Black Authors I LOVE! Day 29

Today’s featured author is the last in the series Black Authors I LOVE! that celebrated some of my favorite writers for Black History Month. I wanted to shake things up a bit since this is Leap Year and all so I chose Twyla Turner who is a self published author. She writes BBW Erotica and is my favorite writer in this genre. I know what you’re thinking because before last year I would never have read a book in this genre. I stumbled upon the book Scarred and the cover drew me in. I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but in this case it was dead on. I took a chance and read the book and I was hooked. Miss Turner is a very gifted writer who creates characters that make you fall in love.  Read more about her and the series that started it all for me in the interview I did for my Couch Convos Series. Click Here to read the interview.

Black Authors I LOVE! Day 28

The featured author for Day 28 of my Black Authors I LOVE! series is Ralph Ellison. Best known for his book “The Invisible Man.” No this isn’t the sci-fi version of a man taking a potion that makes him invisible like in the movies. This book focus on the social issues facing African Americans in the twentieth century as well as personal identity of a black man who thought himself invisible in the world he lived in. My favorite quote from this work is “I am invisible, understand because people refuse to see me.”

Black Authors I LOVE! Day 26

The featured author for my Black Authors I LOVE! series today is Toni Morrison. Mrs. Morrison is a well known writer of novels that touch on very deep and thought provoking topics such as rape, sexual abuse, and racism just to name a few. The way she strings words together to tell a story is very musical in my opinion. Her words sing off of the page and capture your imagination. That could be one reason she won the Nobel Prize for Literature as well as the Pulitzer Prize. She is not only a novelist, but an editor and professor emeritus at Princeton University.

 

Black Authors I LOVE! Day 25

Today’s featured author for my Black Authors I LOVE! series is Langston Hughes! I first fell in love with his poetry when I was in the eighth grade and read the prolific words “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?… Or does it explode?”  I was hooked from then on. Mr. Hughes was a writer during the famed Harlem Renaissance era and worked with some of my other faves like Maya Angelou, James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston. His first novel was “Not Without Laughter” which touched on the injustice of blacks in America due to racism and socioeconomic disadvantages. Most of his works kept to this theme marking him as a very influential social activist.

Black Authors I LOVE! Day 24

Today’s featured author for my Black Author’s I LOVE! series is Rosa Guy. The Trinidad born writer was well known for her book The Friends which broached the subject of bulling. In 1950 she co-founded the Harlem Writers Guild to fund and highlight the works of black writers. She dropped out of school at the age of 14 proving that you can do anything you dream if you work hard and are dedicated to your craft. Not everyone goes down the same path to achieve success.

Black Authors I LOVE! Day 23

Today’s featured author for my Black Authors I LOVE! series is Nigerian born feminist and author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I was first introduced to this amazing woman through her TED Talk on YouTube. Here’s a small clip.  I watched this video and had to know who this woman was and how I could read more about her. Luckily she was an author and I was able to read her insightful novels. Miss Adichie is a very inspirational speaker and a great writer.

Black Authors I LOVE! Day 22

Today’s featured author for my Black Authors I LOVE! series is the incomparable Shonda Rhimes! Mrs. Rhimes has long been an idol of mine and I admire her writing prowess. She is best known for hijacking Thursday nights on ABC with hit shows “Grey’s Anatomy”, “Scandal”, and “How To Get Away With Murder”. Somehow she found time in her chaotic schedule to write and release a book last year called “Year of Yes”. In this book she details how she turned her life around from being reclusive and overweight to a life of adventure all by saying “YES” to things she never would have before. That one little word opened her life up to opportunities she never imagined. The book is inspirational and it spoke to me as she and I were similar. I am working on saying yes and attempting to make it my theme for the year.

Black Authors I LOVE! Day 21

For day 21 of my Black Authors I LOVE! series I want to feature Mrs. Dorothy West. Mrs. West was born in 1907 and died in 1998 leaving us a collection of unmatched literary gems. She was a writer during the famed Harlem Renaissance and became a well respected writer along with the likes of Langston Hughes. Her most popular work is “The Living is Easy”, though my favorite work from her is  “The Wedding” made popular by the television mini-series produced by Oprah and staring Halle Berry.

Black Authors I LOVE! Day 20

On day 20 for the Black Authors I LOVE! event I wanted to spotlight author Terry McMillan. She is best known for her books that inspired films like “Waiting To Exhale” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” both staring the amazing Angela Basset, but my favorite book of hers is “Mama”. I read this book in my early twenties and it was awe-inspiring. Ms. McMillan is known for her well developed female protagonists and this book exemplifies that.

Black Authors I LOVE! Day 19

 

Today’s featured author for my Black Authors I LOVE! series is James Weldon Johnson. Johnson was an author, poet, educator and civil rights activist in the early 1900s. He is known for writing the lyrics to “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, The Negro National Anthem. I became familiar with his works when I lived in Jacksonville, FL his home town. His autobiography is one that should be read by the masses. Mr. Johnson was also credited with naming the “Red Summer”, the bloody summer of 1919 in which countless numbers of lynchings, occurred in the South culminating on June 26th in Ellisville, Mississippi. There were race riots in the North and South and caused the bloodiest summer in the history of the US.