The world is changing. Poison desert eats good farmland. Once-sweet water turns foul. The wind blows sand and sadness across the Empire. To get caught in a storm is death. To live and do nothing is death. There is magic in the world, but good conjure is hard to find.
Djola, righthand man and spymaster of the lord of the Arkhysian Empire, is desperately trying to save his adopted homeland, even in exile.
Awa, a young woman training to be a powerful griot, tests the limits of her knowledge and comes into her own in a world of sorcery, floating cities, kindly beasts, and uncertain men.
Awash in the rhythms of folklore and storytelling and rich with Hairston’s characteristic lush prose, Master of Poisons is epic fantasy that will bleed your mind with its turns of phrase and leave you aching for the world it burns into being.
Andrea Hairston is a novelist, essayist, playwright, and the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre. She is the author of Redwood and Wildfire, winner of the 2011 Tiptree Award and the Carl Brandon Kindred Award, and Mindscape, shortlisted for the Phillip K Dick and Tiptree Awards, and winner of the Carl Brandon Parallax Award. In her spare time, she is the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College. She has received the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Distinguished Scholarship Award for outstanding contributions to the criticism of the fantastic. She bikes at night year-round, meeting bears, multi-legged creatures of light and breath, and the occasional shooting star.
()?:maybe Maddy x black! masc reader who spoils her to the max without her asking? - anonymous.
: 750 +
: Maddie learned to not expect a lot from the people she’d dated so she didn’t ask for anythign more than your attention. But you wanted to show her you could give her love, and the world is she ever asked for it.
/: I liked writing this one! Feel free to spam me with requests, I like being busy!!
Maddy was convinced something was wrong with you. Mentally.
Grace is reading our book “I Am Enough” on this new Netflix series called Bookmarks! Awesome they featured some of my illos on the background promo as well
“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” - quote from “Black Boy” by author, Richard Wright
“Deadline reports that the series adaption of Sula will follow “two Black heroines from their close-knit childhood in a small Ohio neighborhood called The Bottom, through their sharply divergent paths of womanhood. Nel Wright has chosen to marry, raise a family and become a pillar of the Black community. Sula Peace has rejected the life Nel has embraced, escaping from The Bottom, submerging herself in city life, and coming into her own as a woman more intellectually and sexually free than anyone around her. Eventually, Sula and Nel must face the consequences of their choices, and their complicated bond. Along with a mysterious third man named Shadrack, they create an unforgettable portrait of a strange American community, and the relationships, tragedies and triumphs that define it.”
“Radio host, author, and media mogul Leonard “Charlamagne tha God” Mckelvey is teaming up with actor, director, and comics writer Kevin Grevioux to develop original superhero properties as comics series and graphic novels.”
“Their first project will be Darkstorm, written by Grevioux with art by Ken Lashley, an original graphic novel series featuring a reluctant Black superhero who struggles with PTSD. The graphic novels will be published by Charlamagne’s Simon & Schuster imprint, Black Privilege Publishing.”
Charlamagne and Grevioux are also teaming up with AWA Studios to develop comic book series. Their first project will be The Vindicators, which will star a diverse team of superheroes living in a dystopian future.
“A lot of the black superheroes I loved growing up were street level and that’s cool, but I want to see Omega Level superheroes that look like me and people around me and that’s exactly what we are giving you with Darkstorm and The Vindicators,” Charlamagne said in a statement accompanying the announcement.”
“Donald Glover has tapped Malia Obama to be one of the writers of his new Amazon series tentatively titled “Hive.”, NBC News reports.”
“In an interview with Vanity Fair, the Emmy award-winner said that Obama is “an amazingly talented person,” adding, “She’s really focused, and she’s working really hard.”
“I feel like she’s just somebody who’s gonna have really good things coming soon,” Glover said. “Her writing style is great.”
“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made a big production on Tuesday about how wrong it is that children’s books promoting anti-racism are being taught at a private school in Washington, D.C., where Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson is a board member.”
A day later, the very same book “Antiracist Baby" is a No. 1 bestseller on Amazon. Ha!✊
“You may recognize Mahogany, an extension of the Hallmark brand, as a line of greeting cards and gifts that celebrates Black identity with messages of culture, faith, pride, and love. It is designed by a team of African-American writers, editors and artists who are creating cards to empower the community, speak to racial resilience and the Black experience.”
“Most recently, under the leadership of Vice President Alexis Kerr, Mahogany is expanding as a digital platform to uplift Black writers and expression on topics like friendship, romance, motherhood, self-love, fitness and more. Centered on a community of writers, including content from best-selling author Melinda Williams, the site is designed to serve as “a gathering place for Black women to connect with each other, celebrate their culture, sisterhood, and community,” says Kerr.”
“Groundbreaking musician, actor, fashion icon, and futurist Janelle Monáe is joined by literary collaborators Danny Lore and Sheree Renée Thomas for a conversation moderated by ALOK to celebrate the launch of The Memory Librarian at BAM. A sexy, soulful, and dissident collection of short fiction, The Memory Librarian brings to the written page the rebellious and Afrofuturistic world of Monáe’s critically acclaimed album Dirty Computer.
The stories in The Memory Librarian explore the lives of those living in an increasingly surveillance-hungry, totalitarian order—striving to see and hold onto their “dirtiness” without being tracked down and cleaned. Filled with the artistic innovation and brave themes that have made Janelle Monáe a global influence, this anthology sees our battles about gender identity, political violence, and sexuality as matters of space, time, love, and the power of memory.”
EVENT DETAILS:
LAUNCH OF THE MEMORY LIBRARIAN: AND OTHER STORIES OF DIRTY COMPUTER
CO-PRESENTED BY BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC, GREENLIGHT BOOKSTORE, AND THE LIT. BAR
APRIL 18 8PM
ALL TICKETS INCLUDE A BOOK. $45, $55, $65. GENERAL PUBLIC TICKETS GO ON SALE ON 3/21/22.
“Howard University has received a $2 million donation to digitize a major collection of Black newspaper archives in hopes of making it more broadly available to researchers and the public.
The Black Press Archives, dating to the 1970s, contains over 2,000 newspaper titles from the U.S. and countries in Africa and the Caribbean. It includes well-known U.S. papers like the Chicago Defender and New York Amsterdam News as well as publications in French, Xhosa and Kiswahili.”
“Since 1976, the nation has celebrated the contributions and achievements of Black Americans each February. This commemorative moment in the yearly calendar serves as a reminder of where we’ve been, as well as how far we’ve come. MasterClass, an online education subscription platform, is making a glimpse of that history available to everyone for free this month, releasing a three-part, 54-lesson class entitled “Black History, Black Freedom, and Black Love.”
“Through the insight and wisdom of Jelani Cobb, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Sherrilyn Ifill, John McWhorter and Cornel West, the complimentary class examines the nature of race relations in America.”
Essence mag is “highlighting books from Black women historians to celebrate the annual holiday.”
“Despite the spate of book bans and calls to eliminate teaching certain subjects in public schools, Black authors are still putting in the work to keep us fully knowledgable of America’s true history. Here are five books to add to your library published by Black women historians.”
01 - All That She Carried, Tiya Alicia Miles
02 - South To America, Imani Perry
03 - Four Hundred Souls, co-edited by Keisha N. Blain and Ibram X. Kendi
04 - Bound in Wedlock, Tera Hunter
05 - African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850–1920, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn
