It took me years to make it through Samuel Delany’s works. 

He’s certainly not for the casual reader.

If you’re wondering where to start with his stuff,  Strange Horizons has put up reviews of some of his work, so you can pick and choose.

Reviews are here. 

You probably weren’t a published author.

Meet Cassandra Carter. She’s 18, and she is a published author.

Cassandra’s debut novel, Fast Life, was published in July 2007 by Kimani Tru, the young-adult black fiction division of Harlequin. She’s working on her second book now.

[h/t Tradition of Excellence]

Nope, I don’t have one. Not yet, at least.

I’ve read lots of the reviews, and once the kinks (No backlight? I can’t use it to order any hard copies from Amazon?! Paying for blogs?!) are worked out, I probably will invest in the Kindle or another e-book device. Exclusive of the kinks, one of my main problems with it — and granted, I’ve only seen and fiddled with it in person once — has been that it just doesn’t seem fun to use.

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The New York Times Book Review had no reviews of books by black authors this week. There also were no reviews by black critics. 

Black authors on The NYTBR’s various best sellers lists:
Quiet Strength, Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell  

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I’ve just registered for the South By Southwest Interactive conference in March 2008. 

Planning to be there?

Junot Diaz has a short story, “Alma,” in the most recent issue of The New Yorker. See the story here.  

I’ve had so much other reading on my plate that I’m just getting around to the 6th People of Color in Science Fiction/Fantasy Carnival, up at Deadbrowalking, which has links to some really great stuff. 

I was especially pleased by the link to the commentary on Tia Dalma in Pirates of the Caribbean, and the commentary on the relegation of the awesome Martha Jones to the place of “second best Rose” on Doctor Who.

Wind Follower
Carole McDonnell
Juno Books
2007

I’ve often had problems with some of the recent overtly religious fantasy I’ve read because it was a little too deliberately allegorical. It’s one thing for Aslan to rise from the dead and provide redemption — because he was a badass — but when it happens all the time in a genre, it can be a little bit much. I’m actually kind of torn about whether the technique, in this day and age, is creative or representative of an absence of original thought.

Carole McDonnell’s compelling first (I think) fantasy manages to pull it off, though. 

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In case you get bored with family and friends and want to spend some time reading…other stuff:

•  This conversation between David Byrne (yes, of the Talking Heads) and Thom Yorke (yes, of Radiohead) may be instructive for authors working on new ways of distribution. And yeah, I know Stephen King’s done this already.
• Have you heard the breaking news that there are some romance novels geared toward women of color?
• Why are writers’ agents important, and what the heck do they do?
• What happened to the great indie publishers? 
• Weep as you read the list of best sellers at Mosaic Books. What is wrong with people?
• On the growth and recognition of the graphic novel
• A response to Julie Bindel’s excoriation of Mills & Boone romance novels

Merry Christmas!

In The New York Times Book Review this week, Adam Goodheart reviews Caryl Phillips‘ Foreigners, which looks at black history in Britain through the barely fictionalized lives of three black Britons. 

On the NYTBR’s various best sellers lists:

Quiet Strength, Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker
My Grandfather’s Son, Clarence Thomas
The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell 

Leah Price also considers that NEA study about the decline of reading that I mentioned here a couple of days ago. 

Elsewhere in The New York Times:

In “The Week In Review,” Motoko Rich writes about books that look smart on our shelves but don’t get read.