• Via work, just spoke with someone who is five years younger than I, yet makes 5x more money annually. Bitter? Moi? Why would you think that? #

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• WriteBlack favorite Junot Diaz has a piece in The New Yorker
• Banned words
• On the importance of reading
• Books. About food. By Southerners.
• In praise of (Breeze Harper’s) Sistah Vegan
• And finally:

The author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks speaks (to Stephen Colbert):

Author Dolen Perkins-Valdez, who has written the new book Wench, which is about white slave masters and their black enslaved mistresses (creepy!), talks about how she uses Skype in her classroom at University of Puget Sound to introduce her students to authors.

In his Spring 2010 newsletter, horror/paranormal author Brandon Massey said today that his next book, which does not yet have a title, will not come out under the aegis of Kensington Publishing, which has handled his work for the better part of a decade.

Instead, Massey will put out the book independently, using his own Dark Corner Publishing.

In Massey’s own words:

Why? It was time, I guess. The recession has hit the publishing industry hard. Most publishers are struggling. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are closing every day.

But online book sales, and sales of ebooks, have shown strong potential.

So when I release my new novel (I don’t have a title yet) it will be available for sale online in a trade paperback edition, and an ebook edition. It will be sold via Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other retailers, so availability won’t be an issue at all.

I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more of this from our favorite authors, folks.

I’ve been puzzling over how I feel about what radio shock-jock Howard Stern said about Precious star Gabourey Sidibe.

Yeah, it was a terrible thing to say. Yeah, Stern is all about ginning up controversy. Yeah, he’s said equally disagreeable things about other people. Yeah, it would be nice if a more diverse selection of body types were presented as desirable to American women and young people.

And yeah, I’m someone who falls in the weird sartorial world between single-digit sizes and the  so-called average American woman’s size.

But you know what? I’m not filled with crazy joy when I look at Sidibe.

She is amazingly confident and seems to be quite secure about her size. Good for her. But as has been said before  (I knew I hadn’t invented the description ‘pathology porn’!), Precious the character and the woman who portrayed her are metaphorically and literally unhealthy.

I’m well aware that it’s possible to be obese and fit, but even so, obesity itself correlates long term with risk of diabetes, arthritis and heart problems, so I wouldn’t describe it as anywhere near an ideal state.

And overweight problems and obesity affect far too many black women. Four out of five! That’s ridiculous! Even the most fat-positive among us have to be aware of a problem there.

So as happy as I am for Sidibe — she gives great interview, doesn’t she? — I wince when I look at her. And I’m not convinced that Stern is 100 percent wrong, despite that fact that from what I’ve heard, Sidibe is a natural, possibly even great actress.

It would be unfortunate for her to be relegated to smart-aleck-y fat black chick roles. Leaving the success of my beloved Queen Latifah (who was spokesperson for a weight-loss program) aside, aren’t there enough of those?

All this is to say that I’m beginning to be troubled by the blase references and celebration of black women as “curvy” and “big boned.”

And did I mention that I hate the word “thick” when used as a euphemism for “fat”?

Don’t worry, I’m getting to the book. Eventually.

(more…)

The late, great Octavia Butler has been named to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

This is awesome news.

The ceremony will be June 26 in Seattle at the Science Fiction Museum.

Whenever I talk about Octavia and how meaningful her work is to me, I become inarticulate, so I won’t mention how well-deserved this honor is, how unfortunately short her life was or how much poorer we are as readers because we never got to experience her full literary vision.

Instead, after the jump, how about a photo of the Octavia-inspired moppet who keeps me from having as much time to blog?

(more…)

Author L.A. Banks got to meet — and introduce! — President Barack Obama at a healthcare meeting recently.

She blogged about it and why healthcare is such an important issue for her. Read about her experiences here.