SUMMER BOOKS 2025
(Photo illustration by AmNews)
A Son of Harlem: Congressman Charles B. Rangel (1930
Stories that inspire and motivate, as well as entertain
By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews
“Multicultural voices have always been important,” said Krishan Trotman, vice president and publisher of Legacy Lit, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group. Throughout her career in publishing, Trotman has worked to publish books by multicultural voices and about social justice. At a time when people are feeling unseen, fatigued, and unappreciated, these books can be entertainment, inspiration, or a source of strength and motivation.
“They are uplifting and sharing the stories and experiences of BIPOC people that have been underserved, and the authors are doing it in compelling ways of storytelling,” said Trotman, “whether it’s using personal story, providing a glimpse into history, or creating universes.”
Summer is a time to escape, and there are few better ways to escape than reading a well-written book. Whether you’re a novel or a book about history, these books are page-turners.
“The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” by Clarence A. Haynes
This novel is a fast-paced, sexy, ghostly adventure about a powerful publicist who has a legion of long-buried mystical secrets.
“Clarence is able to marry so many different genres into one,” said Trotman. “The book encompasses urban fantasy, horror, some romance, and it’s sexy. It does it fluidly and creates an enjoyable read that sometimes will make you laugh; other times, will resonate in a soulful, deeper way. It’s an elevated experience.”
“Sir Lewis” by Michael Sawyer
This is a definitive biography of Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton.
“I learned about Lewis Hamilton and all the great work that he was doing as an advocate and how his reach had gotten even broader through fashion,” said Trotman.
“This book merges different spaces and ideas, and brings them together. That’s what Lewis Hamilton’s legacy does. It’s showing sport, activism, and art.”
“The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic” by Lindsey Stewart
Coming in July, this book tells the history of conjure women, who, although enslaved, brought their ancestral spiritual beliefs from West Africa and combined them with herbal rituals and therapeutic remedies to create a secret well of health and hidden power.
Trotman noted that the character of Annie in Michael B. Jordan’s hit film “Sinners” is a conjure woman. “Her character really has an impact on people and showed the power of Black women,” she said. “This book is looking at 400 years of that Black girl magic … It’s a blend of magical realism with real-world happenings.”
“Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” by Khadijah Queen
This memoir is by a U.S. Navy veteran who endured a grueling experience during her military service.
“I am excited about giving voice to Black women as veterans and doing it in a way that acknowledges the truth about many of their experiences,” said Trotman. “Khadijah is a poet and a truth teller, and she does not hold back.”
“Iron Will: An Amputee’s Journey to Athletic Excellence” by Roderick Sewell
This is the remarkable true story of Paralympian Roderick Sewell, the first bilateral above-the-knee amputee to finish the Ironman World Championship.
“The relationship with Roderick and his mom — they went through a lot — wasn’t always due to his physicality, but also the financial struggles,” Trotman said. “She helped him maintain his dream and get to where he is today, not only in his athleticism, but in his self-determination.”
‘Joy Goddess, A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance’ — a review
By MICHAEL HENRY ADAMS Special to the AmNews
As described by the publisher, “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance” is indeed a very fine book, a “vibrant, deeply researched biography” of the only daughter of Madam C.J. Walker, written by A’Lelia Bundles, her greatgranddaughter. A dramatically engrossing tale, Bundles’ saga of A’Lelia Walker (née Lelia McWilliams, later, after three marriages, Robinson, Wilson, and Kennedy; later dubbed the “Joy Goddess of Harlem” by Langston Hughes) is related with the assurance of the consummate storyteller.
Following a childhood mired in poverty and deprivation, A’Lelia Walker deftly pivoted. As if to the manor born, she assumed the rarefied role of Harlem’s leading arts patron, showcasing such promising Black prodigies as concert pianist Justin Sandridge and artist Richmond Barthé. Equally important, Bundles tells how ultimately she transformed her showplace home into public venues, The Dark Tower and The Walker Studios — venues for events that not only promoted Black culture, but were spaces convening Blacks and whites, writers, artists, and patrons together in the common cause of social progress and partying.
(Of note: Their Harlem home was redesigned and renovated by Vertner Woodson Tandy, one of the first Black registered architects in New York State, who successfully adapted two narrow Queen Anne Style brownstone row houses, located at 108 and 110 W 136th Street, into the Walkers’ stately Neo-Federal Style Harlem residence. The Walkers’ business premises were located on the ground floor.)
Ms. Walker’s Black uplift, motherdaughter struggles, and love intrigues, set against the backdrop of a rags-to-riches romp, from hard knocks and dreamland to the real world, are better able to hold one transfixed than any novel ever could. In accessing the story and creating a picture of her larger-than-life relation, Bundles has made a solid start. Hers is not a perfunctory or sensationalized account, as a People magazine essay might have conveyed. But then, neither is it as in-depth or profound a treatment, told over 1,000 pages or in two volumes, as one might expect to read about in the Atlantic, Forbes, or the New York Review of Books. To a few, it might be said to lack the excitement frequently derived from the best features of Vanity Fair. Nonetheless, admirers of The Root, Vogue, or smaller profiles in The New Yorker are certain to find highly admirable its easy accessibility and emphasis upon themes of universal appeal.
Bundles, by no means, intended to write merely a picture book destined to ornament coffee tables, unread. It’s been 23 years since A’Lelia Bundles’ well-received
Madame C. J. Walker biography, “On Her Own Ground” (which inspired the Netflix 2020 series “Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker”), appeared in 2001. Thanks to her additional research that followed, innumerable previously unknown Walker-related photographs have been uncovered. How splendidly they depict A’Lelia Walker’s houses and her unprecedented treasures: her Louis XV clock; a silver nef from the Renaissance; a bust of Booker T. Washington; a reduction of Hiram Power’s iconic white marble statue, “The Greek Slave;” her shining limousine, with a chauffeur at the wheel; all are
shown. In-situ, they await their devastating dispersal, at a packed auction, forced by the Great Depression in 1930. What an enhancement they might have made. Color pictures of some of what survives — silver flatware, porcelain plates, and damask tablecloths, augmented by pictures of A’Lelia Walker’s high fashion finery — would have delighted readers as well. Certainly Bundles is never better than when describing posh places with elegant interiors, or distingué gowns from the best Paris haute couture houses. But even her gifts are taxed, having illustrated such images to readers mostly unaware of the
glories of a past that’s dead and gone. For a months-long sojourn abroad to Europe and the Levant, in 1922, Walker booked a first-class stateroom on the SS Paris. Absent an image, the grandeur A’Lelia Walker must have experienced, descending the grand staircase, must be hard for many to envision. Spotlighted beneath Rene Lalique’s dazzling glass dome, how regal she must have felt and looked.
