KAZI 88.7 FM, Teens Choice Book Show features interviews with authors of new books that are of interest to teenagers. It is hosted and produced by its founder Maya Hay, and co-hosted by Alex Winston and Alexis Winston.
Welcome to first to the first episode of the monthly podcast of Travis County Commissioner Jeffrey Travillion hosted by Hopeton Hay. In the first episode we discuss how Commissioner Travillion’s involvement with the Austin NAACP shaped the development of his leadership skills. He also discussed some of the critical issues he addressed as its president from 1992 to 1997. The guests were Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP and Walter Muse, who served on the executive committee of the Austin NAACP when the Commissioner was president. In the episode, Commissioner Travillion also discussed the key issues he’ll be focused on in upcoming episodes including the Travis County budget, job training, childcare and affordable housing.
What an enlightening interview I had with Dillard University graduate, Tara T. Green, author of a stunning biography of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, a pioneering Black woman who actively addressed racial and gender inequalities as a writer, suffragette, educator, and activist in the late 19th and early 20th century. She was born in New Orleans in 1875 to a mother who was a former slave and a father of questionable identity. Dunbar-Nelson was a graduate of Straight University in New Orleans, the forerunner of Dillard University, a Historically Black College and University.
Dr. Green first became acquainted with the work of Dunbar-Nelson as an undergraduate at Dillard University. She is a Black feminist community-engaged scholar, mentor, and university professor. She is also the author of See Me Naked: Black Women Defining Pleasure During the Interwar Era. Credit for Tara T. Green’s picture goes to Toni Shaw. Her web site is http://www.drtaratgreen.com/publications.html.
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On this episode of Diverse Voices Book Review we had our crime fiction picks of the month with Scott Montgomery and Amanda Moore, but opened with an extended conversation with Gary Phillips, author of the novel ONE-SHOT-HARRY. Molly Odintz, who is part of the monthly crime fiction team, was not able to join us this month.
In ONE-SHOT HARRY, freelance Black crime photographer Harry Ingram is a Korean War vet in 1963 Los Angeles on the eve of a visit by Martin Luther King, Jr. prior to the March on Washington. Then a long-gone foxhole buddy shows up and dies under mysterious circumstances. Armed with his wits, his camera, and occasionally his service .45, Harry plunges headfirst into the seamier underbelly of L.A. society — tangling with racists, leftists, blackmailers, gangsters, zealots and lovers, all in the hope of finding something resembling justice for his friend. Gary Phillips’s web page for his new novel is https://gdphillips.com/portfolio/one-shot-harry/.
Our April Crime Fiction Picks of the Month are ONE-SHOT HARRY, THE FUGUTIVE COLOURS by Nancy Bilyeau (http://www.nancybilyeau.com/), and SHADOW HOUSE by Anna Downs (https://anna-downes.com/).
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In his mix of genres in his collection of personal essays, TO THOSE BOUNDED, Donald Quist examines the perils of black manhood in America. He reflects on the fracturing of identity necessary to survive living in America. Quist mercilessly examines his experiences from childhood to marriage to death, and how it interacts with the American myth of exceptionalism while many struggle to survive. It was one of the best books I read in 2021. Donald Quist is also author of HARBORS, a Foreword INDIES Bronze Winner and International Book Awards Finalist. He has a linked story collection, For Other Ghosts. He is creator of the online nonfiction series PAST TEN. He is Director of the MFA in Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. His web site is https://www.donaldquist.com/.
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Ladee Hubbard, the critically acclaimed author of The Rib King, returns with THE LAST SUSPICIOUS HOLDOUT, a collection of short stories including the title story written exclusively for this volume, that explore relationships in a Black neighborhood over the course from the late 1980s to the eve of Barack Obama’s inauguration. Her web site is https://ladeehubbard.com/.
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Scott Montgomery of BookPeople, Molly Odintz of CrimeReads, and crime fiction writer Amanda Moore joined me for our monthly recommendations of books we enjoyed. They were SECRET IDENTITY by Alex Segura, LIKE A SISTER by Kellye Garrett, ONE SHOT HARRY by Gary Phillips, and THE BOOK OF COLD CASES by Simone St. James. On Twitter, follow Molly Odintz at mollsotov89, follow Amanda Moore at amoorebooks, and follow Hopeton Hay at diversebookshay. You can also follow CrimeReads at CrimeReads. Check out Scott Montgomery’s western novel podcast, Talk in the Saddle on all your podcast platforms.
As part of the virtual Sixth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas, Austin writer Chaitali Sen organized and moderated the panel discussion, Debut Books of Fiction by Women of Color. The panel featured authors Yasmin Angoe, Dalia Azim, and Sindya Bhanoo. This is podcast is the recording of the live Zoom event. Chaitali Sen is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky (Europa Editions 2015) and the short story collection A New Race of Men from Heaven, which won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction and will be published by Sarabande Books in January 2023 Yasmin Angoe is the debut author of the bestselling and award-winning thriller Her Name Is Knight, published in December 2021. https://yasminangoe.com/ Dalia Azim is the author of the novel Country of Origin, published in April 2022. https://www.daliaazim.com/ Sindya Bhanoo's debut short story collection, Seeking Fortune Elsewhere, published in March 2022. https://www.sindyabhanoo.com/
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On February 26 I moderated a live virtual panel conversation on the book CIVIL RIGHTS IN BLACK AND BROWN: : Histories of Resistance and Struggle in Texas. Published by University of Texas Press last year, it is based on over 500 oral history interviews collected across Texas from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods and everywhere in between. It started in 2014 as a Statewide research project - Civil Rights in Black and Brown Oral History Project (CRBB). It tells the story of the successes of people from all walks of life in winning major concessions in employment, housing, education, and political participation for African Americans and Mexican Americans. The panelists were:Max Krochmal, co-editor of CIVIL RIGHTS IN BLACK AND BROWN. He is an Associate Professor of History and founding Chair of the Department of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Todd Moye, co-editor of CIVIL RIGHTS IN BLACK AND BROWN. He is a historian of the modern U.S. and the director of the University of North Texas Oral History Program. Jasmin C. Howard, the author of the chapter, “Texas Time: Racial Violence, Place Making, and Remembering as Resistance in Montgomery County,” in CIVIL RIGHTS IN BLACK AND BROWN. She is a Doctoral Candidate finishing up her PhD in the Department of History in African American, United States and African History at Michigan State University. More information on the book is available at https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/krochmal-moye-civil-rights-in-black-and-brown.
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My guest is Tim Todd, author, A GREAT MORAL AND SOCIAL FORCE: A History of Black Banks. Tim is an executive writer and historian with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He is the author of eight books on the history of banking and financial services, including A Great Moral and Social Force. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve, Tim was a journalist for 10 years and spent another five years as a writer focused on fixed income markets. A Great Moral and Social Force: A History of Black BanksA Great Moral and Social Force: A History of Black Banks is written as a historical reference on Black community banks, and serves as a guide to help all Americans think differently about our relationships with banks. The goal of the latest volume of the Kansas City Fed's historical book series is to move across eras and examine some of the communities where banks played a dual role in establishing both economic opportunity and social equality. For more information and a free copy of the book go to https://www.kansascityfed.org/about-us/a-great-moral-and-social-force/.
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Each month Hopeton Hay is joined by Scott Montgomery, Crime Fiction Coordinator of BookPeople, Molly Odintz, Senior Editor of CrimeReads.com, and Amanda Moore, an Austin based crime fiction writer, to discuss their favorite crime fiction and true crime books that were recently published. Here are our picks:
GREENWICH PARK by Katherine FaulknerNOTES ON AN EXECUTION by Danya KukafkaTHE VIOLIN CONSPIRACY by Brendan SlocumbQUARRY’S BLOOD by Max Allan CollinsPARIS NOIR edited by Herve' DeloucheL.A. BURNING by D.C. TaylorOTHER PEOPLE’S CLOTHES by Calla HenkelSTRING FOLLOW by Simon Jacobs
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The guest is is Alex Segura, the bestselling and award-winning author of Secret Identity, which the New York Times called “wittily original” and named an Editor’s Choice. More information on the book is available at http://www.alexsegura.com/books/secret-identity/.
Alex is also the author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, the Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series, and a number of comic books – including The Mysterious Micro-Face (in partnership with NPR), The Black Ghost, The Archies, The Dusk, The Awakened, and more. A Miami native, he lives in New York with his wife and children.
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This is a recording of a live Zoom panel discussion I moderated as part of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas on February 19, 2022, Underreported: Racial Violence on U.S. Mexico Border in Early 1900s. It featured writers of the book REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE: Critical Reflections On The History Of The Border. REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE is “a trenchant collection of essays that details systematic, extralegal killings of Mexicans along the US southern border in the 1910s and explores the role of officially sanctioned violence in the history of US nation-building.” This panel is cosponsored by PEN America. The panelists were:Sonia Hernández, Co-Editor, REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE, Associate Professor of History, Texas A&M UniversityChristopher Carmona, Writer, REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE, Associate Professor & Interim Director of MAS Academic Program, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyGabriela González, Writer, REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE, Associate Professor of History, University of Texas at San AntonioPhilis M. Barragán Goetz, Writer, REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE, Assistant Professor of History, Texas A&M University-San Antonio.
