Skinfolk An American Show

A wide-sweeping concert/play structured in seven movements that explores the questions and limits (?) of blackness, performance, and country in a sensuous and reflective cabaret experience.

A haunting, poignant story of growing up in a mixed-race family in 1970s New Jersey, in the tradition of The Color of Water. Race is made, not born. It can materialize with a thunderous suddenness. It can happen to you in moments that will be cauterized into memory as if into flesh. Could a picturesque white house with a picket fence save the world? What if it was filled with children drawn together from around the globe? And what if, within the yard, the lines of kin and skin, of family and race, were deliberately knotted and twisted? In 1970, a wild-eyed dreamer, Bob Guterl, believed it could. Bob was determined to solve, in one stroke, the problems of overpopulation and racism. The charming, larger-than-life lawyer and his brilliant wife, Sheryl, a former homecoming queen, launched a radical experiment to raise their two biological sons alongside four children adopted from Korea, Vietnam, and the South Bronx—the so-called war zones of the American century. They moved to rural New Jersey with dreams of creating what Bob described as a new Noah’s ark, filled with “two of every race.” While the venture made for a great photograph, with the proverbial “casseroles and potato chips out for everyone,” the Brady Brunch façade began to crack once reality seeped into the yard, adding undue complexity to the ordinary drama of a big family. Neighbors began to stare. Vacations went wrong. Joy and laughter commingled with discomfort and alienation. Familial bonds inevitably buckled. In the end, this picture-perfect family was no longer, and memories of the idyllic undertaking were marred by tragedy. In lyrical yet wrenching prose, Matthew Pratt Guterl, one of the children, narrates a family saga of astonishing originality, in which even the best intentions would prove woefully inadequate. He takes us inside the clapboard house where Bob and Sheryl raised their makeshift brood in a nation riven then as now by virulent racism and xenophobia. Chronicling both the humor and pathos of this experiment, he “opens a door to our dreams of what the idea of family might make possible.” In the tradition of James McBride’s The Color of Water, Skinfolk exposes the joys and constraints of love, blood, and belonging, and the persistent river of racial violence in America, past and present.

I've been trying to remember a story. Can you help me? A long time ago our ancestors told it to us. I think it has to do with where we belong. In 2015, Mohegan Theater Maker Madeline Sayet travelled to England to pursue a PhD in Shakespeare, but her voyage across the ocean became an unexpected journey of transformation. Riding the spirit wind of her Mohegan ancestors who crossed the Atlantic in the 1700s on diplomatic missions to protect her people, Where We Belong is a search for belonging in a globalized world. It is at once a rich investigation into the impulses that divide and connect us as people, but it is also about a wolf that learns how to become a bird and fly.

Here's a one stop resource, containing 100 profiles of your favorite contemporary African American writers, along with complete lists of their works. Focusing on writers who have made their mark in the past 25 years, this guide stresses African American writers of popular and genre literature-from Rochelle Alers and Octavia Butler, and Samuel Delaney to Walter Mosley, and Omar Tyree, with a few classic literary giants also included. Short profiles provide an overview of the author's life and summarize his or her writing accomplishments. Many are accompanied by black-and-white photos of the author. The biographies are followed by a complete list of the author's published works. Where can you find information about popular, contemporary African American authors? Web sites can be difficult to locate and unreliable, particularly for some of the newer authors, and their contents are inconsistent and often inaccurate. Although there are a number of reference works on African American writers, the emphasis tends to be on historical and literary authors. Here's a single volume containing 100 profiles of your favorite contemporary African American writers, along with lists of their works. Short profiles provide an overview of the author's life and summarize his or her writing accomplishments. Many are accompanied by black-and-white photos of the author. The biographies are followed by a complete list of the author's published works. Focusing on writers who have made their mark in the past 25 years, this guide covers African American writers of popular and genre literature—from Rochelle Alers, Octavia Butler, and Samuel Delaney to Walter Mosley, Omar Tyree, and Zane. A few classic literary giants who are popular with today's readers are also included—e.g., Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Richard Wright. Readers who want to know more about their favorite African American authors or find other books written by those authors, students researching AA authors for reports and papers, and educators seeking background information for classes in African American literature will find this guide invaluable. (High school and up.)

The SFWA Grand Master’s award-winning collection “combines a richly textured multicultural background with incisive storytelling” (Library Journal). In Skin Folk, with works ranging from science fiction to Caribbean folklore, passionate love to chilling horror, Nalo Hopkinson is at her award-winning best, spinning tales like “Precious,” in which the narrator spews valuable coins and gems from her mouth whenever she attempts to talk or sing. In “A Habit of Waste,” a self-conscious woman undergoes elective surgery to alter her appearance; days later she’s shocked to see her former body climbing onto a public bus. In “The Glass Bottle Trick,” the young protagonist ignores her intuition regarding her new husband’s superstitions—to horrifying consequences. Hopkinson’s unique pacing and vibrant dialogue sets a steady beat for stories that illustrate why she received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Entertaining, challenging, and alluring, Skin Folk is not to be missed. Praise for Nalo Hopkinson and the World Fantasy Award–winning Skin Folk “Hopkinson’s prose is vivid and immediate.” —The Washington Post Book World “An important new writer.” —The Dallas Morning News “Her descriptions of ordinary people finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances ring true, the result of her strong evocation of place and her ear for dialect.” —Publishers Weekly “A marvelous display of Nalo Hopkinson’s talents, skills and insights into the human conditions of life, especially of the fantastic realities of the Caribbean . . . Everything is possible in her imagination.” —Science Fiction Chronicle

As this volume indicates, the issues facing black America are diverse, and the tools needed to understand these phenomena cross disciplinary boundaries. In this anthology, the authors address a wide range of topics including race, gender, class, sexual orientation, globalism, migration, health, politics, culture, and urban issues-from a diversity of disciplinary perspectives.

This book critically situates the figure of the black female vampire within literary studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and critical race studies. It invites readers to take a closer look at the black female vampire figure and how that figure shapes and is shaped by cultural narratives about African American womanhood.

Screen Deep is a book about the immense potential of screen storytelling to defeat an evil both historic and urgently topical: racism. Everyone watches TV and movies. Everyone has an interest in building a more just and equitable world. Screen Deep goes beyond the many film books and anti-racist manuals by demonstrating the connection between these two aspects of modern life. In Screen Deep Ellen E. Jones combines her personal experience as a mixed-race woman who cares about racism with her professional expertise as a film and TV journalist of twenty years standing, to ask - and answer - several questions: Is there such a thing as an Indigenous western? Is race comedy 'cancelled'? Where are all the films for white people? And most importantly: Can you still fight the good fight with a mouthful of popcorn?