What “Joy Goddess” lacks most is something value of which Madame Walker and her daughter were all too aware of and alert to: How astutely they utilized carefully staged and strategically placed advertisements. In Stanley Nelson’s excellent and poignant film about the Walkers, “Two Dollars and a Dream,” Peg Fisher, the Walker Co.’s secretary, said, “She taught us how to be beautiful…” Fame and fortune brought them continual publicity. With the luxury of their lifestyle and the possibility of their success, they put the world on blast. Well before Martha Stewart was born, with every fifty-cent tin of their “Miracle Hair Grower,” the Walkers sold America’s most put-upon and disrespected women a wish to build a dream on, replete with aspirations of loveliness, and hope of better times.
Was Harlem’s Joy Goddess queer? She made a home with Mayme White, née Mary Adelyne, the daughter of a congressman George Henry White. (At the close of the Cong. White’s second term in 1901, another African American would not serve as a US representative until 1929). The onebedroom walk-up apartment these singular women shared was on the second floor at 80 Edgecombe Avenue. Regarding the pair, Bundles offers,“...because Mayme moved into A’Lelia’s apartment, there has long been speculation about the nature of their relationship … Given the intense homophobia of the time, there would have been incentive to hide a romantic relationship…” she said, to then note the lack of evidence of a romance. Bundles mused whether, along with being overshadowed by famous parents, a shared vantage point had made them “soulmates who became lovers?” But in the end, she determines, “A century later, without personal journals, contemporaneous correspondence, or confessions, what happened in A’Lelia’s bedroom … is unknown.”
This leaves plenty of room to explore further what many in their sophisticated circle thought. According to acclaimed Harlem photographer Marvin Smith (who, with his twin Morgan Smith worked for the AmNews) and Raoul Abdul (Langston Hughes’ secretary and long-time AmNews classical music columnist), some of White’s and Walker’s friends — including Caska Bonds (an eminent music teacher and coach) and Edna Lewis Thomas (a stage star) — were emphatic about the pair being a couple. Even though Smith was briefly married and See ‘JOY GODDESS’ on page 28
A Q & A with A’Lelia Bundles, author of ‘Joy Goddess’
By MICHAEL HENRY ADAMS Special to the AmNews
In a short twenty-year span, A’Lelia Bundles has written four biographies that document her larger-than-life, from ragsto-riches ancestors. These exceptional forebears were Madam C. J. Walker, the Black hair and beauty care pioneer, her fun-loving philanthropic daughter, A’Lelia Walker, and their daughter and granddaughter, Mae Robinson Perry, nèe Fairy Mae Bryant, who perpetuated their luminous legacy. Thoroughly and thoughtfully, each are chronicled in “Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepreneur” (Chelsea House 1991); “All about Madam C. J. Walker” (Walker/Cardin Publishing, 2017); “On Her own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker” (Scribner, 2001): and “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance” (Simon and Schuster 2025).
Acclaimed as a journalist, news producer, and author, recipient of numerous awards and honors, a fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vice chair emerita of Columbia University’s Board of Trustees, and chair emerita of the board of the National Archives Foundation, now it is Ms. Bundles turn to shine. In anticipation of her newest understanding, “Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance,” we at the AmNews had a few questions.
AmNews: You have expressed disappointment with “Self Made,” the 2020 Netflix/ Warner Bros. series adapted from your biography, “On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker.” What most troubled you about the series?
AB: I’ve spoken and written often about my impressions, especially in Andscape. com (formerly TheUndefeated.com), in “Netflix’s ‘Self Made’ Suffers from Self Inflicted Wounds,” — and for Variety. I want to be clear that I think Octavia Spencer did an excellent job of embodying Madam C. J. Walker’s persona whenever she appeared on screen. I also very much appreciate the makeup artists, hair stylists, set and costume designers, and many members of the cast who worked so hard on the series. But I was not happy that key aspects of Madam Walker’s life were distorted. I was disappointed that the showrunners and scriptwriters chose — despite my objections during the scripting process — to lean into stale tropes about Black women “catfighting” with one another and racial stereotypes that cast Black men as shady criminals. I really was hoping for an inspirational story more along the lines of the movie “Hidden Figures.” Unfortunately, I think the script too often veered toward “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.”
AmNews: As now, looking from the outside in, the lives led by the great can seem idyllic. Both in her lifetime and today, what do you consider to be the greatest misconceptions about A’Lelia Walker’s lifestyle?
AB: Some Harlem Renaissance historians and biographers have caricatured A’Lelia Walker and reduced her to a dilettantish party girl. One historian inexplicably claimed that she spent the 1920s “playing bridge.” While A’Lelia Walker did enjoy a good game of bridge as well as a good round of poker, she was also very much involved in
ed and unchallenged in dozens of books and articles. I do hope that “ Joy Goddess” will provide a fresh perspective and allow readers to move past the myths because I think they’ll discover an interesting, complex person who helped shape the social and cultural scene of the Harlem Renaissance.
promoting artists and the arts and in raising money for a range of causes, from an ambulance for Black soldiers during World War I to a community center for Harlem children. Because of her inheritance and her three homes, she had the means and the venues to serve in the role of convener by bringing together people from uptown and downtown, from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and America, from the arts and fashion, from business and politics.
After reading hundreds of pages of her letters and having interviewed a dozen of her close friends during the 1980s, I was puzzled by the gratuitous portrayal some authors have offered. Unfortunately, those inaccurate narratives have become entrenched after being repeat -
AmNews: Your description of the unusual circumstances and commonality about the life experience of A’Lelia Walker and her companion Mayme White was both touching and poignant. When your greatgrandmother died, Ms. White sought a few hundred dollars in assistance from her attorney, and he refused. This led to a lawsuit and an appeal, won by the Walker estate. Do you think that A’Lelia Walker did intend to remember White? And, even if she did not, might it not have been better for all involved to have a settlement?
AB: I think you’re asking me to speculate on what might have been. I am not a fan of what is called “critical fabulation,” where writers project their personal expectations and impose their desired or imagined out-
come onto a situation. What I do know from A’Lelia Walker’s letters is that she was very intentional and specific about who was mentioned in her will and what she wished to bequeath and to whom.
AmNews: Adhering strictly to fact, you assert that there is no known evidence to support a romantic relationship between Walker and White. But you’ve seen the one-bedroom apartment they shared at 80 Edgecombe Avenue. And, you are also familiar with John Claude Baker’s assertion in “Josephine Baker: The Hungry Heart,” his biography of his guardian, Josephine Baker. He said that many Black women during the Harlem Renaissance found themselves so badly treated by husbands and boyfriends that intimacy with each other was often a kind of emotional consolation and therapy. Despite the lack of corroborating letters or diaries discovered during your exhaustive research, do you think any might be discovered to bolster reminiscences related to me from Bobby Short and Marvin Smith?
AB: Again, I think you’re asking me to speculate and to engage in “critical fabulation” where no reliable evidence or documentation exists. As a biographer who writes nonfiction, I rely on primary source research, which in this case included interviews with A’Lelia Walker’s friends, hundreds of pages of her letters, and thousands of newspaper articles, as well as legal documents, transcripts, and depositions. During my career as a television news producer, I learned to follow leads and to take the extra step of corroborating stories to avoid repeating rumors and myths. I kept an open mind throughout my many years of research as I explored A’Lelia Walker’s marriages to John Robinson, Dr. Wiley Wilson, and Dr. James Arthur Kennedy, as well as her friendships with Mayme White, Edna Lewis Thomas, Geraldyn Dismond (Gerri Major), Bessye Bearden, and Lucille Green Randolph.
AmNews: For me, the most fascinating discovery you brought to light was the seriousness of A’Lelia Walker’s stroke and how early it was, long before she died. What, for you, was the most unexpected thing you uncovered?
AB: Certainly, A’Lelia Walker’s stroke in 1924 and her ongoing health issues played a role in how she navigated her personal life and business obligations during the last seven years of her life. I don’t know that I would say it was “unexpected,” but I found much more evidence of her support of artists, writers, musicians, and actors than is commonly known. I was glad to be able to discover granular details about her inspiration for creating the Dark Tower, the cultural salon she opened in October 1927, and the role it played in the life of Harlemites. Having her travel diary from
Author A’Lelia Bundles (Jimell Green photo)
‘So Drunk a Tooth’s Gotta Go’
Writer Joy Alicia shares a humorous take on life, love, and the gig economy
By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews
San Diego-born and raised comedic writer Joy Alicia’s collection of essays hits bookshelves on June 10. For those who will want to have this upcoming humorous take on modern dating, societal expectations, and navigating life’s chaos on the go, the e-edition of “So Drunk a Tooth’s Gotta Go” is also available.
The podcast host and sometime stand-up comedian, whose essays have been published in outlets like Newsweek and The Daily Mail , acknowl -
A’Lelia Bundles
Continued from page 25
her trip to Paris, London, Monte Carlo, Nice, Rome, Cairo, Palestine, and Addis Ababa in 1921 and 1922 gave me a much clearer sense of her international travels and friendships.
AmNews: The Walker Women fared rather better in their efforts at dynasty building than W. E. B. DuBois. Were they around
edged that, despite extensive writing experience, putting together a book is extremely difficult. But she felt compelled to share her stories.
“Some important topics go unmentioned and useful advice isn’t always disseminated in an entertaining way, so I merged my love of comedy with my love for writing to cover topics that are light-hearted or heavy, writing essays that will spark interest and hold people’s attention,” said Alicia. “So Drunk a Tooth’s Gotta Go” is not boring. The title kind of suggests that it shouldn’t be. It’s laugh-out-loud funny.”
The 19 essays cover everything from
today, what do you imagine they would do differently? Was their greatest impact the unique way they helped to motivate and empower Black women? What do you hope will be their legacy in times to come?
AB: I do think that Madam Walker had a great impact during her lifetime of empowering women to be financially independent, politically aware community leaders. I’m really pleased that her story still inspires entrepreneurs and sets an example for philanthropists and social justice activists. I
binge drinking to weight loss, being single to breakups, international travel, racism, the gig economy, toxic friends, heartbreak, confidence, and more. She feels her essays are relatable, confessional, and important. It’s a raw, real, and kind of irreverent self-help guide.
“I want to be a voice for the people who currently work in the gig economy or have worked in the gig economy and haven’t spoken out about how the system is rigged,” Alicia said. “People who work in the gig economy are overworked and underpaid. It’s a vicious, never-ending cycle that robs workers of a healthy work-life balance.”
love that she has become such an icon that a Madam Walker Barbie doll was created a few years ago.
I really see A’Lelia Walker’s legacy as that of a social impresario whose charisma and gift as a convener allowed her to create welcoming spaces for a wide range of people. I love that her Dark Tower is an essential part of any account of the Harlem Renaissance.
For these forthright and informative responses, I want to extend a personal
“Humor writing is incredibly difficult because you can’t gauge the audience,” Alicia said. There isn’t the gratification of audience feedback that a standup comic would get, but on the upside, there’s no heckling … at least no live heckling. Social media is another story. She is also passionate about women remaining safe while dating online, and using dating apps more efficiently so they can have fun first dates. Talking about bad dates felt obligatory, but she also makes it clear that those happened prior to her figuring out how to optimize her time and only have good first dates.
“I had bad dates whenever I didn’t follow my own advice,” Alicia said. “Bad first dates can and will happen when people don’t implement the strategies in my dating hacks chapter.”
In general, she noted, people match on dating apps based on physical attraction, which is why so many first dates are awkward and unpleasant.
“Every time I hear someone say they had a bad first date, I cringe,” she said. “One of the best ways for both women and men to remain safe while online dating, and stop wasting time meeting people they’re incompatible with, is to vet their matches first. Speaking to matches on the phone before meeting and asking the right important questions that help you determine whether someone’s worth a first date is outlined in my dating hacks chapter.”
She covers pretty much everything in the dating hacks chapter, including how to avoid getting ghosted. As for losing the tooth? You have to read the book.
Alicia described the book as escapist art and self-care, noting we can choose laughter instead of tears when facing life’s challenges.
“Summer reads are supposed to be fun,” said Alicia. “‘So Drunk a Tooth’s Gotta Go’ is a fun book filled with punchlines and jokes. … You don’t want to get on a plane, go to the beach, or lay out by the pool without a book that will help you enjoy your time.”
thank you to A’Lelia Bundles. To discover more about her remarkable family, past work, and forthcoming projects, be sure to visit her website at aleliabundles.com and follow her at @aleliabundles. Coming up on June 9, the century-old Schomburg Center will be hosting the talk and booksigning “Joy Goddess: A Book Launch and Conversation” where all will be afforded the chance to meet Ms. Bundles in person and have her inscribe her books. To register, visit eventbrite.com.
Author Joy Alicia (Contributed photo)
So you want to learn about Harlem? Books on Harlem’s real and fictional histories
By MICHAEL HENRY ADAMS Special to the AmNews
Some might imagine that one book can tell all there is to know concerning Harlem. Impossible! Because, though often long forgotten, before it was Black, or even gentrifying, the storied neighborhood involved myriad inhabitants of varied backgrounds, occupying the same place, bearing that name across time — that history is all Harlem too. The Lenape’s summer waterfront resort and planting ground gave way, after a shaky start, to the town Dutch imperialists christened Nieuw Haarlem. Its chief function was to grow food to feed residents of the more important commercial port of Nieuw Amsterdam. Ten miles apart, the settlements had the same sort of geographic relationship as their namesakes in the Netherlands.
Sometime later, like folks out East in the Hamptons of today, Harlem was mostly home to a few rich people who spent the cold months downtown but came here when it got hot. Enslaved Africans made life pleasant. These stately mansions of the elite on landscaped estates were easy to get away to.
Not long before African Americans claimed Harlem, circa 1920, there were sections that were German and Jewish, Irish and Catholic, and Italian and Roman Catholic.