My guest on Diverse Voices Book Review is acclaimed Houston playwright Celeste Bedford Walker. The author of over 40 plays, she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2021. Born and raised in Houston Texas, Celeste Bedford Walker attended Jack Yates High School and Texas Southern University, both historically Black institutions in the Third Ward. Her writing has won numerous awards including the National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, the NAACP Theatre Awards for Best Play and Best Playwright, New York’s AUDELCO Award, and Broadway World’s (Houston) Regional Award for Best Play.
My guest on Diverse Voices Book Review was Liliana Valenzuela, an award-winning poet and acclaimed Spanish translator of works by authors such as Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Denise Chavez, and many other writers. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection in two languages Codex of Love: Bendita Ternura(FlowerSong Books, 2020) and the chapbook Codex of Journeys: Bendito Camino(Mouthfeel Press, 2013), and several artisan chapbooks. A native of Mexico City, Valenzuela lives and works in Austin, Texas. Her web site is http://www.lilianavalenzuela.com/.
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What are the critical issues facing the Austin metro areas Black community that are inadequately covered by the local media? Local journalist Alberta Phillips moderated a discussion of these issues with Travis County Commissioner for Precinct One Jeffrey Travillion and journalist and civic leader Roxanne Evans. Some of the critical issues they discussed included affordable housing, gentrification, and access to COVID 19 vaccines east of I-35. The event was sponsored in part by PEN America.
Jeffrey W. Travillion was elected to the Travis County Commissioners Court representing Precinct 1 in November 2016 and took office on the first day of 2017. Travillion is involved in a number of civic activities, including serving as a deacon at the Abundant Life Community Baptist Church. He is a graduate of Leadership Austin, chairman of the Communications Committee for the Texas State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a member of the board of directors of the Austin Project.
Alberta Phillips is a local writer and award-winning journalist, who began her career at an African American publication, The Call and Times, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The majority of her career has been with the Austin city daily, The Austin American-Statesman, where she rose from a neighbor reporter to Editorial Writer and Columnist, taking the pulse of Austin’s Communities of Color for more than 30 years. Ms. Phillips launched a public affairs and news show called, ATX Now In Color! The show, a public affairs program that focuses on Communities of Color in the Austin Metropolitan Area, airs Sundays at 1 pm on KAZI-FM community radio.
Roxanne Evans has more than 35 years of experience in journalism and public relations. Evans has been in Austin for more than three decades. She spent 10 years at the Austin American-Statesman, where she began as a reporter and made history when she became the first African American editorial writer and member of the Editorial Board.
Welcome to Black Perspectives the working title of my new monthly podcast on critical issues and history in the black community. It is sponsored in part by PEN America. In this inaugural episode, we feature an interview with Howard French, author of BORN IN BLACKNESS: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1461 to the Second World War. Traversing 600 years, Born in Blackness retells the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in America, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “darkest” continent.
Kellye Garrett discussed her latest novel LIKE A SISTER. In this twisty, voice-driven thriller, no one bats an eye when a Black reality TV star is found dead—except her estranged half-sister, whose refusal to believe the official story leads her on a dangerous search for the truth. Her web site is Home - Kellye Garrett. Kellye Garrett’s first novel, Hollywood Homicide, was released in August 2017 and was named one of BookBub’s Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. It won the Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Independent Publisher “IPPY” awards for best first novel. Hollywood Ending, the second book in her Detective by Day mystery series, was chosen a best mystery of 2018 by Suspense Magazine, Book Riot, and CrimeReads, which called it the most fun book of the year This is what New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman said about LIKE A SISTER. Kellye Garrett, a break-out star in crime fiction since her debut, has upped the ante with her latest, Like a Sister. A traditional mystery set in the world of reality television and Instagram influencers, it is equal parts charm and heartbreak, with razor-sharp insights on class, race, and family. I’m happy to know that Kellye Garrett is just getting started. I can’t wait to see what she does next.” ―Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of Lady in the Lake When the body of disgraced reality TV star Desiree Pierce is found on a playground in the Bronx the morning after her 25th birthday party, the police and the media are quick to declare her death an overdose. It’s a tragedy, certainly, but not a crime. But Desiree’s half-sister Lena Scott knows that can’t be the case. A graduate student at Columbia, Lena has spent the past decade forging her own path far from the spotlight, but some facts about Desiree just couldn’t have changed since their childhood. And Desiree would never travel above 125th Street. So why is no one listening to her? Despite the bitter truth that the two haven’t spoken in two years, torn apart by Desiree’s partying and by their father, Mel, a wealthy and influential hip-hop mogul, Lena becomes determined to find justice for her sister, even if it means untangling her family’s darkest secrets—or ending up dead herself.
My guest is Eric Nguyen, author of the novel, THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER. With his debut novel, Nguyen tells the story of a Vietnamese immigrant family who struggle to adjust to their new lives after settling in New Orleans. THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER Provides three points of view on their emotional journey: The mother, who still longs for the husband who chose to stay in Vietnam, the son who was five years old when they left and finds himself caught between the past and the present, and the youngest son who was born in a refugee camp after their escape, and is most at home in their adopted homeland. Covering over 25 years of their lives all the way to Hurricane Katrina, THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER deftly portrays the challenges of a family staying emotionally tied as each member follows their own path in search of a new identity. Eric Nguyen earned an MFA in Creative Writing from McNeese State University in Louisiana. He is the editor in chief of diaCRITICS.org. THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER is his first novel.
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My guest is Louis Edwards, author of the novel, RAMADAN RAMSEY. RAMADAN RAMSEY begins in 1999 with the moving (and funny) teenage love story of Alicia Ramsey, a native New Orleans African American young woman, and Mustafa Totah, a Syrian immigrant who works in her neighborhood at his uncle’s convenience store. Through a series of familial betrayals, Mustafa returns to Syria unaware that Alicia is carrying his child. When the baby is born, Alicia names their son Ramadan and raises him with the help of her mother. Years later, when Ramadan turns twelve, he sets off to find Mustafa. RAMADAN RAMSEY also explores the matriarchal lineage of his family, giving it as much importance as if it were, as he said in our interview, a line to Queen Elizabeth. Louis Edwards has published three acclaimed novels, including Ten Seconds, N, and Oscar Wilde Discovers America. Born and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Edwards lives in New Orleans.
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The Diverse Voices Book Review guest is Lisa Lutz, author of the crime novel THE ACCOMPLICE, published January 2022. The Accomplice examines the relationship of best friends Owen and Luna. Owen is charming, privileged, and chronically dissatisfied. Luna is secretive, cautious, and pragmatic. Despite their differences, they begin forming a bond the moment they meet in college. Their names soon become indivisible—Owen and Luna, Luna and Owen—and stay that way even after an unexplained death rocks their social circle. In our interview we not only discussed THE ACCOMPLICE, but also some of her favorite and unfavorite music, her fascination with the TV series Resident Alien, and how ethics is a recurring theme in her novels. Lisa's web site is www.lisalutz.com.
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The guest is Alafair Burke, discussing her latest crime novel FIND ME. The novel examines the disappearance of a young woman leaving her best friend reeling and an NYPD homicide detective digging into her own past in this twisty mystery about the power of female friendships. Alafair Burke is a New York Times bestselling author of 14 crime novels, including The Ex, The Wife, and The Better Sister, and two series—one featuring NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher, and the other, Portland, Oregon, prosecutor Samantha Kincaid. Learn more about Alafair and FIND ME at https://www.alafairburke.com/find-me. Alafair picture credit - Nina Subin
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We had our crime fiction picks of the month discussion for January 2022 with Hopeton Hay and his regular partners in crime Molly Odintz, Senior Editor of CrimeReads, Scott Montgomery, Crime Fiction Coordinator of BookPeople, and the newest member, writer and aspiring novelist Amanda Moore who loves reading crime novels and has already written a legal thriller she is hoping gets picked up by a publisher. Our crime picks were:
Molly Odintz -THE ACCOMPLICE by Lisa Lutz, WAHALA by Nikki May, THE APPEAL by Janice Amanda Moore - A FLICKER IN THE DARK by Stacy Willingham, A HISTORY OF WILD PLACES by Shea Ernshaw, & FIND ME by Alafair BurkeScott Montgomery - SEASONAL WORK by Laura Lippman Hopeton Hay - THE ACCOMPLICE by Lisa Lutz and FIND ME by Alafair Burke
We also discussed how we react to crime novels when its twists and turns take you by surprise--do we scream, throw the book across, the room, or just say hmm.
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My guest on Diverse Voices Book Review is Kathy Wang, author of the novel IMPOSTER SYNDROME. With its two female protagonists, one who is a Russian immigrant and the other a Chinese American, IMPOSTER SYNDROM explores the barriers women face in the tech industry. In my conversation with Kathy, we discussed the inspiration for her novel (Wang works in the high-tech industry), why she became a writer, her favorite novels, her favorite musical groups, and other aspects of her writing. Here is an excerpt describing the book from the publisher's web site: "Part page-turning cat-and-mouse chase, part sharp and hilarious satire, Impostor Syndrome is a shrewdly-observed examination of women in tech, Silicon Valley hubris, and the rarely fulfilled but ever-attractive promise of the American Dream."
Kathy Wang's web site: http://www.bykathywang.com/
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The podcast is from the Diverse Voices Book Review live Zoom event, Meditations on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Legacy: A Conversation with Dr. Randal Maurice Jelks, author of LETTERS TO MARTIN. It was held on January 30 and was cosponsored by the Texas NAACP. The recording has been lightly edited due to some technical difficulties during the welcome. Texas NAACP president Gary Bledose provided the welcome. Maya Hay and Alex Winston, two of the three host of Teens Choice Book Show introduced Dr. Jelks and his book.
LETTERS TO MARTIN: Meditations on Democracy in Black America is an original collection of twelve literary essays by historian Randal Maurice Jelks. It is a meditation on contemporary history and political struggles. Each essay builds on words offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as the author’s own autobiographical reflections. These meditations, written in the form of letters to King, speak specifically to the many public issues we presently confront in the United States—economic inequality, freedom of assembly, police brutality, ongoing social class conflicts and geopolitics.
Randal Maurice Jelks is Professor of African and African American Studies and American Studies. He is the author of the two award-winning books African Americans in the Furniture City: The Struggle for Civil Rights Struggle in Grand Rapids and Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement: A Biography. His latest book is titled Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver and Muhammad Ali.
Randal Maurice Jelks web site: https://randalmauricejelks.com/
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In her new book READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND, Farah Jasmine Griffinshares her stories of growing up in Philadelphia where love of black literature and the magnificence of black culture were part of her life from the time she could read. Her father nurtured her love of books and the struggle for Black freedom. READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND probes the literary works of black writers from the beginning of the republic with poet Phyllis Wheatley, to the fiery speeches of Frederick Douglass, from legendary novelist Toni Morrison to Gil Scott Herron's prophetic song Winter In America. Entwining memoir, history, and art, Griffin provides a guide to the wisdom of the songs, poems, and stories that can guide us in the ongoing struggle for democracy.
Farah Jasmine Griffin is Chair of African-American & African Diaspora Studies and Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Farah Jasmine Griffin web site: https://www.farahjasminegriffin.com/ Griffin photo credit: Peggy Dilliard Toone
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My guest is Helene Wecker, author of the novel THE HIDDEN PALACE. THE HIDDEN PALACE is a follow up to Wecker's 2013 debut novel, THE GOLEM AND THE GINNI. It follows the lives of two creatures of middle eastern myths, a female golem, which is a creature made of clay that is part of Jewish folklore, and a male jinni, a being of fire that is part of Arabian folklore, who meet by chance and become friends and more. Fearing they’ll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and try to pass as humans, as just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. The novel also explores the lives of Jewish and Arab immigrants in New York at the turn of the century, and the barriers to independence women faced during those times. Helene Wecker’s first novel, The Golem and the Jinni, won several literary awards including the VCU Cabell Award for First Novel. Helene's web site is https://www.helenewecker.com/. Her photo is by Kareem Kazkaz.
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My guest is Verena Krebs, author of Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe.Her book explores why Ethiopian kings pursued long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europe in the late Middle Ages. It challenges conventional narratives of African-European encounters on the eve of the so-called ‘Age of Exploration that Ethiopia sent missions to Latin Europe in search of military and technology assistance. Describing those interpretations in our interview as bluntly racist, Krebs writes that the Ethiopian initiation of contacts appears to have been intimately connected to a local political agenda of building monumental ecclesiastical architecture in the North-East African highlands,and asserted the Ethiopian rulers’ claim of universal kingship and rightful descent from the biblical king Solomon. Verena Krebs is Professor for Medieval Cultural Realms and their Entanglements at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. She holds a bi-national PhD from the university of Konstanz in Germany, and Mekelle University in Ethiopia. Her web site is Home | Verena Krebs — historian, author of "Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy".
My guest is Savala Nolan, author of DON’T LET IT GET YOU DOWN a provocative collection of essays that offers poignant reflections on living between society’s most charged, politicized, and intractably polar spaces—between black and white, rich and poor, thin and fat. She knows what it means to live in the in-between. Descended from a Black and Mexican father and a white mother, Nolan’s mixed-race identity is obvious, for better and worse. Savala Nolan is a writer, speaker, lawyer, and executive director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
In WAKING FROM THE DREAM, David L. Chappell provides a sweeping history of the fight to keep the civil rights movement alive following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. Chappell reveals that, far from coming to an abrupt end with King's death, the civil rights movement continued to work to realize King's vision of an equal society. I interviewed Chappell in 2014, the year the book was published.
My guests are Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, co-authors of THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN, a remarkable historical novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene. Greene, who became Morgan’s librarian in 1903, was a Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation. Marie Benedict is a lawyer and the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room. Victoria Christopher Murray is an acclaimed author who has written more than twenty novels, including Stand Your Ground, an NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Fiction.
Civil Rights trailblazer and legal scholar Lani Guinier died on January 7, 2022 at the age of 71. In her honor I'm posting an interview I did with her in 2015 about her book, THE TYRANNY OF MERITOCRACY: Democratizing Higher Education in America. Guinier was the first African American woman to be a tenured law professor at Harvard University. She also worked on Voting Rights issues with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Here is an excerpt from and a link to an article on the Harvard Law School web site: In Memoriam: Lani Guinier 1950 - 2022 - Harvard Law Today.
“If I had to think of one idea I would associate with Lani, it is ‘meaningful participation,'” said Kenneth Mack ’91, the Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law and affiliate professor of history, Harvard University. “Lani spent her career thinking about, and working for, the proposition that people, particularly those without power, should be able to participate meaningfully in the institutions that affected their lives. Her work on voting and democracy — the work that would bring so much controversy — was all about the fragility of democratic systems. African American communities and their continuing struggles to participate, were the ‘miner’s canary,’ to use a term she later coined with Gerald Torres — evidence of largely unseen problems with the ability of many groups to engage with the democratic process.”
Picture credit to Steve Rubin.
My partners in crime, Molly Odintz, Senior Editor of CrimeReads.com and Scott Montgomery, Crime Fiction Coordinator for BookPeople, joined me to discuss our favorite crime fiction books of 2021. Only RAZORBLADE TEARS by S. A. Cosby made all three of our lists. See the lists at: https://diversevoicesbookreview.wordpress.com/2021/12/30/crime-fiction-picks-of-the-year-for-2021/
Roger Davis launched his financial services business while still working for Fortune 500 Company 3M in Austin. As the former president of the Austin Cen-Tex chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants, he knew the importance for planning for life after 3M. In our interview we discussed what he gained from attending the HBCU Florida A & M University, his foray into entrepreneurship, and his new business life after retiring from 3M.
CrimeReads.com senior editor Molly Odintz and BookPeople crime fiction coordinator Scott Montgomery join me for a discussion of our crime fiction picks of the month. The books discussed were; THE DEATH OF JANE LAWRENCE by Caitlin StarlingTHIS THING BETWEEN US by Gus MorenoALL THESE ASHES by James QueallyJUST THIEVES by Gregory GallowayFIVE DECEMBERS by James KestrelMANGO, MAMBO, AND MURDER by Raquel V. ReyesFESTIVE MAYHEM 2:Seven Holiday Culinary Cozy Mysteries by Paige Sleuth, Francelia Belton, Angela Henry, Rhoda Berlin, Carolyn Marie Wilkins, Barbara Howard, Stella Oni
My guest is Cadwell Turnbull, author of the novel NO GODS, NO MONSTERS. In Turnbull’s second, science fiction/fantasy novel, we learn that many of the creatures of myth and legend are real, and are now coming out of the shadows. Set in current times, Turnbull reimagines these creatures as oppressed and scared, but marching and protesting for equal rights seeking safety through visibility.With the story told largely from the viewpoint of the monsters, he humanizes the creatures, and they serve as a metaphor for oppressed groups in today’s world. Cadwell Turnbull is also the author of novel THE LESSON, which won the 2020 Neukom Institute Literary Award in the debut category.
In DECOLONIZING WEALTH, philanthropy executive Edgar Villanueva critiques the philanthropy and finance industries for mirroring colonial and slave plantation structures that ultimately do more harm than good. With the publication of this second edition of the book, he expands the analysis of the dysfunctional colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance into other sectors and offers practical advice on how anyone can be a healer. In his experience in philanthropy, Villanueva has seen past the field's glamorous, altruistic façade, and into its shadows: the old boy networks, and the savior complexes. Edgar Villanueva is the founder and Principal of Decolonizing Wealth Project and Liberated Capital, which raised over $5 million in 2020 to support Black and Native communities.
Roger Davis, the Financial Fitness Committee Chair of the National Association of Black Accountants Austin Cen-Tex Chapter, discussed its 10th Annual Financial Fitness Seminar being held Saturday, October 23, 2021, 8:00 AM – 3:30 PM CDT. This free seminar will be presented to educate individuals and families on financial techniques. There will be financial workshops, door prizes as well as breakfast and lunch will be provided.
It is being at the Huston-Tillotson University Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation,1023 Springdale Road, Building 12, Austin, TX 78721. Register on EventBrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/10th-annual-financial-fitness-seminar-tickets-164750620541?aff=ebdssbdestsearch.
Diverse Voices Book Review guests are historian Orville Vernon Burton and civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner, co-authors of JUSTICE DEFERRED: Race and the Supreme Court. JUSTICE DEFERRED comprehensively charts the Court’s race jurisprudence. Addressing nearly two hundred cases involving America’s racial minorities, the authors probe the parties involved, the justices’ reasoning, and the impact of individual rulings.
