Where Are Oklahoma’s Black Romance Authors?
Young Bill Young, here. I’m working with the Oklahoma Center for the Book, arranging an event in Tulsa to celebrate Oklahoma’s romance writers. Obviously, we wanted to invite authors representing different genres within romance: i.e. Christian romance, romantic thrillers, historical love stories. It was interesting that our invitation list did not include any African American romance authors who call Oklahoma home.
During my search, I did come across some interesting information. For example, the incoming president of the Romance Writers of America is African American. In fact, RWA will have its second black president this decade. The news comes from Angela T and her blog, Saving Black Romance. Angela T is also a contributer to Romancing the Blog, and she offers this recent column on the marketing of African American romance novels. (Be sure and read Angela’s related posts and the comments to get a better gist of this issue.)
Love stories are universal, and they are relevant in all cultures and times. Michigan’s Beverly Jenkins (whose book “Captured” illustrates this post) specializes in African American romances set during the 19th Century — a time rife with all kinds of political, social and, er, lustful possibilities. And just think about the kinds of black romance novels that could use Oklahoma history as a backdrop, a history that includes black slaves coming to Indian Territory, the movement of black families into the Territories, the Green Corn Rebellion, the lunch counter sit-ins. No matter the times, places or situations, love finds a way.
So does this white boy want to read a steamy black romance? Maybe. I could always use a break from my sci-fi stories and geeky graphic novels. My Twitter friend Literary Nobody in Tulsa is a writer who’s always looking for different subjects and issues to address. Hey, LN: want to write us a love story? 
And, of course, if you’re a black romance author in Okieland, or you know one, I’m depending on you to set me straight!
Beyond Reality
Young Bill Young here, filling in for Kitty a few days.
I read lots of science fiction and speculative fiction. Because of that, I really wish I was a teenager right now. The Oklahoma Department of Libraries (ODL) is joining forces with Newspapers in Education at The Oklahoman to sponsor Read Beyond Reality this October, which is Teen Read Month in our great state.
Classroom teachers and school libraries can sign up to participate at Newspapers in Education. Public libraries are participating through ODL. The school and public library whose young participants log the most pages read during the month will each receive $250 worth of new books! Individual readers can win prizes ranging from premium tickets to an Oklahoma City Thunder basketball game to an iPod Nano. (See why I want to be a teenager right now?)
Even if you’re not a teen, you can have lots of fun and learn more about Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror by visiting this Teen Read Month site. What are you waiting for? There are whole worlds out there for you to discover.
At Your Service
Young Bill Young here again for the out-of-town, but on-the-job, Kitty Pittman. An interesting thing about working in a library, is that some friends expect you to become their personal librarian. And that’s OK. Gosh, after all, that’s what we’re all about in the library world — connecting people to information, resources and books.
A good friend of mine has decided to rediscover the works of novelist George V. Higgins (1939-1999), and he has solicited my help in tracking down some of the titles no longer carried in his local library. This is easy to do with a service called Interlibrary Loan. He could easily have requested these books via ILL at his local library, but, ya know, I’m his personal librarian, so I was happy to oblige.
My friend is such a fan of Higgins, he believes the author should have won a Nobel Prize. Sounds like I need to find out more about this Mr. Higgins. So, lets. . .
The New York Times‘ Featured Author Page on Higgins
The Google Book Search Page: Books by George V. Higgins
Info on the George V. Higgins Collection at the University of South Carolina
The Who’s Dating Who Page for George V. Higgins (Looks like no one has been dating this dead guy.)
The proverbial Wikipedia Page on Higgins
And, finally, here’s a photo of the gentleman:
Any of you out there Higgins fans? Drop us a comment!
Marcia Preston, new book sweeping toward you
Straight from Marcia Preston this morning,
I wanted to let you know that my new novel, The Wind Comes Sweeping, has now been released. It should be available through any chain or independent bookstore, and of course through Amazon.com. This one’s set in my home state of Oklahoma, on a failing cattle ranch that has become a wind farm. I’ve always been fascinated with those gigantic wind turbines, haven’t you?
This book involves a long-hidden crime, and in that way resembles my early suspense books.
Here’s the book trailer.