Elegant or rustic, a tangible, specific, and concrete Harlem can be explored in the book, “Harlem Lost and Found: An Architectural and Social History, 1795-1915” by yours truly, Michael Henry Adams (New York: Monacelli Press, 2002).
But, there’s another amorphous, more spiritual, sometimes imaginary Harlem as well. It can better be encountered in “Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America” by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011).
Celebrated for a 100 years as the African American Cultural Capital, it once seemed, until quite recently, as if Harlem was the spot — the special, thriving Black center of cultural achievement and political ambition — and might continue to go on from strength to strength, forever. Yet, even when I moved here in 1985 to attend graduate school at Columbia, that place seemed to have already begun to morph, from lived experience, into a wounded by wonderful myth.
Since Ms. Rhodes-Pitts‘ elegiac meditation was published fourteen years ago, a pivotal moment in Harlem’s history has passed. Far beyond mere encroachment, gentrification has actually dislodged some guardians of Black heritage. Stalwart residents like Rhodes-Pitts, one had thought to be ‘forever Harlemites,’ have vanished. Far
beyond her quietly decamping for Brooklyn, so many of the representative idiosyncratic characters Rhodes-Pitts vividly chronicles have also left, some to become ‘dearly departed.’ So it’s clear that there’s been an elemental change.
What remains? It is a place, a Harlem, more fabled and mythic, more a realm of the imagination, than ever. Therein lies this slight volume’s enormous value — its record of a place that’s more nowhere than ever. One, that some say, has ceased to exist. Going or gone, reviving or resurrecting?
The only constant of Harlem is a momentous, calamitous, and always revivifying history. It generates ever-new scholarship, which also inspires new fictional adaptations. Here are some of the best.
Only take note: these selections, whether novels or nonfiction, are all excellent, even those without commentary only lacked additional space. Each is highly recommended.
“The New Negro: An Interpretation” by Alain Leroy Locke (New York: Atheneum, 1925)
Edited by America’s first and last Rhodes scholar for fifty years. Before being published in book form, this monumental anthology first appeared as an issue of the
journal, Survey Graphic. A compilation of fiction, poetry, and essays about African and African American heritage and advancement, some scholars contend that it officially launched the Harlem Renaissance, with Locke, who headed the philosophy department at Howard University, acting as the movement’s godfather.
It showcases aesthetic and academic creativity emergent from an ascendant Black community. Besides Locke’s introductory analysis, it includes contributions from towering figures, including Zora Neal Hurston, Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Claude McKay.
Reading it today, discovering so many leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance were queer, one is impressed by the diversity and inclusiveness of Harlem’s intellectual life a century ago. One is also both reassured of the vitality of Black greatness, and actually astonished that so high a level of accomplishment should be attained by so many, following 300 years of enforced illiteracy, such a short time after slavery’s end.
“Black Manhattan” by James Weldon Johnson (Alfred A. Knopf: NY, 1930)
This essential text compellingly traces the
evolving demographic and experience of African Americans in New York City’s most affluent borough. From a pre-Revolutionary War Black community at Chatham Square, it moves to the “Little Africa” section of Greenwich Village. Shifting ever northward, it travels from Midtown-West’s “Tenderloin”, to what’s now the location of Lincoln Center — once a neighborhood Black residents shared contentiously with European immigrants, known as “San Juan Hill.
Black Manhattan is the work of accomplished writer, poet, lyricist, lawyer, educator, diplomat, NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson. Like his brother, musicologist J. Rosamond Johnson, today he’s best remembered for creating Lift Every Voice and Sing, the Black National anthem.
The book concludes in 1920s Harlem, then the “World’s Black Mecca”. Contextualizing where and how Black New Yorkers have lived, it still raises searing questions about how this particular place is bound up by issues of our culture, identity, and struggle. Most poignantly, Johnson wonders about Harlem’s ”promised land,” becoming overcrowded and unaffordable due to rising property values. Will an African See HARLEM BOOKS on page 32
‘Joy Goddess’
Continued from page 24
Thomas wed twice, each of these notable Harlem personalities was what is today called queer. Though known, none were “out.” (Prior to 1969, almost no one was. Identifying each other to straight people, even after they were long dead, was regarded as betrayal and unpardonable. Among themselves, it was different. Most of Harlem’s prominent gays and lesbians knew, or knew of, each other, and in detail.)
Bundles’ handling of the subject of her grandmoth -
er’s adoption is as sensitive as it is forthcoming. A’Lelia Walker and her mother were both much taken by the good looks, good sense, and conscientiousness of the fatherless granddaughter of a family friend from church. Fairy Mae Bryant was adopted by A’Lelia Walker (then Lelia Robinson) in 1912. Bundles said, “[L] ong braids made her an ideal model for Madame Walker to demonstrate her hair care products.” Bundles shows that the Walker women’s’ wish to leave a long, loving legacy was as powerful a motivator as the exploitative explanation some
people imagined. But for neither A’Lelia Walker nor for Madame Walker did affection and wanting the best for one’s children always coincide with understanding. Following her debut and graduation from Spelman College, grateful for all she’d been given, Miss Mae Robinson was wed to a husband of her mother’s choosing, the socially eminent, seemingly decorous Dr. Gordon Henry Jackson. While the wedding and the divorce had cost a fortune — and great heartache besides — the marriage lasted only a few years.
See ‘JOY GODDESS’ continued on page 32
The first-class dining room of the SS Paris, the ship on which, in 1922, A’Lelia Walker booked first-class passage on a months-long trip to Europe. (Public domain photo)
A’Lelia Walker was covered extensively in the AmNews throughout the years.
Supernatural stories coming out this summer
By MARK WINSTON GRIFFITH Special to the AmNews
Now that you’ve seen “Sinners,” surely you’re hankering for some more playtime with the otherworldly, the un/ dead, and all things fantastically Black. If so, this is your lucky summer. Three novels by Black authors that are on sale in the coming weeks delve, in their own distinct ways, into supernatural realms that feature adventures in Black culture, family, and community.
“Family Spirit,” by the Philly-based author Diane McKinney-Whetstone, brings us the clairvoyant Mace family, whose apparently XX chromosome-specific “Knowing” gene has been inherited by our heroine Ayana, a struggling college senior. Ayana is keeping her gift on the DL, lest she be branded “weird” by her mother, but that doesn’t stop Ayana from participating in rituals, seeing
Inspires and entertain
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“Bet on Black” by Eboni K. Williams (paperback edition)
Available in July, the paperback edition of Eboni K. Williams’ 2023 book is a call to action for Black people all over the world to adopt a fresh, highly informed mind -
into the future, and teaming up with her outcast aunt to reconcile an unsettling premonition. Described as “Alice Hoffman’s beloved ‘Magic’ series meets Gloria Naylor’s classic supernatural novel ‘Mama Day,’” “Family Spirit” will be available August 12.