Diverse Voices Book Review is hosted and produced by Hopeton Hay. Its theme music was created, produced, and performed by Wright Productions. To learn about upcoming interviews follow me on social media under Diverse Voices Book Review on Facebook and Instagram or Twitter under @diversebookshay. To learn about upcoming interviews follow me on social media under Diverse Voices Book Review on Facebook and Instagram or Twitter under @diversebookshay.
My guest is Heather McKee, author of ARE WE THE 99%? The Occupy Movement, Feminism, and Intersectionality. September 2021 marked the tenth anniversary of Occupy Wall Street a protest movement against economic inequality that began in New York City's Wall Street financial district. With the protestors coming from diverse backgrounds, Hurwitz considers how women, people of color, and gender queer activists struggled to be heard and understood within the movement. Despite cries of “we are the 99%”problems with racism, sexism, and discrimination due to sexuality and class persisted within the movement. Using first-hand accounts of activists’ experiences, online communications and media coverage of the movement, Hurwitz reveals lessons gleaned from the conflicts within Occupy. Heather McKee Hurwitz is a Lecturer of Sociology and feminist scholar at Case Western Reserve University and a Visiting Researcher at the Cleveland Clinic.
Diverse Voices Book Review is hosted and produced by Hopeton Hay. Its theme music was created, produced, and performed by Wright Productions. To learn about upcoming interviews follow me on social media under Diverse Voices Book Review on Facebook and Instagram or Twitter under @diversebookshay. To learn about upcoming interviews follow me on social media under Diverse Voices Book Review on Facebook and Instagram or Twitter under @diversebookshay.
My guest is Robert S. Levine, author of THE FAILED PROMISE: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. In the book he provides an absorbing account of the struggle between the great orator Frederick Douglass and President Andrew Johnson after their views diverged on Reconstruction. When Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, the country was on the precipice of radical change. Johnson, seemingly more progressive than Lincoln, looked like the ideal person to lead the country. Despite this early promise, Frederick Douglass, the country’s most influential Black leader, soon grew disillusioned with Johnson’s policies and increasingly doubted the president was sincere in supporting Black citizenship. Levine portrays the conflicts that brought Douglass and the wider Black community to reject Johnson and call for a guilty verdict in his 1868 impeachment trial. Robert S. Levine is Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author of several books including Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity; and The Lives of Frederick Douglas.
Diverse Voices Book Review is hosted and produced by Hopeton Hay. Its theme music was created and performed by Wright Productions. To learn about upcoming interviews follow me on social media under Diverse Voices Book Review on Facebook and Instagram or Twitter under @diversebookshay.
My guest is James Lee Burke, author of the novel ANOTHER KIND OF EDEN. Set in Colorado in 1962, Burke’s novel examines good and evil and the gray area in between during a tumultuous time in American history. The protagonist, Aaron Holland Broussard, is an aspiring author struggling with his own personal demons while trying to protect the people he cares about from exploitation. With a story featuring a ghostlike character and spirits, deadly rituals, and a rapacious business family, Burke mixes mysticism with a deep appraisal of the moral character of America. James Lee Burke is the award winning author of 39 novels and two short story collections.
To learn about upcoming interviews follow me on social media under Diverse Voices Book Review on Facebook and Instagram, or Twitter under @diversebookshay.
My guest is Parker Bilal, author of the crime novel, WHITEHAVENS. In WHITEHAVENS, a hit man for a feared crime family is sent to kill the family’s former accountant. But he changes his mind after getting a call, and ends up on the run as they become the targets for the crime family. Set in the United Kingdom, WHITEHAVENS explores, trust and friendship in the crime world. Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub, the critically acclaimed literary novelist, and author . Born in London to a Sudanese father and English mother, is the author of the memoir A LINE IN THE RIVER, which explored his family and life growing up in Sudan. As Parker Billal he has written several crime fiction novels set including the Makana series, featuring a Sudanese political refugee working in Cairo as a private investigator.
To learn about upcoming interviews on Diverse Voices Book Review follow me on social media under Diverse Voices Book Review on Facebook and Instagram or Twitter under @diversebookshay.
My guests are Sonia Hernández and John Morán González, co-editors of REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE: Critical Reflections on the History of the Border. REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE is a collection of essays that detail systematic, extralegal killings of Mexicans along the US Mexican borderlands and particularly in South Texas from 1910-1919. As Hernandez and González write in the introduction the essays place the traumatic events north of the Rio Grande into a trans border history to jumpstart a conversation about state violence, white supremacy, and the resilience of communities of color. You can learn more about the history of this violence athttps://refusingtoforget.org. You can purchase the book at https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/reverberations-of-racial-violence.
Monica Muñoz Martinez, an award winning author, teacher, and public historian, was named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow. In November of 2018 I interviewed her about her book THE INJUSTICE NEVER LEAVES YOU live on KAZI Book Review. She is a public historian bringing to light long-obscured cases of racial violence along the Texas-Mexico border and documenting descendants’ efforts to commemorate and seek justice for the lives lost. Her various projects include an award-winning book, a public history nonprofit, and a digital humanities initiative. Across them all, she combines traditional archival research methods with a practice that she refers to as vernacular history-making, by which the oral histories and memorabilia of victims’ descendants are brought into the public sphere to inform popular understanding of the past.
In SA Cosby’s latest novel, RAZORBLADE Tears, has the feel of a buddy cop movie in the vain of Lethal WElcome, but in this case the main characters are two reformed criminals in their 50s, African American Ike Randolph and self-proclaimed redneck Buddy Lee. They team up to track down the double murder of their sons who were married to each other. The novel examines the homophobia that kept both fathers from attending their sons’ wedding, and the tumultuous relationship they had with them. RAZORBLADE Tears also explores, as Cosby explained in the interview, race, sex, and class, the Holy Trinity of Southern fiction. SA Cosby is an award winning author of fantasy, horror and crime fiction including the novel BLACKTOP WASTELAND which won the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
In S. A. Cosby’s latest novel, RAZORBLADE Tears, has the feel of a buddy cop movie in the vain of Lethal WElcome, but in this case the main characters are two reformed criminals in their 50s, African American Ike Randolph and self-proclaimed redneck Buddy Lee. They team up to track down the double murder of their sons who were married to each other. The novel examines the homophobia that kept both fathers from attending their sons’ wedding, and the tumultuous relationship they had with them. RAZORBLADE Tears also explores, as Cosby explained in the interview, race, sex, and class, the Holy Trinity of Southern fiction. SA Cosby is an award winning author of fantasy, horror and crime fiction including the novel BLACKTOP WASTELAND which won the Los Angeles Times Book Award.
The Lonestar Links Texas Chapter is hosting a virtual event to build awareness and provide education to assist in building generational wealth in the African American communities of Williamson and Bell counties on May 22, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Vanessa Henry, Vice president of Programs and former President Pamela Cotton, discussed why the Lonestar Links Chapter is hosting the event and the agenda for the day.
Gar Anthony Haywood is an award winning crime novelist, but his latest novel, IN THINGS UNSEEN, departs from the genre with the tale of a miracle. It’s about a little boy that died tragically in an auto accident. And one day he's back in his bed asleep, 8 months later, because his mother had faith enough to pray for this to happen. But the interesting thing about the story is that when he returns only four people in the world know that he actually ever died. His mother, his father, the man who drove the car that killed him, and his teacher. While the mother accepts his return as a miracle, the other three question their sanity, their faith or the lack there of.
GAR ANTHONY HAYWOOD is the Shamus and Anthony Award-winning author of thirteen crime novels. IN THINGS UNSEEN is his first thriller to deeply examine issues of faith and family.
Lifelong long friends Tina McElroy Ansa and Wanda Lloyd have collaborated as co-editors to publish MEETING AT THE TABLE: African-American Women Write On Race, Culture, And Community. McElroy and Lloyd, met while attending Spellman College, envisioned the essays as a balm and rallying cry for the nation's weary souls after the death of George Floyd. The essayists include Keisha Lance Bottoms, Mayor of Atlanta, actress Anika Noni Rose, and Njeri Rutledge, who joined Tina and Wanda for the interview.
Tina McElroy Ansa is a publisher, filmmaker, teacher, journalist, and the author of four novels. Wanda Lloyd is author of the memoir, "Coming Full Circle: From Jim Crow to Journalism and a retired newspaper editor. Njeri Rutledge is a law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston and an opinion columnist for USA Today.
The book 42 TODAY: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, is a collection of essays written by filmmakers, writers, journalists, scholars, and activists reflecting on the impact of the barrier breaking athlete in baseball and far beyond. It takes a deep dive into his work and legacy in civil rights, politics, and the wider sports world. My guests are the editor of this collection, Michael G. Long, and one of the essayists, Randal Maurice Jones.
Michael G. Long is the author or editor of several books on civil rights, religion, and politics in mid-century America, including First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson and Billy Graham and the Beloved Community: America's Evangelist and the Dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. Randal Maurice Jelks is an awarding winning Professor of American Studies and African and African American Studies at the University of Kansas. His most recent book is FAITH AND STRUGGLE IN THE LIVES OF FOUR AFRICAN AMERICANS: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver and Muhammad Ali.