Crosstimbers
Crosstimbers magazine is an amazing find. Published by the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, it includes; poetry, reviews, art, non-fiction and fiction articles and mostly by Oklahoma authors and illustrators.
( my scan of the magazine cover isn’t all that great, but please don’t judge this magazine by its cover)
For example, this issue has poetry by Sandra Soli, Robert Ferrier, Carol Hamilton, Chris Ellery, Audrey Streetman, Ann Brown and Robert Cooperman. There’s an article on Mary Welborn, “Art with a Mission : the New Botanicals.” She has an exhibit at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, from Feb.25th to April 22.
The exhibit is on display at the McDermott Learning Center from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day during the spring. The Wildflower Center is located at 4801 La Crosse Avenue in Austin, just off Loop 1 South (MoPac Boulevard). For information, call 292-4200. or www.wildflower.org
This month’s Crosstimbers also includes a thought provoking article by Tonnia L. Anderson, “On Remembering the Familiar: The Cultural Politics of Depression Era Photographs of Blacks.” Reviews of books like, Weigland’s Books on Trial and Klein’s Grappling with Demon Rum“. There’s an article on Nathan Brown, one of the Oklahoma Center for the Book finalists in poetry. And even an article on Train travel in America by Layne Thrift and J. C. Casey.
But if you want to read all this for yourself, USAO is very kind to post the current issue on the internet. Current issues are located on the Crosstimbers website. This is one great deal.
What’s growing by your bed?
My Bedside stack of books grows and grows and grows. It’s now starting to look like this aging, slightly moldy pile in this picture. I want to read everything and occasionally I come to the realization that is impossible. Now that I can’t find a library book and I’ve reached desperation I’m starting to sort through what I’m going to read and what is probably going to keep going to the bottom of the stack.
The other bad quality I harbor is to have 3 or 4 books going at the same time. Right now it’s Watchmen (almost done). We’ve already talked about that. Simon R. Green’s Drinking Midnight Wine. (Metro book sale buy). If you like Jim Butcher you’ll like Simon Green. And I do. And just borrowed on Interlibrary Loan, Thumbprint, by Friedrich Glauser, any author who started his book while he was an inmate at a Swiss insane asylum and then gets a crime fiction award named after him, must be good.
For Lent, I’m trying not to be a book hog. Time to turn in those overdues, get realistic about reading goals. Even if there is a large stack hiding in the closet, ah out of sight …..
Carolyn D. Wall, Sweeping Up Glass
The most powerful novel I have read this year is Carolyn Wall’s Sweeping Up Glass.
Currently published by Poisoned Pen Press (hardback), with Random House picking it up and releasing it in paperback, August 2009.
ISBN-10: 1-59058-512-7 (1590585127) Poisoned Pen Press
ISBN: 978-0-385-34303-9 (0-385-34303-5) Random House (paperback)
Sweeping Up Glass is set in 1938 Kentucky, dirt poor times and determined folks barely hanging on. Olivia Harker lives with her abandoned grandson, and her crazy mom Ida, who inhabits the shack out behind their tiny country store. Olivia has her own mothering issues, her daughter has left her and her son behind. Will’m is the only bright light in Olivia’s life. This is a tale of poverty, race, love lost and found, failed relationships, and somewhere in it all the possibility of hope.
The most poignant parts of the novel are the interplay of race relations as it affects the characters particularly Olivia during her childhood and latter the decisions she must make. What we see and fail to see determined by the color of our skin. The catalyst for the story is the needless slaughter of the silver faced wolves and the mirroring of cruelty of man against man.
The story is a strong one, but in my opinion what makes this an outstanding debut novel are the characters. Olivia and Ida, Will’m and Pap, Junk and Love Alice, and the Cott’ners filled with hate. The ending will startle you, jar you, and hold you spell bound through the final chapters. I won’t spoil any of it for you.
Marcia Preston’s Trudy’s Promise
Finished Marcia Preston’s book, Trudy’s Promise, which is on the Oklahoma Book Award Finalists’ list. 
This is a book of political ideologies played out against family, relationships, trust and loyalty. Trudy Hulst loses her husband during his failed attempt to flee East Berlin and gain his freedom. Soon after she is forced to leave her only child, Stefan behind to save herself from prison. This is the story of her unfailing attempts to re-unite with her child. Historical references continue to draw you into her story.