McKinney-Whetstone’s eight novels include “Tumbling: A Novel.” She was awarded the American Library Association Black Caucus Literary Award for Fiction twice, received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant, and is a past lecturer in the writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery,” by New York-based, Panamanian-American author Clarence A. Haynes, goes on sale June 17. In my interview with Haynes, he summarized “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery ” as an “urban fantasy,” “glam horror novel,” and “genre mashup” that fea -
set centered on resilience, excellence, beauty, style, and brilliance.
“The paperback release is exciting because this is a great time as Black culture is impacted in politics,” said Trotman.
“This book provides the good news about being Black in America. Anyone reading it will finish feeling like they do have power in the world, and they will
tures “a high-powered publicist who has a secret mystical past” and a special connection to an Afro-Latine medium. Haynes goes on to describe “Ghosts ” as a “sensual, but also spooky, disturbing, and disconcerting” novel that pays homage to his native New York and Afro-Latine heritage.
Haynes wrote the middle-grade nonfiction “The Legacy of Jim Crow” and collaborated with actor/producer Omar Epps to co-author the teen fiction companion works “Nubia: The Awakening” and “Nubia: The Reckoning.” As an editor, he’s worked for publishers that include Penguin Random House, Amazon Publishing, and Legacy Lit, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group.
“Meet Me at the Crossroads,” by Megan Giddings, available on June 3, tells the story of seven mysterious doors that serve as portals to another world; midwestern twin teens, Ayanna and
love their Blackness even more.”
“I Wasn’t Supposed to Be Here” by Jonathan Conyers (paperback edition)
In the paperback edition of his 2023 book, Jonathan Conyers introduces us to the teachers, debate coach, and a boy named Diego who changed his life.
“I hope this book inspires readers to
Olivia; and what happens when one of the sisters goes missing. Lorraine Berry of the LA Times observes that “Meet Me at the Crossroads” “ interrogates the meaning of faith in a heady novel about love and family. ” Giddings’ third novel has gotten considerable buzz thus far, making it onto the New York Times , LA Times , NPR, and The Root summer reading lists.
Giddings is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Her debut novel, “Lakewood,” was named one of the best books of the year by New York Magazine and NPR, and was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and an LA Times Book Prize. Her second novel, “The Women Could Fly,” was recognized by the Washington Post, Vulture, and the New York Times as one of the best fantasy novels of the year. She looks to publish a short story collection, “Black Arts,” in 2026.
become a part of other people’s villages and invite people to be in their village, because that is what it takes,” Trotman said.
“[Jonathan Conyers] went through a really hard circumstance with his family growing up, and it was his teachers, mentors, and the people around him who were able to uplift him. That’s why he’s such a substantial member of his community today.”
AuthorMegan Giddings(JonCameronp hoto)
A conversation with ‘The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery’ author Clarence A. Haynes
By MARK WINSTON GRIFFITH Special to the AmNews
Clarence A. Haynes knows books. Which is to say that he doesn’t just write them, but actively cultivates them. He’s established himself in middle-grade nonfiction with his 2022 authoring of “The Legacy of Jim Crow,” and has made his mark in science fiction by collaborating with actor/producer Omar Epps to co-author the teen fiction companion works “Nubia: The Awakening” and “Nubia: The Reckoning.” Meanwhile, as a freelance editor, he regularly burnishes the offerings of fellow writers.
“The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” is Haynes’ debut as an adult fiction author, and at a time when “Sinners” has trained our imaginations on the artistry of Black-genre fiction film, along with some fresh worldbuilding steeped in the supernatural, it couldn’t be splashier. I Zoomed with Haynes recently to celebrate the official June 2025 release of “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” and explore his process and passions in this cultural moment.
AmNews: Let’s imagine that you’ve written “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery,” but you haven’t sold it yet. You find yourself in an elevator with a publisher, and you suddenly have an opportunity to pitch the manuscript. What would you say? Go!
Clarence A. Haynes (CAH): I would say I’ve written urban fantasy, and what I’m also coining is a glam horror novel that focuses on a high-powered publicist who has a secret mystical past. She has a connection to an Afro-Latine medium in the South Bronx who runs a botanica, who’s queer, and who’s having, I guess you can say, intimacies with a ghost. The book goes into what their mysterious connection is about. The big core conflict of the book is that the realm between humans and ghosts — the barrier — is failing, so ghosts are finding it easier to create havoc in our world. It’s very sensual, but also spooky, disturbing, disconcerting, a fusion of things, a genre mashup in some way, but also a fusion of sensibilities.
I’m also paying homage to my home city, New York. I’m originally from the Bronx. Paying homage to the African diaspora. Paying homage to Latinidad. My family’s from Panama. Paying homage to my roots and paying homage to powerful Black and Brown women with this particular type of protagonist.
AmNews: I would have bought it right there on the spot [laughter].
I know you’re a freelance editor and veteran of the publishing industry, right? So how much of your experience in the industry is actually reflected in “The Ghosts of Gwen-
dolyn Montgomery”? You said that the protagonist is a publicist, which intersects with the publishing world. How much of your experience in the industry is the narrative infused with?
CAH: The title character, Gwendolyn, works with creatives in a variety of contexts. She works with actors, musicians, fashion people. Not necessarily the book publishing world, but ,,, my experience as an editor and my experience and my years in the industry … helped me understand how to balance honoring my ideas, the core ideas of the story, with what I know would need to be there for readers.
I do think authors, once we know that our book will reach general audiences, have to take into account what those audiences, what their experience will be, as they’re immersing themselves in our worlds. I think that approach and that perspective comes from being an editor for so many years, because as an editor, we’re sort of the front lines, we’re meant to represent future readers. That’s something that I feel really informed my writing, that awareness.
AmNews: Is there anything about the publishing industry written into the plot? Are there any industry insights or dirt?
CAH: No, I didn’t really do too much with the publishing world, because it just didn’t feel like that’s what the story was. Certainly, some of the characters, like Fonzie, the medium who runs the botanica, are very literary and books are his world, but he’s not someone who has insider knowledge of the publishing industry.
AmNews: You’ve co-authored “Nubia: The Awakening” and “Nubia: The Reckoning” with Omar Epps. Would it be fair to say that you have some kind of attraction to stories that are not of this earth?
CAH: Absolutely. In terms of what I’m interested in, as far as my career, I want to do what we call — the big umbrella term — speculative fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, mythology, or things that dabble in that a bit. That’s where my heart lies. In terms of my publishing career, I’ve been able to edit a wide variety of genres, but in terms of my personal interests, I always feel the most at home with what I call the fantastic.
With “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery,” one of the things my publisher and editor Krishan Trotman and I were aware of was, can I create a bridge to readers who don’t necessarily think of themselves as fantasy or horror people? What are ways that I can shape the narrative so that someone who might be a big Tia Williams reader, for instance, would say, “Oh, there are Tia Williams elements here, but then there are also fantastic horror, weird, spooky things as well.”
