It all happened because John Rebus was in his favorite Edinburgh massage parlourreading the Bible... So opens the latest Rebus mystery and within a few pages the hapless Rebus has lost a lover, found an unwanted brother, been reacquaintedwith a dangerous ghost from the past, and witnessed the black comedy of life in a blood-soaked Edinburgh butcher's shop. Or as Rebus puts it, 'just one of thoses weeks'.
The story contained within these pages are purely fiction, it is fiction, fiction based on fact. The story of a small group of people who tried to put a stop to slavery, not in the countries where it was permitted, but a source, where African people were forced into this way of life, either by capture by slave traders in the interior of the continent or they may have been sold by fellow villagers or even their own family members.
Taking its name from the moon's dark plains, misidentified as seas by early astronomers, The Black Maria investigates African diasporic histories, the consequences of racism within American culture, and the question of human identity. Central to this project is a desire to recognize the lives of Eritrean refugees who have been made invisible by years of immigration crisis, refugee status, exile, and resulting statelessness. The recipient of a 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry, Girmay's newest collection elegizes and celebrates life, while wrestling with the humanistic notion of seeing beyond: seeing violence, seeing grace, and seeing each other better. "to the sea" great storage house, history on which we rode, we touched the brief pulse of your fluttering pages, spelled with salt & life, your rage, your indifference your gentleness washing our feet, all of you going on whether or not we live, to you we bring our carnations yellow & pink, how they float like bright sentences atop your memory's dark hair Aracelis Girmay is the author of two poetry collections, Teeth and Kingdom Animalia, which won the Isabella Gardner Award and was a finalist for the NBCC Award. The recipient of a 2015 Whiting Award, she has received grants and fellowships from the Jerome, Cave Canem, and Watson foundations, as well as Civitella Ranieri and the NEA. She currently teaches at Hampshire College's School for Interdisciplinary Arts and in Drew University's low residency MFA program. Originally from Santa Ana, California, she splits her time between New York and Amherst, Massachusetts.
Luke Cage burst onto the comics scene in 1972 as the "Hero for Hire." Equal parts Marvel Method and Blaxploitation boldness, he was a new kind of hero for a new era. Now, the Marvel Masterworks proudly presents the complete Luke Cage, Hero for Hire - the historic first title to headline an African-American super hero - in one hardcover volume! Cage's adventures depicted New York City's 1970s grit and the plight of its people unlike any other, all while incorporating larger-than-life villains including Black Mariah and Dr. Doom. COLLECTING: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire (1972) 1-16
The global icon, award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, actress, mother, daughter, sister, storyteller and artist finally tells the unfiltered story of her life in The Meaning of Mariah Carey. It took me a lifetime to have the courage and the clarity to write my memoir. I want to tell the story of the moments – the ups and downs, the triumphs and traumas, the debacles and the dreams – that contributed to the person I am today. Though there have been countless stories about me throughout my career and very public personal life, it’s been impossible to communicate the complexities and depths of my experience in any single magazine article or a ten-minute television interview. And even then, my words were filtered through someone else’s lens, largely satisfying someone else’s assignment to define me. This book is composed of my memories, my mishaps, my struggles, my survival and my songs. Unfiltered. I went deep into my childhood and gave the scared little girl inside of me a big voice. I let the abandoned and ambitious adolescent have her say, and the betrayed and triumphant woman I became tell her side. Writing this memoir was incredibly hard, humbling and healing. My sincere hope is that you are moved to a new understanding, not only about me, but also about the resilience of the human spirit. Love, Mariah
What is Black Girl Magic? It lives in Black and Brown girls all over the world. It's the magic that makes you powerful. It's the magic that allows to you do anything that you put your mind to. Lets teach all our girls to yell "I Have Black Girl Magic!"
A heartfelt, inspiring narrative that is inextricably linked to the nation’s past and present, civil rights activist and public servant Alvin Brooks shares engaging, funny, and tragic stories of his life and career of advocacy. Few have faced adversity like Alvin Brooks has. He was born into an impoverished family, he nearly lost his adoptive father to the justice system of the South, and he barely survived a health crisis in infancy. However, his greatest challenges would be learning how to navigate a racist society as a young boy and then later protecting his beloved wife, Carol, and their six children. Despite all the adversity he faced, Brooks became a lifelong leader and a servant of his community. Brooks served as one of Kansas City’s first Black police officers in the fifties, helped to heal the racial divide after the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., founded the AdHoc Group Against Crime, affecting real change in city government, and met with successive American presidents on national issues. When it comes to criminal justice, civil rights, and racial inequity, Brooks’s lifetime of building bridges across society’s divides helps us better understand our past, make sense of our present, and envision our future. Alvin Brooks proves that a good heart, a generous spirit, and a lot of work can connect the world; one person can make a difference by binding us together.
In the 1980s, Howard Chaykin broke new ground in American comic books with a series of formally innovative, iconoclastic works that turned the traditional action-adventure tales of mainstream comics into a platform for personal expression, political engagement, and aesthetic experimentation. His original creations American Flagg!, Time2, and the notorious Black Kiss, along with his reshaping of familiar titles like The Shadow and Blackhawk, generated acclaim and often controversy as they challenged expectations of the visual design and subject matter permissible in popular comics. Today, Chaykin remains a vital and prolific artist, but despite the original and influential nature of his work, he receives scant critical attention. In Neon Visions, Brannon Costello offers the first book-length critical evaluation of Chaykin’s work and confronts the blind spots in comics scholarship that consign this seminal artist to the margins. He argues that Chaykin’s contributions are often overlooked because his comics eschew any pretensions to serious literature. Instead, Chaykin’s work revels in the cliffhanger thrills of heroic-adventure genres and courts outrage with transgressive depictions of violence and sexuality. Examining Chaykin’s career from his early successes to compelling contemporary series such as City of Tomorrow, Dominic Fortune, and the controversial Black Kiss 2, Costello explores how this inventive body of work, through its evolving treatment of the theme of authenticity, incisively investigates popular culture’s capacity to foster or constrain individual identity and political agency. Challenging prevailing assumptions about the types of comics deemed worthy of scholarly attention, Costello reveals that the work of an artist as distinctive as Howard Chaykin demands a nuanced reading—one that confronts his unique approach to the comics medium, his blending of autobiographical themes and genre trademarks, and his engagement with comic books as artifacts of consumer culture.
The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller The global icon, award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, actress, mother, daughter, sister, storyteller, and artist finally tells the unfiltered story of her life in The Meaning of Mariah Carey It took me a lifetime to have the courage and the clarity to write my memoir. I want to tell the story of the moments - the ups and downs, the triumphs and traumas, the debacles and the dreams, that contributed to the person I am today. Though there have been countless stories about me throughout my career and very public personal life, it’s been impossible to communicate the complexities and depths of my experience in any single magazine article or a ten-minute television interview. And even then, my words were filtered through someone else’s lens, largely satisfying someone else’s assignment to define me. This book is composed of my memories, my mishaps, my struggles, my survival and my songs. Unfiltered. I went deep into my childhood and gave the scared little girl inside of me a big voice. I let the abandoned and ambitious adolescent have her say, and the betrayed and triumphant woman I became tell her side. Writing this memoir was incredibly hard, humbling and healing. My sincere hope is that you are moved to a new understanding, not only about me, but also about the resilience of the human spirit. Love, Mariah