Welcome to this special edition of KAZI Book Review. Today we are featuring the Diverse Scholars Speaking Truth to Power panel discussion from the Fifth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas held virtually on January 30. The panel lasted an hour. University of Texas at Austin student Vanessa Aguirre introduced the panel featuring scholars: • Theodore Francis, co-author, PRUDENT REBELS: Bermudian & the First Age of Revolution, Assistant Professor of History, Huston-Tillotson University; • John Morán González, co-editor of REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE: Critical Reflections on the History of the Border (June 2021), Professor of English and Director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; • Matthew Pettway, author of CUBAN LITERATURE IN THE AGE OF BLACK INSURRECTION (December 2019), Cuba and Africana studies scholar and Spanish Professor, University of South Alabama; • Priya Satia, author of TIME’S MONSTER: HOW HISTORY MAKES HISTORY, Professor of History and International History, Stanford University; It was moderated by Hopeton Hay
Eldridge Cleaver shot to fame as the spokesperson for the Black Panther Party and with the publication of his memoir in 1968, SOUL ON ICE. Charismatic, brilliant, and courageous, Cleaver built a base of power and influence that struck fear deep in the heart of White America. It was therefore shocking to many left-wing radicals when Cleaver turned his back on Black revolution, the Nation of Islam, and communism in 1975. In his biography, REVOLUTION OR DEATH, author Justin Gifford deftly portrays his complicated life and shifting philosophies. Justin Gifford is a professor of English Literature, a biographer and scholar of American literature and culture. He is also the author of Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim.
Playwrights Jeanette W. Hill and Lisa B. Thompson discussed creative activism on the panel Black Playwrights: Art As Service To The Community panel at the Fifth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas, Saturday, January 30. Austin poet Danielle’ McGhee moderated the panel. The panel was part of a live Zoom event hosted by KAZI Book Review.
In the new novel WHAT’S MINE AND YOURS, author Naima Coster explores the intersection of race, lost dreams, family relationships, and trauma through the lives of its two protagonists, Gee, a black man and Noelle, a woman presenting as white despite her father being Latin American. By looking at the backstory of the mothers of the two protagonists, we learn how tragedy and trauma has led their paths to cross in high school with mothers on opposite sides on the racial integration. Covering two generations of the families over 18 years, WHATS MINE AND YOURS also examines how the trauma their mothers experienced shaped who Gee and Noelle became and the problematic relationship each has with their mothers.
Naima Coster is also the author of the novel HALSEY STREET, and her stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Paris Review Daily, Time magazine and elsewhere.
At my Fifth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas on January 30, we featured a panel with three Austin writers reading from their literary work and discussing their love of the craft. The featured writers were Liliana Aleman, who recently published a book of poetry; Amanda Moore, who is working on her first novel in crime fiction, and Gina Springer-Shirley, who is also working on her first novel.
Set in Chicago in the early 20th century, THE RIB KING, Ladee Hubbard's new novel, presents the divergent paths of two black servants who have been deeply traumatized by childhood incidents. It explores the rage simmering in one from the genocide committed against his community by white vigilantes, and the efforts of the other to build a business as a black woman in Chicago, who was married at 11 and pregnant at 12. In our interview Hubbard said she was interested in how African Americans are represented in history and the concerted efforts to keep them from telling their own stories.
Ladee Hubbard is also the author of the novel THE TALENTED RIBKINS which received the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.
At the Fifth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas students Vanessa Aguirre from The University of Texas at Austin, Vanessa Rose from Austin Community College, and Kelaiah Tillman and Bianca Williams from Huston-Tillotson University read excerpts from their creative work and the participated in a panel discussion. Charlotte Gullick, chair of the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department, Danielle McGhee, Director of Library Services at Huston-Tilloston University, and KAZI Book Review host Hopeton Hay moderated the panel.
Simon Han's debut novel, NIGHTS WHEN NOTHING HAPPENED, is about an immigrant Chinese American family trying to fit in with each other and fit into the predominantly white Dallas suburb of Plano. Set in 2003, we learn that each family member, the parents, and the two children, arrived at different times in Plano. This allows Han to craft narratives with each family member having a different perspective on Plano. It also exposes the conflict within the family, which is exacerbated by an incident in within their community that threatens the unity of the family.
Simon Han was born in China and raised in various cities in Texas including much of his adolescence in Plano. His short stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications including The Atlantic, The Iowa Review, and the Texas Observer. A former visiting professor at the University of Tulsa, he currently lives in Carrollton, Texas.
If you are a fan of the NBA, then you remember THE BIG THREE, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen who won the Boston Celtics a championship in 2008, the first year they played together. Journalist Michael Holley, in his new book, THE BIG THREE, tells the story of how this team was put together from its purchase in 2003 by a new ownership group, to its championship year. It chronicles the hiring of Danny Ainge as general manager, and Ainge’s hiring of Doc Rivers as head coach, and how their philosophies blended to produce a championship team.
Michael Holley is the bestselling author of Belichick and Brady and the bestselling collaborator for David Ortiz’s Papi: My Story. A former Boston sports columnist and sports talk radio host, he is currently a coexecutive producer and cohost of Brother From Another on Peacock, a talk show and studio host at NBC Sports Boston, and professor at Boston University.
Legendary poet Nikki Giovanni was the honored guest at at the Fifth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas, a live Zoom event on January 30. She read two of her poems from her latest book, MAKE ME RAIN, and was interviewed by Austin journalist Alberta Phillips.
I CAME AS A SHADOW is the autobiography of John Thompson, the legendary former Georgetown University basketball coach, who died in September of 2020. Thompson may be best known for his great basketball teams and becoming, in 1984, the first black coach to win the N.C.A.A. basketball championship. Written with sports journalist Jesse Washington, his autobiography, however, tells his whole life story sharing the racism he endured, the life lessons of his teachers, parents, and mentors, and of course, how he built Georgetown into a powerhouse. It also spotlights his commitment to the education of his players, and his efforts to protect his Georgetown teams from the racial insults that were endemic at college basketball arenas.
Jesse Washington is a senior writer for ESPN's The Undefeated, a platform for exploring the intersections of race, sports and culture.
Scott Montgomery, Crime Fiction Coordinator for BookPeople, and Molly Odintz, Senior Editor of CrimeReads, joined for a discussion of our favorite crime novels of 2020.
Daniel José Older’s novel, THE BOOK OF LOST SAINTS, explores the lasting emotional trauma of the Cuban Revolution on a Cuban American family living in a New Jersey suburb. The trauma is revealed through the memories of a spirit, Marisol, that are passed on to her nephew Ramon through his dreams. With Marisol serving as his guide, Ramon begins a journey to discover the painful history of his family in Cuba during the revolution.
Daniel José Older is the New York Times-bestselling author of the young adult series Shadowshaper Cypher, the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series, the middle grade historical fantasy series Dactyl Hill Squad, and Star Wars: Last Shot.
LIVES LAID AWAY is Stephen Mack Jones's second novel featuring ex Detroit police detective August Snow. In LIVES LAID AWAY, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are harassing residents of Snow’s neighborhood, Mexicantown. When Snow, who is half black and half Mexican, is asked for help in identifying a young Hispanic woman dredged from the Detroit River, he discovers a trafficking scheme preying on undocumented immigrant women. From there Snow sets out guns a blazing to destroy the trafficking ring with or without the help of government authorities. In our interview, Jones shared how his anger with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement treatment of immigrants fueled the plot of his novel.
Stephen Mack Jones is a published poet, and an award-winning playwright.
For more than fifty years, Nikki Giovanni’s poetry has dazzled and inspired readers. As sharp and outspoken as ever, she has published a new book of poetry and prose, MAKE ME RAIN. In MAKE ME RAIN, she calls attention to injustice and racism, celebrates Black culture and Black lives, and and give readers an unfiltered look into her own experiences. In our wide ranging interview, Giovanni read some of her poetry, discussed an amazing conversation she had with James Baldwin in 1971 that was taped for the public TV show Soul!, and weighed in on having front porch conversations versus interaction over the internet.
Nikki Giovanni gained initial fame in the late 1960s as one of the foremost authors of the Black Arts Movement. Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement of the period, her early work provides a strong, militant African-American perspective, leading one writer to dub her the "Poet of the Black Revolution.” A seven-time NAACP Image Award winner Giovanni is the author of twenty-eight books and the University Distinguished Professor of English at Virginia Tech.
Austin writers Amanda Moore and Gina E. Springer Shirley are both working on their first novels with female protagonists. In Moore’s novel, her protagonist is an attorney with two clients on death row who discovers there is more than guilt and innocence at stake. And in Shirley ‘s novel in progress, her protagonist is a single mother with a budding career not interested in romance, but is surprised when two men enter her life.
In our interview they read from their novels in progress, discussed writers and novels they love, and their paths to becoming writers.
Amanda Moore has practiced law for 14 years and in 2015, won first place in the Texas Bar Journal Short Story Contest for her story, “The Corner
After a career in educational publishing, Gina E. Springer Shirley is now a romance and women’s fiction writer. She was a Romance finalist in the 2015 Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest and winner of the 2020 Yellow Bird Editors First Page Contest.
Both are board members of the Writers League of Texas.
In TIME’S MONSTER, historian Priya Satia examines how British historians evolved from being policy makers providing ethical justification for the British empire to largely becoming opponents to imperialism challenging its moral edifice during the era of decolonization after World War 2. Satia was inspired to write this book after having an epiphany about Samuel Galton, the historical protagonist of her previous book, EMPIRE OF GUNS. Galton was a 19th century gun manufacturer in spite of his Quaker religion being opposed to war. He assuaged his conscience and his fellow Quakers by arguing that there was nothing he could do in his time and place that would not in some way be related to war—that was the nature of the British economy at the time.