See CLARENCE A. HAYNES continued on next page
Clarence A. Haynes (Erin Patrice O’Brien photo)
AmNews: Where would you say that impulse comes from to write speculative fiction? What’s the backstory, what’s the inspiration for that? And what does speculative fiction allow you to do that perhaps other genres or devices do not?
CAH: That’s a great question. I was a voracious reader from when I was very young. I started with comics, and comics incorporate so much superhero stuff. It’s all about the fantastic and otherworldly on the regular. Even when, for many years, I wasn’t into comics — I’ve been back into them more recently. The prose novels I’ve read, and the film, and TV projects I like to watch that give me the most joy are the ones that always seem to fall under the speculative fiction umbrella.
I just think that in speculative fiction, you can explore ideas and ways of life, and modes of being and philosophies. If you are strictly only dealing with the “real” world, there are limitations. [With speculative fiction], you can really just play with all sorts of stuff, things that can serve as a metaphor for a lot of what we’re dealing with in the real world. I think that’s what makes it so compelling for so many people: I can go out there and present ideas and narratives that just feel really fresh and new to me.
AmNews: How compelled were you to create allegories and metaphors?
CAH: I don’t want to give any spoilers, but the mystical system that I created, in some ways, references real-world spiritual traditions — West African beliefs, the orishas, and particular types of practices. I wanted to draw upon that, but I would say more primarily, the book is an exploration of how a character who is traumatized by the past is forced to confront that past, so the mystical systems, the supernatural systems, based on real-world spiritual traditions, were constructed in ways that force the characters to confront these things, both for Gwendolyn and Fonzie. It was a process to do that — to do worldbuilding that allows characters to explore painful parts of their history and parts of real-world history that we know have been quite dramatic and destructive. It was also something I wanted to use to honor my roots and my heritage and how I grew up.
AmNews: You talked a little bit about comic books and other inspirations. Are there any other ideas or writers you find sitting in the back of your head as you write?
CAH: There are a lot of them, actually, but the two who are probably most prominent are Octavia Butler — trailblazing writer in terms of sci fi, speculative fiction, Afrofuturism — and Toni Morrison, just in terms of her attention to the exquisiteness of her language. I’m realizing when I revisit her work, how she doesn’t waste time. She’s not particularly repetitious or unnecessarily meditative. She says what she needs to
say and moves on. I don’t know if I caught that when I was first reading her work. As we’ve been getting the word out about the book, I also realized that a lot of people may not know that a lot of the book is connected, or at least portions of it are directly connected, to real-world Panamanian history. For instance, the 1989 invasion of El Chorrillo to oust Manuel Noriega from power,. [My] immigrated way before that happened, but in terms of my roots in that area, I wanted to pay respect to that.
AmNews: How do you feel about the idea that the popularity of “Sinners” gives you an opportunity to market “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” at a time when people are now perhaps more primed for the Black supernatural? Do you feel like that’s mad annoying, or are you not mad at that at all?
CAH: I’m not mad at it at all. I mean, it’s advantageous for “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” because I think someone can easily just say, “Hey, it’s an Afro-Latine ‘Sinners!’” [laughter]
AmNews: There are worse things to call it, right [laughter]?
CAH: Or an Afro-Latina Contemporary “Sinners,” right? I’m appreciative of that opportunity, but what I’m most happy about when it comes to “Sinners” is just what it means for “Sinners” itself. I’m so happy for [Ryan] Coogler and his team, and just what it means for this type of film. I’ve never quite seen anything like it, for this type of film to do so well, and then what that means for his career, and how he can get certain things greenlit now. In terms of our overall community for Black folks, then, what that means is that we can do a bit less explaining. We can just be like, “You saw how that thing worked really well over there?” And people are like, “Right, okay.”
AmNews: Do you feel like that’s the case with “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” as well? That “Sinners” puts you in a position to have to do less explaining?
CAH: We’ll see. I don’t know yet, Mark. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be connecting with readers. Based on some of the conversations I’ve had with early reviewers and readers, it does seem like it’s getting that sort of spark where people are like, “Oh, I’ve never quite read anything like this,” or “Oh, wow, he actually put this and this in what’s supposed to be an urban fantasy novel. He put in all of this stuff about our community, about Black folks and Latine folks, that I’ve never quite seen presented in this way.”
I’m realizing the similarity that “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” has with “Sinners” is they’re both genre mashups and they are both stories that at some point switch. “Sinners” starts with being very character-driven, very much about the history of place, geography, the brothers, their relationships, their journeys. It doesn’t really become about the vampires
and how the vampires connect to the overall story until the second half.
“The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” is similar. The mythical stuff, the scary stuff — it’s there, it’s coming, but the first half is far more about the characters and their backstories and how they’re dealing with what might feel like more familiar issues and problems.
Then the sort of mystical drama and the action really hit in the second half, so I think, I’m hoping, readers will be a bit more prepared for that.
AmNews: “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” is set in New York, right? Brooklyn in particular?
CAH: Actually, it’s set throughout New York, but the two main characters, Gwendolyn and Fonzie, live in Harlem and the Bronx, but things happen in Brooklyn and Queens as well.
AmNews: There’s something in there about the Brooklyn Museum, right?
CAH: Yeah, exactly, exactly. I live close to the Brooklyn Museum and I kind of wanted to do something where the New York I know and love, and sometimes struggle with, is front and center. One of my publishing colleagues noted that New York itself is a character in the book, and that was important to me.
AmNews: Is there anything beyond that that makes New York, in your estimation, a compelling character in its own right?
CAH: So many things. One of my favorite things about New York is that there are people from all over the world here. Even though I would argue that there are so many communities, and still so much separation, segregation, but once you get folks who are mixing it up in terms of where they work, having to take public transportation, where they shop, where they go to be entertained, I just think it creates something that’s quite unique and beautiful. For the novel, the New York that I really wanted to pay attention to was this New York that was created by Black folks, whether they’re Black folks who have had roots in America for generations from the South, to Black and Brown immigrants or the children of immigrants, which is where I come in. The lens through which I view New York is what I wanted to present on the page, so it’s a particular type of sensibility when it comes to everything, from how you move through the streets, to fashion, to food, to language, to humor. That’s what I
wanted to get in there, so, yeah, it’s a particular lens. Sometimes it’s a lens with the changing demographic of New York in which I remember these things just being in the ether and now sometimes I feel like I need to search a little bit for them.
AmNews: To what extent are you sort of sitting in front of your computer and these images and these characters are coming to you, and to what extent are you trolling the streets of New York and you’re seeing stuff happen and that’s giving you ideas?
CAH: Thank you for the question. It’s both. Some of it’s in my head, some of it’s in my heart, and my memories that I’m drawing from.
Some of it is exactly what you said, like being on the street and then paying attention to what feels the most compelling. Sometimes, the most compelling can be the most repulsive, like the vermin problem in this city, so the main character, whenever she has a big event, she absolutely refuses to take the subway because she can’t deal with the rats. That’s inspired by what I deal with every time I get on the subway …
AmNews: That’s real!
CAH: Yeah! Also, paying attention to styles of dress. The main character — how she presents herself to the world, it’s really important to her, so I think, initially, there’ll be an assumption that, Ah, this is someone who is glamorous, and perhaps there’s
‘Joy Goddess’
Continued from page 28
Bundles describes how, later, Dr. Jackson met with a sad fate. Still hopelessly alcoholic, married and divorced twice more for writing illegal prescriptions and peddling morphine tablets, he wound up imprisoned at Leavenworth. He died in 1945 in a psychiatric ward for federal felons.
Going through the book, be sure not to miss either the end notes or another Bundles’ coda, titled, “What Became of the People Who Were Closest to A’Lelia Walker?” Both sections are packed with golden nuggets of information, like
Dr. Gordon’s demise, hidden in the back. How one wishes some of these arresting details had been fitted in earlier, better explaining what was going on. Overall, “Joy Goddess, A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance” is just the kind of record of African American exceptionalism that’s needed most now. Together, over the span of a century and a half and more, Bundles and all the other Walker women, have acted to explode the white supremacist lie: that in America, Black-white wealth disparity is solely due to a lack of trying. Bundles’ commendable “Joy Goddess” indicates that even working longer and harder, African Americans still always earn less.
Harlem books
Continued from page 27
American presence even be possible to maintain?
Optimistically, he posits that because of Black institutions, like the Schomburg, a Black historical imprint will endure. Perhaps underestimating commercial and political manipulation, he hopes that because of Black ownership of Harlem property, resources will enable Blacks to enrich wherever we might move on to in the future.
“Harlem Shuffle” by Colson Whitehead (New York: Doubleday, 2021) and “Crook Manifesto” by Colson Whitehead (New
only one way to know. What most makes it worth learning is that this narrative is our story too.
“The Street” by Ann Petry (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1946)
Seeking greater understanding about how things were in post-WWII Harlem? Heroin addicts nodding in hopelessness, good girls dreaming, landlords scheming, misogyny, racism, elitism, and betrayal, are all to be found in this novel set on 116th Street; the first work of fiction by a Black woman to sell over a million copies.
“When Harlem Was in Vogue” by David Levering Lewis (New York: Knopf, 1981)
like sexuality in an unsensational way, he deemed them to be okay. Most of all, a great deal about Harlem’s creativity and continuity can be found here.
Mercy of a Rude Stream. Volume 2: A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park by Henry Roth (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994)
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2015)
York: Doubleday 2023)
The first two books of Colson Whitehead’s projected Harlem Trilogy. Disguised as a thrilling romp, what Whitehead actually presents, an existential examination of how race and resources can profoundly impact society’s power dynamic. Set as Harlem is succumbing to indifference, it falls apart between 1959 and 1964 and then into the 1970s. This family’s saga, with one honest man’s desire for prosperity and community regard, leads to an all-out battle between temptation and propriety.
How will it all turn out? There’s
A fascinating account of the irony of unintended consequences. The same racism designating Harlem as the destination of Great Migration refugees, fleeing alike from Southern tyranny and Caribbean economic decline, fostered artistic and intellectual creativity as well. So vast a quantity of new residents assured a large number who were exceedingly talented. Drawn out from former isolation, concentrated strategically to form relationships enriching to the New Negro Movement, as never before African Americans advanced to our nation’s cultural and social vanguard. With Jarvis Anderson and others, Lewis was not only among the first to reveal that cultural catalysts like Langston Hughes, Edna Thomas, Wallace Thurman, and Ethel Waters were gay, but by treating issues
Part of Roth’s masterpiece trilogy, this story began during the Great Depression. Because of writer’s block, neither it nor the final book was completed for another forty years. Fictionalized autobiography, no other source better portrays an extraordinary era, when Harlem was made up of four competitive communities of different ethnicities: Jewish, white Christian, Italian, and African American. Each enclave had its own distinct character and customs. There were separate Y’s, houses of worship, and shopping thoroughfares in each section. But with dreams of self-improvement offered by City College as common ground, intimidation and cooperation assured for, a more peaceful, coexistence.
“Epic Harlem: A Narrative History by Herb Boyd” (New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming)
Get the perspective of life-long, long-term journalist and Harlem observer, Boyd and find out what he thinks it is that makes Harlem tick, and if it will be the same without Black cultural continuity.
“Race and Real Estate: Conflict and Cooperation in Harlem, 1890-1920” by Kevin McGruder
Due to property owners not paying the water rates or property tax they owed, as of 1990, the city of New York had come to own fully two-thirds of all of Harlem’s housing. Would it surprise you then, to learn, how less than a century prior, the same sort of dialectic of racism, redlining, and greed, were what caused Harlem to change from white to Black, almost overnight? There is no finer or more thorough explanation about how it all happened than this.
“Manchild in the Promised Land” by Claude Brown (New York: Macmillan, 1965) A dramatized autobiographical account of life on Harlem’s meanest street, 145th Street in the Valley.
Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes (1965)
A wild comic tale of dope deals and double-cross.
“Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto, Negro New York, 1890-1930” by Gilbert Osofsky (New York: Harper and Row, 1966) Harlem from white to Black and rich to poor, when and why.
“Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 19001968” by Allon Schoener (New York: Random House, 1968) Harlem in pictures and Amsterdam News clips. The pictures of beautifully dressed, proud Black Harlemites by James Van Der Zee changed the life of a 13-year-old me in Akron, Ohio.
Third annual Black Authors Festival celebrates ‘Power of Literacy’
By MARIELLE ARGUEZA Special to the AmNews
Darlene Williams is no stranger to the world of authorship. Williams has been a published author several times over, most notably with her 2021 publication of “The Higher Level Method,” in which she collected stories of successful women and gleaned pieces of wisdom from their wins. But her success in writing and publishing would mean nothing if she couldn’t uplift others in the process. “I wanted to do something bigger than myself.”
Inspired by conversations with her husband, Maurice Williams — a system-involved youth who taught himself to read — and immersing herself in the statistics of youth literacy amongst Black children, she found her calling. “But in particular, Black boys. So when we talk about the importance of literacy, we’re talking about the futures of Black boys who become Black men,” said Williams.
Since its inception, the Black Authors Festival has grown from a modest gathering to a weekendlong celebration of Black literature, culture, and community empowerment. “It started really small, just a few authors and a handful of people. Now, it’s become a full weekend of events with workshops, panels, and community givebacks,” Williams shared.
This year’s festival continues that growth and has a theme of “the Power of Literacy,” and for the first time, it will raise money for Maurice’s nonprofit, A Father’s Love, which supports formerly incarcerated fathers reintegrating into their communities. The festival will also partner with the Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center to support literacy and enrichment programs for local youth.