First, the stark reality of the Berlin Wall, locking an entire city and people behind it. Then the dichotomy of Rolf and Wolfgang’s political ideologies. Rolf, Trudy’s husband forced to be part of Hitler’s Youth growing up, grew to hate everything communism stood for, and helped others flee its politics. His boyhood friend, Wolfgang, who was allowed to leave Germany during the war years, comes back and finds a home in the repressive East Berlin regime, sympathizing with its beliefs and struggling to rise in its ranks.
Constantly looking for a way to get her son back and to get him to West Berlin, Trudy avails herself of aid from a disingenuous American, accompanying the Kennedy visit in 1963. This is the one part of the story where I had to suspend belief and accept it as a literary device to get Trudy to America and propel the story forward. It’s just too hard for me to believe that one of the President’s motocade limos would stop and help someone they bumped against, and bring them to America after hearing their story. The cynic in me thinks they would probably have arrested her or maybe just run over her.
America is of course America, and Trudy is used by her political “friend” to further his career. She does make some headway in her quest to free her son and then when she has hopes of meeting with Mrs. Kennedy and perhaps the President, he is killed in Dallas. Historical references again take over and we re-live the assasination of our president and the grief the world experienced.
Trudy is forced back to Germany to keep her promise to Stefan. Wolfgang has been Stefan’s caretaker when his grandmother passed away, and changes in his behavior and beliefs are beginning to take place. You will discover who is friend and foe, who is the stronger character and what becomes of a mother’s promise to her son.
The writing is good, the history and characters interesting. However, I thought there were a few too many coincidences or lucky circumstances to make the story believable.
Author to Watch: LANCE HAWVERMALE
I just finished the mystery, The Tongue Merchant by Lance Hawvermale. Lance’s bio on the internet is a little hard to interpret Okiewise, but I think he is from Cherokee, Oklahoma, or at least went to High School there. I may have found that information on his MySpace page. The cover of this novel was a little offputting for me, I thought it might be techno thriller, with those many pages of what the inside of a submarine looks like or intense descriptions of ballistic weapondry. Fortunately for me that was not the case.
If this novel had been written by a more established author in the mystery genre, the reviewers would have been all abuzz. So I take exception to Harriet Klausner’s review that seems lackluster, on Genre Go Round Reviews. Set in the Caribbean, with a hurricane bearing down to intensifiy the action, Coast Guard Lieutenant Marcella Paraizo investigates the murder of her friend, ‘Bella’. There are many twists and turns to the novel, no bogging down of plot in the middle (as so often happens in mysteries). And Lance can really write the female protagonist character.
There are many characters to follow and sort out as the investigation intensifies. I had to keep reminding myself who was who, but it doesn’t deter from a well established plot, plenty of action, a sympathetic main character and supporting male roles. What does the fact that Bella’s tongue was cut out during her murder, have to do with her death? What about the Adelbert stamp found in her shoe? Is Leo a good guy or a bad one? And Kyle….
From Hawvermale’s website, it appears he has written two other books under the name, Erin O’Rourke. And thanks for putting a link to “Libraries that own your titles” linking to WorldCat. It’s good to find authors who don’t think of us (librarians) as the people keeping others from ‘buying’ your books but as promoters and suppliers.
Ian Rankin, new book, Exit Music
Ian Rankin is absolutely one of my favorite authors. I’ve checked out Exit Music, from the library, so don’t tell me anything until I’ve had time to read it. Rebus is always down and out, in dark crime ridden Edinburgh. I read on the dust jacket that this is the swansong for our Inspector. It looks like it’s true. “Say it ain’t so Joe [Ian].” Its been a long ride from Knots and Crosses to this 17th novel. 
It makes me want to go back and start from the beginning. I’ve never read his Jack Harvey novels, I’ve got to get those. He writes in his newsletter that he will have a new novel out in June 2009 and a graphic novel ‘Dark Entries’, which now has a publication date of September 09. We’ll have to see what Sadie at “Extremely Graphic Blog” has to say when it’s out.