Priya Satia is a Professor of History at Stanford University specializing in modern British and British empire history, especially in the Middle East and South Asia.
Erik Dussere’s debut novel, THE WEST HOUSE, explores class, family lineage, and self reinvention in 1993 Connecticut with a mystery at its center. The 22 year old protagonist, staying with his uncle for the summer, becomes obsessed with discovering the background of the enigmatic Charlotte West, the beautiful wife of his uncle’s neighbor.
At the Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas: Protests and Civil Rights on Saturday, July 11, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. on Zoom, the panelists engaged in a wide ranging discussion over lessons to be learned from the past work of civil rights leaders for the activists of today. The panelists were Peniel E. Joseph, author of THE SWORD AND THE SHIELD: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Linder, President of the Austin NAACP, Reginald Owens, former Chair of the Journalism Department, Louisiana Tech University, and Brandon K. Winford, author of JOHN HERVEY WHEELER: Black Banking, and the Economic Struggle for Civil Rights.
Peniel Joseph holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also the founding director of the LBJ School’s Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. Dr. Joseph is also the author of WAITING 'TIL THE MIDNIGHT HOUR: A Narrative History of Black Power in America, DARK DAYS, BRIGHT NIGHTS: From Black Power to Barack Obama, and STOKELY: A Life.
Nelson Linder has served as the president of the Austin NAACP since 2000. He has won numerous awards for his civil rights activism including the Austin Urban League Whitney Young Award, the National NAACP Rupert Richardson Award, the University of Texas at Austin Dr. James Hill Community Circle Award, and the Austin Community College Lifetime Achievement Award, 2018.
Reginald Owens was formerly the Chair of Journalism at Louisiana Tech University where he retired in 2016. He began his professional career as a police reporter at the Houston Post and later worked as managing editor of The (Houston) Informer, the third oldest black newspaper in the nation, and was a founding vice president of the Houston Association of Black Journalists.
Brandon Winford is an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is a historian of the late nineteenth and twentieth century United States and the African American experience, and his research focuses on the relationship between civil rights and black capitalism.
What are the challenges of writing and publishing the first novel, your second book or your third book? With the collection of writers on this podcast from a Zoom event sponsored by KAZI Book on June 13, 2020, we discussed novels in the political thriller, crime fiction, science fiction/fantasy genres, and a short story collection. We explored not only the themes of their most recently published books, but their unique journeys in writing and publishing them. Meng Jin, author of the novel LITTLE GODS, and Richard Santos, author of the novel TRUST ME, just published their debut novels in 2020. For Rion Amilcar-Scott, his short story collection THE WORLD DOESN’T REQUIRE YOU, published in 2019, was his second book. And for science fiction/fantasy writer Nicky Drayden, ESCAPING EXODUS, published in 2019, was her third book.
On this special edition of KAZI Book Review we are featuring former Austin Community College (ACC) creative writing students reading from their unpublished work at the Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas held on Zoom on September 19. Former ACC students Christina Brunson, Vanessa Rose and Dionn Schaffner read from their work. Charlotte Gullick, chair of the ACC Creative writing Department moderated the readings.
In DARE TO SPEAK, Suzanne Nossel,, delivers a guide to maintaining democratic debate that is open, free-wheeling but at the same time respectful of the rich diversity of backgrounds and opinions in a changing country. Centered on practical principles, Nossel’s primer equips readers with the tools needed to speak one’s mind in today’s diverse, digitized, and highly-divided society without resorting to curbs on free expression. Suanne Nossel is the CEO of PEN America, an organization working to protect and advance human rights, free expression and literature. She has also served as the Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch and as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. During the first term of the Obama Administration, Nossel served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, where she led U.S. engagement in the United Nations and multilateral institutions, on human rights and humanitarian issues.
BANKING ON FREEDOM is the first full-length history of finance capitalism that centers black women and the banking institutions and networks they built from the eve of the Civil War to the Great Depression. Black women played essential roles in black communities’ efforts to use finance to carve out possibilities within U.S. capitalism and society. In particular she shares the story of Maggie Lena Walker, the first Black woman to organize a bank and lead a bank. In 1903 she organized the St. Luke Penny Bank in Richmond, Virginia.
An Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi, Shennette Garrett-Scott is a historian of gender, race, and capitalism.
In December of 2013, Raphael Warnock senior pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta published his first book, THE DIVIDED MIND OF THE BLACK CHURCH: theology, piety and public witness. In the book, he traces the historical significance of the rise in development of black theology as an important conversation partner for the black church. He discusses how black theology has emphasized the role of Christian faith in addressing racism and other forms of oppression, arguing that Jesus urged his disciples to seek the freedom of all people. I interviewed Reverend Warnock in January of 2014.
This is part two of my interview with Karl Turner, president of A La Care Specialty Foods. Karl has been selling packaged seafood products across the United States since 2003. Based in the New Orleans metro area, his company thrived in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, survived the death of demand for his shrimp products after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and is currently rebuilding sales after COVID 19 shut down his primary customer base of restaurants. In this two part interview we discussed his career journey to entrepreneurship, which included serving as executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing board and working as a Vice President at Xavier University of Louisiana.
In Matthew Pettway’s book, CUBAN LITERATURE IN THE AGE OF BLACK INSURRECTION He reveals how Juan Francisco Manzano and Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés used poetry to transform early Cuban literature into an instrument of black liberation from the 1820s to the 1840s. In 1844, Manzano and Valdés, who was known by the pen name Placido, were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting a conspiracy to abolish slavery and depose the regime.
Matthew Pettway is an assistant professor of Spanish who focuses on Spanish Language, Latin American Literature, and Afro-Caribbean Studies.
On part 2 of this special edition of KAZI Book Review we are featuring Austin area emerging writers Drew Carpenter, Kendra Christel, Jacob Grovey, and Chaitali Sen reading from their unpublished work at the Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas, a live Zoom event, on September 19. Dionn Schaffner, a former Austin Community College creating writing student, introduced the panel.
On this special edition of KAZI Book Review we are featuring Austin area emerging writers Jennifer Hritz, Jedah Mayberry, Ursula Pike, and Richard Z. Santos reading from their unpublished work at the Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas, a live Zoom event, on September 19. Dionn Schaffner, a former Austin Community College creating writing student, introduced the panel.
Jessica Luther and Kavitha A. Davidson's new book, LOVING SPORTS WHEN THEY DON'T LOVE YOU BACK, is an exploration by and for conscientious and conflicted sports fans who want to keep watching the sports they love but who also acknowledge the problems with the industry. The book covers a wide range of issues from Colin Kaepernick and athletes kneeling during the national anthem to rooting for your team when its star is accused of domestic violence.
Jessica Luther is a freelance journalist and writer who mainly covers sports and culture. She is also the author of Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape.
Kavitha A. Davidson is a sports writer based in New York. She was previously a columnist at espnW and Bloomberg, focusing on the intersection of sports and business, culture, race, and gender.
The specter of the Vietnam War looms large in Karin Cecile Davidson's debut novel, Sybelia Drive. Sybelia Drive centers on a young girl growing up in Central Florida with friends and neighbors whose lives are inalterably changed by the casualties of war. It is a coming of age novel filled with idyllic moments and heart crushing grief.
Karin Cecile Davidson is an award winning writer and Interviews Editor for Newfound Journal. Her stories have appeared in Story Magazine, The Massachusetts Review, The Los Angeles Review and elsewhere. Her awards include a collaborative Ohio Arts Council & Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Residency, an Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, a Studios of Key West Artist Residency, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, an Orlando Prize for Short Fiction, the Waasmode Short Fiction Prize, and a Peter Taylor Fellowship. Her fiction has been shortlisted in the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers and the Faulkner-Wisdom Writing Competition, among many others. She has an MFA from Lesley University and is an Interviews Editor for Newfound Journal.
Karl Turner, president of A La Care Specialty Foods, has been selling packaged seafood products across the United States since 2003. Based in the New Orleans metro area, his company thrived in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, survived the death of demand for his shrimp products after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and is currently rebuilding sales after COVID 19 shut down his primary customer base of restaurants. In this two part interview we discussed his career journey to entrepreneurship, which included serving as executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing board and working as a Vice President at Xavier University of Louisiana.
Rudy Ruiz’s debut novel, THE RESURRECTION OF FULGENCIO RAMIREZ, is set in a fictional town on the border of Texas and Mexico. A work of magical realism, it’s namesake protagonist is a pharmacist still pining for the lost love of his youth, Carolina. It weaves together the past and present as Fulgencio strives to succeed in America, break a mystical family curse, and win back Carolina’s love after their doomed youthful romance.
Born in Brownsville, Texas Rudy Ruiz won four International Latino Book Awards for his short-story collection Seven for the Revolution and the 2017 Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction.
Denise Mina’s novel , THE LESS DEAD, opens with the protagonist, Margo, meeting her birth mother’s sister for the first time. She learns from her Aunt that her mother was murdered and may have been a victim of a serial killer. Set in Glasgow, Scotland, THE LESS DEAD is not just a thriller, but explores class privilege, and toxic relationships from a working class and middle class perspective.
Denise Mina lives in Glasgow Scotland and is the author of 14 novels.
Art historian Cherise Smith’s new book, MICHAEL RAY CHARLES: A Retrospective, is an in-depth examination of the art of its namesake, a Black artist whose provocative paintings recast images of racism in consumer culture. Michael Ray Charles had his first solo exhibition at a major museum in 1997 at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.
Cherise Smith is Chair of African & African Diaspora Studies Department and Professor of African & African Diaspora Studies and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin.
I interviewed award winning author Bernice McFadden on September 19 on Zoom at the Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas: Austin Emerging Authors Readings. The author of 10 literary novels, McFadden won the 2017 American Book Award and the 2017 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for her novel BOOK OF HARLAN. Her web site is http://www.bernicemcfadden.com/pages/.
At the beginning of Rachel Howzell Hall’s latest crime novel, AND NOW SHE’S GONE, a fledgling black female private investigator, Gray Sykes, is trying to find a client’s girlfriend who has disappeared. The client, an arrogant doctor, seems more concerned about Gray retrieving his dog who disappeared with his girlfriend, than the girlfriend. But as the novel progresses it weaves a second storyline of another young woman that disappeared. With these two storylines, Hall weaves a tale of secrets, fear, and violence while sprinkling her protagonist with small flaws that makes Gray an endearing character that lightens the mood of the novel at times.
Rachel Howzell Hall, author of the bestseller THEY ALL FALL DOWN and writes the acclaimed Lou Norton series which features a black female Los Angeles homicide detective. She is also the co-author with James Patterson of the novel The Good Sister.
In Koritha Mitchell's book FROM SLAVE CABINS TO THE WHITE HOUSE, she argues that it is black success that is most likely to draw the ire of white mobs. Using characters in literature by black female writers from Zora Neale Hurston to Lorraine Hansberry, and the role in the White House of former first lady Michelle Obama, she demonstrates how blacks have pursued success not in response to the forces that oppose them so much as they are continuing community traditions of affirming themselves while acknowledging that the resulting success will attract hostility.
Koritha Mitchell is an award-winning author, cultural critic, and literary historian. She is an associate professor of English at Ohio State University.
I interviewed James Lee Burke about his latest Dave Robicheaux novel, PRIVATE CATHEDRAL. I also had my monthly discussion about new crime novels recommended by Scott Montgomery, crime fiction coordinator of BookPeople, and Molly Odintz, senior editor of CrimeReads. Molly couldn't make it in August but we had our recommendations. The crime fiction picks were PRIVATE CATHEDRAL, WINTER COUNTS by David Heska WAnbli Weiden, DETECTIVES IN THE SHADOWS by Susanna Lee, and AFTERLAND by Lauren Beukes.
Lisa B. Thompson's new book features three of her plays, UNDERGROUND, MONROE, AND THE MAMALOGUES. In these plays, the black feminist playwright and scholar thoughtfully explores themes such as the black family, motherhood, migration, racial violence, and trauma and its effect on black people from the early twentieth century to the present. The works showcase Thompson’s subversive humor and engagement with black history and culture through the lens of the black middle class. In addition to being an award winning playwright, Dr. Thompson is a professor of African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class.
In the novel THE DEATH OF VIVEK OJI by Awaeke Emezi, it opens in a town in southeastern Nigeria, where a mother opens her front door to discover her young adult son’s body, wrapped in colorful fabric, at her feet. What follows is the tumultuous, heart-wrenching story of one family’s struggle to understand a child who grows up as a mystery to his mother and father, but finds his own path with support from a close knit group of friends.
Akwaeke Emezi is a writer and visual artist based in liminal spaces, as well as a 2018 National Book Foundation '5 Under 35' honoree. Born and raised in Nigeria, Emezi is currently working on their eighth book.
In her book SAY IT LOUDER, media and political analyst Tiffany Cross provides a sweeping snapshot of American Democracy and the role that African Americans have played in its shaping. She critiques the lack of diversity in newsrooms that help shape America's discussion of politics and policy, but lack the diversity of voices that reflect American society. She writes that newsrooms are filled with people who, intentionally or not, prioritize issues impacting white people. And she exposes the political forces aligned to subvert and suppress Black voters.
Tiffany D. Cross is an on-air political analyst and cable newsroom veteran. She previously served as the DC Bureau Chief of BET News and the Liaison to the Obama Administration for BET Networks where she covered Capitol Hill, produced political specials, and oversaw the daily operations of the news department. She was also a Resident Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics in the Spring 2020.
Detroit area authors Stephen Mack Jones and Michael Zadoorian have written several novels with Detroit as the setting. In our interview we discussed how Detroit is represented and mis represented in books and the media.
In his book TELL THE BOSSES WE'RE COMING: former labor organizer Shaun Richman discusses the state of unions today, how they got to this point, and what actions he believes can change their fortunes. He reveals that though most of us would likely assume that unions and how they go about their work are the result of active, strategic choices, Richman reveals that they’re actually the product of partisan legal decisions, ideological struggles, and what he contends are the movement's self-imposed and outdated ideas about what a “union” is and what it should do. He asserts that the current moment is also “pregnant with possibilities,” and he offers ideas for the movement’s next steps. Shaun Richman spent a decade and a half as a union organizer and representative. He was a Deputy Director of Organizing for the American Federation of Teachers, where he ran the union’s national charter school organizing division. As a writer, he has focused on union strategy and structure and proposals for labor law reform.
THE REVELATORS is Ace Atkin's 10th novel featuring Sheriff Quinn Colson set in Northern Mississippi. In the Revelators, Colson battles to take down the criminal queenpin who has risen to power through several installments of the series and the corrupt governor who is a white supremacist. It is an epic showdown.
hawn A. Cosby's debut crime novel, BLACKTOP WASTELAND, features as its protagonist a black, former getaway driver in rural Virginia, Beauregard “Bug” Montage. He's a devoted father and husband trying to make an honest living with his auto repair shop, but new competition has put his business on the verge of shutting down. His financial problems leads to him to participate in a heist with a big payoff, but tragic consequences. BLACKTOP WASTELAND is a high octane novel with twists and turns that satisfies fans of thrillers and mysteries. But it also delves deeply into the experiences and motivations that shape the character of its protagonist. It reveals Bug's unhealthy attachment to the memory and myth of his father, his complicated relationship with his mother, and his attraction to the criminal life.
The KAZI Book Review guest was Brandon K. Winford, author of JOHN HERVEY WHEELER, BLACK BANKING, AND THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS. John Hervey Wheeler, who lived from 1908 to 1978 was one of the civil rights movement's most influential leaders, yet very few are familiar with him. In 1952 when he became president of one of the oldest black banks in America, Mechanics & Farmers Bank in Durham, North Carolina, he urged North Carolina's white financial advisors to steer the region toward the end of Jim Crow segregation for economic reasons. Straddling the line between confrontation and negotiation, Wheeler pushed for increased economic opportunity for African Americans while reminding the white South that its future was linked to the plight of black southerners. In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Wheeler to the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, a position in which he championed equal rights for African Americans and worked with Vice President Johnson to draft civil rights legislation.
On this episode of KAZI Book Review we featured an interview with Austin thriller writer, Jeff Abbott, and our crime fiction picks of the month with Scott Montgomery, crime fiction coordinator of BookPeople and Molly Odintz, senior editor of CrimeReads. We interviewed Jeff about his exciting thriller, NEVER ASK ME, which was published in July 2020.
This riveting novel barrels through the New Mexican landscape in an exploration of innocence and guilt, power and wealth, and the search for love and happiness.
Richard Z. Santos is a writer and high school teacher living in Austin.
Debra Dibble Boone is one of the contributors to SOULFUL PRAYERS VOLUME 2: The Power Of Intentional Communication WITH GOD. In our interview she read an excerpt of her prayer from the book, and discussed how and why she became part of the book.
Bestselling author Kimberla Lawson Roby is best know for her Reverend Curtis Black series of novels, which deal with the trials and tribulations of a black pastor of a Chicago church. With her new spiritual memoir, THE WOMAN GOD CREATED YOU TO BE, she shares her journey to spiritual peace.
In his debut novel THE COYOTES OF CARTHAGE, Steven Wright presents a disturbing portrayal of a corporate financed political campaign through the eyes of a the black political consultant running it, whose personal and professional life is unraveling.
Steven Wright is a professor of law at The University of Wisconsin in Madison, the co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, and also teaches creative writing at the University of Wisconsion. Before joining the University of Wisconsin Law School faculty, he served as a trial attorney in the Voting Section of the United States Department of Justice. In this role, he litigated cases to enforce the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Acts, National Voter Registration Act, and the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act.
In HYPER EDUCATION, Pawan Dhingra uncovers the growing world of high-achievement education and the after-school learning centers, spelling bees, and math competitions that it has spawned. It is a world where immigrant families vie with other Americans to be at the head of the class, putting in hours of studying and testing in order to gain a foothold in the supposed meritocracy of American public education.
THE NARCISSM OF SMALL DIFFERENCES by Michael Zadoorian, is a novel that examines a couple, Joe and Ana, and how they begin to question the state of their relationship and careers as they approach 40. Set in Detroit in 2009, Michael and Ana each reflect on the dreams and aspirations they had in their mid 20s, when they first got together, and how unfulfilled they are. A native of Detroit, Michael Zadoorian is the author of four novels and a short story collection.
I interviewed Ivy Pochoda about her crime novel, THESE WOMEN, when it came out in May. THESE WOMEN explores the lives of five women connected by murders in South Central Los Angeles. With its diverse cast of women characters, Pochoda, presents a gritty and nuanced story of their dreams, their grief, and their frustration as they struggle for agency and to be heard.