The 2025 Black Authors Festival will honor an impressive group of
advocates and trailblazers. Honorees include Don Lemon, Sunny Hostin, Marc H. Morial, Alton White Fitzgerald, Harriette Cole, Kendis Gibson, Pamela McBride, Attika J. Torrence, and Cheryl Wills. The festival will also recognize the work of its first youth honoree, Amaryllis Greene, who has made a significant impact in promoting literacy among her peers.
The award ceremony will be hosted by Arrianee LeBeau, familiar to many as the anchor for PIX11’s weekday early evening newscasts.
“Having someone like Arrianee to
Clarence A. Haynes
Continued from page 31
going to be a judgment that she’s on the shallow side, but the more you find out her history, then you begin to understand why certain styles of dress, why presentation is so important to her. For me to make that work, I pay attention to what folks are wearing, I pay attention to attire I find to be elegant and alluring and beautiful. It’s really a mixture of walking around and absorbing things and what’s in my heart and what pops up in my memory and shines.
host really brings a sense of community and visibility to the festival,” said Williams.
Williams is adamant about the importance of literacy as a tool of empowerment, especially in the face of increasing book bans that disproportionately affect stories by and about Black people. “When you start banning books, you’re not just limiting stories. You’re limiting futures,” Williams explained. “Literacy is freedom. It’s the key that unlocks potential and opportunity, especially for Black boys who need to see themselves reflected in the sto-
AmNews: Is there anything else for the uninitiated? Most people reading this interview will not have had a chance to read the book yet. Is there anything else you want to signpost — something that they should look out for without giving away what happens?
CAH: Yes. Two things: One is, pay attention to details. Details
ries they read
The Black Authors Festival stands as a direct response to these challenges, using literature to inspire, educate, and resist censorship.
“This festival is about more than books,” Williams said. “It’s about community, culture, and creating space where Black voices can be celebrated, heard, and preserved.”
Looking ahead, Williams sees the Black Authors Festival as a continuing force for change and community empowerment. “Our goal is to keep expanding — more voices, more stories, more resources —
matter. Sometimes it may seem like I’m presenting what I hope will be perceived as a rich scenery to help the reader immerse themselves in the world. With some descriptions. I’ll eventually reveal why certain details are specifically important. Then, there is a lot of desire. I think one thing that’s important to me as a writer, and then
so that the next generation understands the importance of literacy not just as a skill, but as a tool for self-expression and social justice.” She stressed the festival’s role in creating a safe space where Black authors and readers can connect without fear of censorship or marginalization. “You can tell my story, I can tell your story. But it’s important we learn and teach kids how to tell our own stories in our own words,” she said.
For more info on the Black Authors Festival, visit blackauthorsfestival.com.
what is coming through from some early readers, is that it’s a sensual text. Even though it’s spooky and there are things that definitely would be considered part of the horror genre, It’s also pretty sexy. I wanted to explore how characters navigate their sensuality and their desire if they have stuff that’s unresolved from their past.
Darlene Williams with ABC7’s Shirleen Allicot (Contributed photos) Darlene Williams, President, Black Authors Festival
A selection of summer self-help books to savor
By LOIS ELFMAN Special to the AmNews
In her career, Nana K. Twumasi, vice president and publisher of Balance, part of the Hachette Book Group, has found great satisfaction in exploring issues of health and wellness. She seeks out a diverse range of authors whose work is steeped in research, education, and innovation. Balance books cover a range of practical nonfiction topics, and in moments of reflection this summer, readers may find inspiration, information, and motivation from them.
“There are people who are really looking to solve actual problems in their lives, whether that’s mental or physical or relationship or whatever, and I wanted to be able to improve on the information that people had access to,” said Twumasi.
Balance books address a diverse range of readers, but they also account for different cultural and life experiences. Some are specifically designed for Black audiences. Twumasi has a genuine connection with wanting to provide resources for people often left out from conversations about these topics.
“The more you know, the better informed you are, the better choices you can make for yourself,” said Twumasi of how these reads may be enlightening. “Reading is important. Reading is how you learn. It’s why I do what I do. I love books; I love language. Books are not going anywhere. It’s important that we continue to understand that and to engage with them.”
Here are some must-see titles for the season.
“Black Girls Breathing” by Jasmine Marie
This is a guide to harnessing the power of breathwork, moving toward healing and rebuilding a sense of self.
“The compounding stress leads to poor health outcomes, which, as is common knowledge, tend to affect Black women the most — like chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, and heart disease,” said Twumasi. “This book is the permission to breathe. It’s OK to take care of yourself, and with consistency and practice, doing so will feel less indulgent and more like a well-deserved respite.”
“Consumed” by Aja Barber
“Consumed” examines how and why we buy what we buy, how it’s created, who benefits, and how we can solve the problems created by a wasteful system.
“The most important takeaway from this book is that the system responds to us,” said Twumasi. “Our actions as consumers have a direct effect on economics and the environment, and it’s not as difficult as we
think to make small changes in our habits that lead to collective change.”
“Living in Wisdom” by Devi Brown
Sometimes trauma can keep people from seeing and embracing the good in life and celebrating successes, achievements, and positive relationships. This is a guide to getting unstuck, relieving internal suffering, and harnessing your power for true personal growth.
“Those who are interested in spiritual practices like yoga and mudras to enhance meditation will find this [book] appealing,” said Twumasi. “It offers techniques like breathwork, self-massage, journaling, and recapitulation. The goal is to heal your life while living it and learn from life while enjoying it.”
“Playing a New Game: A Black Woman’s Guide to Being Well and Thriving in the Workplace” by Dr. Tammy Lewis Wilborn
Drawing on first-hand clinical insight and scientific research, this book offers advice about how women of color can achieve their professional goals without sacrificing physical, mental, and emotional wellness.
“Continually proving our worth in the workplace can be exhausting and ultimately detrimental to our health,” said Twumasi. “Dr. Wilborn offers strategies for the ambitious Black woman who strives to get ahead with a roadmap to success while also preserving their well-being.”
“How to Find True Love” by Francesca Hogi
An award-winning dating coach and matchmaker presents a practical guide for those searching for true love who are willing to empower themselves to find it.
“Francesca Hogi’s key message is that your mindset matters; thinking bigger about love and expanding your definition of true love makes finding it that much easier, and this certainly extends to platonic relationships,” Twumasi said. “The world is too hard a place for us to exist in it alone.”
“The Empowered Hysterectomy: Your Complete Guide to Diagnosis, Decision, and Treatment” by Dr. Kameelah Phillips
This is a comprehensive, inclusive, and accessible guide to uterine health and, if necessary, a hysterectomy.
“Over half a million women in the U.S. undergo surgery for hysterectomy each year,” Twumasi said. “This is almost doubly important for Black women, whose pain is most often dismissed by the medical establishment, even though they are more likely to suffer from fibroids [in addition to other uterine conditions] … The more knowledge you have, the better able you are to ask questions to better understand your options and make an informed decision.”
