African American Anthology

Karlie Houston hasn't seen a raise in forever, but the payday loan office she manages is raking in the cash. So why not get what she's rightfully owed by masterminding a heist? Once her lover Sidney's boys hit all the company's locations at one time, there's a fortune to split. But suddenly bodies start dropping - and Karlie better devise the perfect plan to survive.

Tisha Randall wants a boyfriend. When a likely specimen walks into her pet store to purchase "a dog or something," Tisha nearly turns him away with her disdain for would be animal owners who neglected their charges. Upon further review, Tisha realizes the man had a different type of void in his life, very possibly the same one that afflicts her.

Delbert Thompson lived all by himself on a farm deep in the country and never bothered anyone until a group of teen's car broke down about a half mile down the road from Delbert's farm. The teens were only looking to use Delbert's phone to get help, but Delbert was in no mood for company, so the teens picked the wrong door to knock on for help. Delbert was sitting in his rocking chair on his front porch whittling a piece of wood when he stopped what he was doing and noticed a group of people headed his way.

At thirty-five, independent, tenacious Texan Leah is happy with life as a successful weight-loss expert, but something is missing: her romantic side can’t help dreaming about the perfect wedding. The problem is, she’s missing the two main ingredients: a groom, and a father to walk her down the aisle.

Danielle Young was getting her life back on track after a bitter breakup. Hoping for a fresh new start, she moved to Washington, D.C., with her cousin, Vanessa. She found a new job, new friends, and handsome co-worker, Miles Griffin. What's a girl to do? Can she keep her vow to stay single? Or will Miles make it difficult for her to live up to that promise?

Dr. Lenese Stringfield has been the best sex therapist in Atlanta for the last three years. She uses unorthodox ways to serve up her clients and send them home feeling loved...literally. She will take you on a journey of her sexcapades with her clients and educate you at the same time. She will show you the meaning of being "dicmatized" and focus on the different types of men that women encounter on a daily basis. She will teach you techniques that you may want to use at home to better your own sex life.

The heralded Queen of Hip-Hop Lit presents an addictive collection of celebrated urban authors with their fingers on the pulse of the streets. Street lit’s finest female voices—Keisha Starr, Tysha, LaKesa Cox, and Monique S. Hall—deliver searing stories about women who make hard sacrifices to stay on top of their hustle and seize the power, money, and fame they can’t live without.

In Even Sinners Have Souls, each gritty and profound story is told in a raw and real voice, luring the listeners in by the poignant story lines, themes, and the genuine talents and abilities of each of these prolific authors. The stories have characters who face the same struggles and tragedies that any other person growing up in the hood might endure.

Shana Dobbs is trying to bounce back after a painful divorce. She vows never to get hurt again and has sworn off falling in love. To put her life back in prospective, she decides to spend the weekend at a friend's cottage in Virginia Beach, Virginia. But Shana's new outlook on life is tested when a mixup in dates causes her to share the cottage with handsome hunk and businessman Evan Smith.

While vacationing in Jamaica, trying to get over a broken heart, Chyna Daniels runs into island native Nelson Portis. On a physical level, Nelson satisfies all of Chyna's wants and needs to help her forget the breakup, but Nelson wants much more. Will Chyna give Nelson the one thing he wants the most? Her Heart.

In Kenan's fictional territory of Tims Creek, North Carolina, an old man rages in his nursing home, a parson beats up an adulterer, a rich man is haunted by a hog, and an elderly woman turns unwitting miracle worker. A retired plumber travels to Manhattan, where Billy Idol sweeps him into his entourage. An architect who lost his famous lover to AIDS reconnects with a high school fling. Howard Hughes seeks out the woman who once cooked him butter beans.

Poet Jean Toomer’s short-story and poetry collection.

Bound together by shared experience but pulled apart by their changing fortunes, four young friends coming of age in the postindustrial enclave of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, struggle to liberate themselves from the legacies left to them as black men in America. With potent immediacy and bracing candor, this provocative debut follows a decade in the lives of Dub, Rolls, Rye, and Gio as they each grapple with the complexity of their family histories, the newfound power of sex and drugs, and the ferocity of their desires.

Originally published in 1964, this collection of 16 stories includes three linked sets of stories about the Carey, Bedlow, and Dunford families. They represent the earliest work of William Melvin Kelley and provided a rich source of stories and characters who were to fill out his later novels. Spanning generations from the Deep South during Reconstruction to New York City in the 1960s, these insightful stories depict African American families - their struggles, their heartbreak, and their love.

The nine tales in Give My Love to the Savages illuminate the multifaceted Black experience, exploring the thorny intersections of race, identity, and Black life through an extraordinary cast of characters. From the absurd to the starkly realistic, these stories take aim at the ironies and contradictions of the American racial experience. Chris Stuck traverses the dividing lines, and attempts to create meaning from them in unique and unusual ways.

Black Girl Magic continues and deepens the work of the first BreakBeat Poets anthology by focusing on some of the most exciting Black women writing today. This anthology breaks up the myth of hip-hop as a boys’ club and asserts the truth that the cypher is a feminine form.

Side-splittingly funny, spine-chillingly spooky, this companion to a Newbery Honor - winning anthology The Dark Thirty is filled with bad characters who know exactly how to charm. From the author's note that takes us back to McKissack's own childhood when she would listen to stories told on her front porch...to the captivating introductions to each tale, in which the storyteller introduces himself and sets the stage for what follows...to the 10 entertaining tales themselves, here is a worthy successor to McKissack's The Dark Thirty.

Which One Are You? is a collection of 19 short stories that deal with a variety of topics, including family, life, friends, and making choices. The stories are told from a variety of perspectives, and they offer insights into the human condition that are both thought-provoking and inspiring.

Gayl Jones, who was first edited by Toni Morrison, has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century and was recently a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. This new collection of short fiction is only the second in her rich career, and one that displays her strengths in the genre in many facets. Opening with two novella-length works, “Butter” and “Sophia,” this collection features Jones’s legendary talents in a range of settings and styles.

Jacob is an old man who has secluded himself in an apartment convinced that something is after him. As he retells strange coincidences throughout his life, maybe he's right.