Ivy Pochoda is the author of four novels. She teaches creative writing at the Studio 526 Skid Row, a community arts and cultural platform in Los Angeles’ Skid Row neighborhood.
On my KAZI 88.7 FM show, Economic perspectives, I interviewed Sylnovia Holt-Rabb, deputy economic development director of the City of Austin.
Scott Montgomery, crime fiction coordinator of BookPeople, Molly Odintz, senior editor of CrimeReads,andand special guest crime novelist Ivy Pochoda joined host Hopeton Hay to discuss their recommendations of recently published crime novels to read.
The books discussed for May were These Women by Ivy Pochoda, The Law of Lines, by Hye Young-pyun, Catherine House, by Elisabeth Thomas,Mine will be Poison Flood by Jordan Jordan Farmer, The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel, Take Me Apart by Sara Sligar, The Distant Dead by Heather Young, Fair Warning by Michael Connelly and Of Mice And Minestrone by Joe Lansdale.
In the book THE HOUR OF FATE, Susan Berfield portrays the momentous legal battle between 1902 and 1904 between President Theodore Roosevelt and investment banker J.P. Morgan over the government's ability to restrict agreements between companies that would lead to monopolies in their markets. The Northern Securities Case (1904), which established President Theodore Roosevelt’s reputation as a “trust buster,” reached the Supreme Court in 1904. It was the first example of Roosevelt’s use of anti-trust legislation to dismantle a monopoly, in this case a holding company controlling the principal railroad lines from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest.
In the book, Berfield provides the background stories of Roosevelt and Morgan roots in wealthy families and their rise to power, but divergent paths when it came to big business.
Susan Berfield is an award winning feature writer and investigative reporter. THE HOUR OF FATE is her first book.
Randal Maurice Jelks’s biography, BENJAMIN ELIJAH MAYS: Schoolmaster of the Movement, chronicles the life of the man Martin Luther King Jr. called his "spiritual and intellectual father." Mays, who lived 1894-1984, served as dean of the Howard University School of Religion, president of Morehouse College, and mentor to influential black leaders. Mays had a profound impact on the education of the leadership of the black church and of a generation of activists, policymakers, and educators. I recorded this interview with Jelks in 2012.
On May 20, 2020, I interviewed Aaron Demerson, the Texas Workforce Commissioner representing employers. We discussed the initiatives of TWC to assist employers, the self-employed, and workers.
While the Tulsa 1921 race massacre is well known to black historians, President Trump's initial decision to hold a campaign rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth, rescinded later, has brought it to the forefront of American consciousness. On May 31 and June 1, 1921 mobs of whites attacked blacks and destroyed businesses in the prosperous black community of greeenwood. It is reported that dozens if not hundreds of African Americans were killed. In February of 2014, I discussed this dark time in black history with Frederick Williams who had just published a historical novel based on the riot, FIRES OF GREENWOOD.
Frederick Williams worked on Capitol Hill for Senator Birch Bayh as a legislative aide, assisting in the drafting and management of the first Senate legislative proposal to make Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday a national holiday. Currently he teaches creative writing courses for Black Writers on Tour in Los Angeles, California, for the Zora Neale Hurston Festival Education Day in Eatonville, Florida, and for Gemini Ink, a literary agency in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of four novels.
In VEIL AND VOW, Aneeka Ayanna Henderson critically examines the representation of Black women and their relationships in popular fiction, music, and movies in the 1990s while critiquing the devastating impact economic policy and federal legislation had on black inequality. Among those she reviews are the main characters in novels by Terry McMillan and Sista Souljah, and the lyrics of songs by Anita Baker and Public Enemy. Aneeka Ayanna Henderson is assistant professor of sexuality, women's, and gender studies at Amherst College.
In Zack O'Malley Greenburg's latest book, A-LIST ANGELS, Basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal, actor Ashton Kutcher, and rapper Nas are among the athletes and entertainers who are chronicled that have become successful venture capitalists. A-LIST ANGELS tells the stories how this group and other transitioned from focusing on their salaries and traditional endorsement deals to looking for equity and long-term investments. Zack O'Malley Greenburg is senior editor of media & entertainment at Forbes and author of four books, including the Jay-Z biography Empire State of Mind.
In A BLACK WOMEN’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, authors Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Gross centering of Black women’s stories show their unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression. Through stories of unknown and well known black women throughout American history, Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.
Daina Ramey Berry is a Professor of History and associate dean of the Graduate School at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author or co-editor of several previous books, including The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.
Kali Nicole Gross is the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of History at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Her previous books include Hannah Mary Tabbs and the Disembodied Torso: A Tale of Race, Sex, and Violence in America.
When we think about the 1936 Olympics, the first memory for many black Americans is Jessie Owens winning four gold medals in Berlin and embarrassing Nazi Germany and Adolph Hitler, and destroying their master race theory. But what Deborah Riley Draper does as co-author of the new book OLYMPIC PRIDE, AMERICAN PREJUDICE, is tell the story of all 18 African Americans whom competed in the 1936 Olympics. This contingent of black athletes won 14 medals including 8 gold, but save for Jessie Owens, were largely unheralded. The book is based on her 2016 documentary of the same name that she wrote, directed and produced.
Deborah Riley Draper is an award-winning and critically-acclaimed filmmaker.
This interview with Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas was recorded in 2015, shortly after the publication of her book STAND YOUR GROUND. For Rev. Douglas, the death of Trayvon Martin was her Emmit Till moment, igniting deep chords of sadness and fear for young blacks. With her 2015 book, STAND YOUR GROUND: Black Bodies And The Justice Of God, she traces the history of the stand your ground culture in America to the anglo saxon myth, and she chronicles the African American struggle to hold America accountable to its democratic ideas.
In our interview Professor Brown discussed how American founding fathers were influenced by the Anglo Saxon myth, how Black leaders like Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King challenged America to live up to its idealism, and why Americans need to understand its racialized history. Kelly Brown Douglas is the Dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
In her book TAXING BLACKNESS, Norah Gharala examines how free blacks in colonial Mexico faced specific tax burdens beginning in 1574, because of their African lineage, in short, paying for their freedom. By 1790, the number of free blacks in Mexico soared to over 300,000, dwarfing the population of free blacks in the United States, and providing a reliable source of revenue to the Spanish colonial government in Mexico.In TAXING BLACKNESS, Gharala shows the profound ambivalence, and often hostility, that free people of African descent faced as they navigated a regime that simultaneously labeled them sources of tax revenue and dangerous vagabonds.
As many as 4.5 million young people between 16 and 24 years of age were neither in school nor working writes Anne Kim in her book ABANDONED. In the book she skillfully weaves heart-rending stories of young people navigating early adulthood alone, in communities where poverty is endemic and opportunities almost nonexistent. She presents the case for the expansion of programs of social programs that will provide them with the support they need to achieve self-sufficiency.
Anne Kim is the vice president of domestic policy at the Progressive Policy Institute and a contributing editor at Washington Monthly.
Be sure to checkout KAZI Book Review's Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas beginning June 13. More information is available at www.kazibookreview.wordpress.com.
Yvonne Battle-Felton’s novel, REMEMBERED, begins in 1910 with a race riot in Philadelphia where the protagonist Spring learns her son Edward is one of the victims of white mob violence. As he lays in a hospital bed on the edge of death, Spring tells him the story of her family, including her dead sister Tempe, whose ghost has haunted her since her untimely demise. Going all the way back to 1843, REMEMBERED explores the complex legacy of slavery and motherhood in ways similar to Toni Morrison's monumental novel BELOVED. Yvonne Battle-Felton teaches creative writing at the University of Lancaster in England. REMEMBERED is her first novel.
Be sure to checkout KAZI Book Review's Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas beginning June 13. More information is available at www.kazibookreview.wordpress.com.
In the biography AMERICAN SHERLOCK, journalism professor Kate Winkler Dawson tells the story of Edward Oscar Heinrich, one of America's greatest forensic scientists. In the book, Dawson features seven criminal cases Heinrich worked on between 1921 and 1933. Some demonstrate his brilliance as a criminal scene investigator, and others his weaknesses. Kate Winkler Dawson is an associate professor of practice in the School of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin and has nearly 25 years of television news experience.
Be sure to checkout KAZI Book Review's Fourth Annual Celebration of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas beginning June 13. More information is available at www.kazibookreview.wordpress.com.
I interviewed Melanie Flowers, chair of the Capital Area Workforce Solutions Board of Directors. We discussed the training and childcare resources available to laid off and essential workers in Travis County, Texas. The web site is http://www.wfscapitalarea.com/ and phone number is 512-454-9675.
Cedric Alexander spent over 40 years in public service including serving as police chief in Rochester, NY and police chief and director off public safety in Dekalb County in Atlanta metro area. In his book, he highlights the importance of civil servants providing information, facts, and recommendations for public policy in a nonpolitical manner. His web site is https://clalexandergroup.com/about-me/.
In Wanda Smalls Lloyd's memoir COMING FULL CIRCLE, the award winning journalist chronicles her journey from being editor of her high school newspaper in segregated Savannah, Georgia in the late 1950s to becoming executive editor of the Montgomery Advertiser daily newspaper. Lloyd entered journalism at a time when many major daily newspapers were just beginning to integrate their newsroom. She was one of the few black copy editors at a daily newspaper when her career began in 1971. Wanda Lloyd retired from the Montgomery Advertiser in 2013 to become an associate professor and chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at Savannah State University. Her web site is https://wandalloyd.com/