| Author |
Message |
    
Thumper
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 06:17 pm: | 
|
Hello All,
I was recently asked this question, are there any living black southern male writer besides Ernest Gaines? I could think of no one except Christopher Chambers. I'm sure Chris will correct me if I'm wrong. If you all know of some, could you tell me please. Until I was asked, I did not notice the gap of stories told of the South from a black male author today. I know that there are still black folks down South. And let's face it, the South is NOT the North. Are we cutting off our Southern roots? *eyebrow raised* |
yasmin
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 07:40 pm: |
|
Good Question Thumper...and hmmm if we add MD which is below the mason-dixon line we have:
Blair Walker (but he moved to FL), Van Whitfield, hmm what about the male authors in ATL...Brian Egeston, Travis Hunter, RM Johnson (there are probably others but I CRS right now), in Houston/Dallas I believe there's Victor McGlothin, Timm McCann (I don't think he's writing any longer) but he's in FL... oh Ernest Hill author of Cry Me a River and a Life for a Life...Definitely him! |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 07:51 am: |
|
Thumper:
Percival Everett and Randall Kenan are southern writers! |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 11:58 am: |
|
Yukio:
Me (St. Louis is in the South, despite what many people who live here believe--it was a slave state (they used to sell us right on the steps of the Old Courthouse) the site of the Dred Scott decision, etc. The City does not have control of its police department today--the state legislature vested the control in itself because of the Pro Confederate Loyalties in the City--
All that aside, you can add Ahmos Zu Bolton, Kalamu Ya Salaam, C. Leigh McEnnis, Arthur Flowers, Lenard Moore, Charlie Braxton, Charles Warrts, Eugene B. Redmond. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 02:35 pm: |
|
Chris H:
Thanks for the info., but i didn't start the thread, so y is your post addressed to me? Also, if i knew the literature and background of those you delineated, i would've listed them.
Strange... |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 03:21 pm: |
|
Yukio:
Thought you started the thread. May have been thinking of you as I wrote.
Stranger . .. |
Nichelle Tramble
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 09:02 pm: |
|
Thumper:
Louis Edwards. Based in New Orleans. He wrote "Ten Seconds" and "N:A Romance". This man is an excellent writer. Pick up one of his books if you get the chance.
|
Mike Evans
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2003 - 10:25 am: |
|
Albert Murray is definitely a southern writer. His fiction & nonfiction reflect this. Cecil Brown is another brother who has written knowingly about the south. I know this is supposed to be restricted to living authors but I have to mention Raymond Andrews out of Georgia who wrote Appalachee Red; Rosiebelle Lee Wildcat Tenessee; and Baby Sweets in the late 70's - early 80's. These books were a trilogy of sorts taking place in a fictional Ga. county & featuring some recurring characters. Andrews died sometime within the last 10 years and was the brother of the artist Benny Andrews, who provided illustrations for his books. He later published a memoir & a collection of stories. If you find any copies in print please check him out [particularly Appalachee Red].
p.s. loved Louis Edwards Ten Seconds; he also did an interview with A. Murray in an anthology edited by Don Belton. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2003 - 02:34 pm: |
|
Thumper and Others:
There are many southern writers, male and female, in the Callaloo, vol. 24, Number 1. Featured in the issue is The Confederate Flag COntroversy. |
Brian Egeston
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 14, 2003 - 11:24 pm: |
|
I think this issue of Black Male Southern Fiction Writers (BMSFW) goes a bit further than what we’re thinking. The landscape of the south is seasoned with drunken idiots and molested daughters who, later in life, became literary martyrs. Though the south has fallen, been resurrected, and celebrated again, missing from the inbred photo album are Black men writing southern fiction.
Can one simply be labeled as a southern writer by merely setting a novel in Atlanta with no use of dialect nor mention of the unique fabric below the Mason-Dixon? Can one wave the banner of southern writing while living off the shores of the Hudson river, Great Lakes, or Pacific Ocean? How deeply rooted from the south must a writer be to claim southern heritage with the expertise of capturing its soul in words?
I know Chris Chambers well and RM Johnson but even if you asked them, they wouldn’t call their writing southern. Neither would Travis.
Ernest Gaines is/was a practitioner of southern writing and I dare say, he is the only BMSFW to crack the mainstream with southern writing in the last 10 years. Arthur Flowers great writer, not even close to the mainstream. I mean we’ve got no Clyde Edgerton, no Silas House, no Pat Conroy. Brian Keith Jackson's first books were southern through and through, but then he came out with The Queen of Harlem.
Percival, as wonderful as he is heralded to be, is wading in the waters of the mainstream. Wright and Ellison captured the true landscape of the south, but in my opinion, it is an area we have now neglected.
Let me mention Tony Grooms (Bombingham-2002) before I forget and his short stories (Trouble No More).
Perhaps the reason why this is an issue to me is because I attend quiet a few events here in Atlanta at the Margaret Mitchell house and the center for Southern Literature and we ain’t no where up in there. I attended an award ceremony where 20 Plus books--most of them southern--where nominated for one prize . Only one brother in the bunch, and he got in by accident.
So the question is, are Black readers missing southern fiction from the perspective of Black Male writers? Are there any issues of importance, humor, and entertainment that readers want from BMSFW? Have readers noticed a lack of southern writing by brothers? Do they care whether a book is southern or not?
Oh, did somebody say St. Louis is the south? St. Louis is about as southern as ice tea with no sugar. ‘Bout as southern as catfish in Lake Michigan. ‘Bout as southern as collard green sushi. ‘Bout as southern as...you get my point.
Great thread to start, by the way, Thumper.
|
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - 12:18 pm: |
|
St. Louis not the south? Oh-oh. I think Chris Hayden would beg to differ. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - 02:12 pm: |
|
Brian E.:
Interesting comments! I agree that "southern writing" should be more than being from the south and living in the south or having you're plot embedded in the south. However, this "authenticity" that you seem, key word is seem, to impose is quite ambiguous and contentious. It is ambiguous because you have only identified you regional preferences and espoused your opinions. You have not provided an analysis of why you think/believe, argue, for example, that Everett's literature is "wading in the mainstream" and what that has to do with being a "southern writer." More importantly, you have not identified what elements constitute "southern writing." It is contentious because i'm presuming, that there is no coherent set of elements that constitute "southern" writing, so that the nature of you statements are quite debateable.
You have made arguments without explanations! I'm not from the south, and though i spent time in the south for school, vacation, and visiting family i don't consider myself a southern and i haven't done an extensive examination of what is "southern" in literature, which seems to be what you're really talking about!
Nevertheless, and if u choose, please address the "why?" and provide an analysis of the elements or characteristics of "southern literature." I'll do a little asking too...and we can compare notes.... |
Brian Egeston
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 - 03:38 pm: |
|
Hey Yukio,
Not THAT is what I call a post! Whew! Nice passionate response. Contentious, ambiguous, authenticity...don’t get much hotter than that. Very nicely done!
I guess I would offer this. I must have failed if you thought I was writing to lament about the authenticity of southern writing. Maybe I should have just asked, “Do you(readers) want, care, or get excited about books exploring southern dialect, settings, and culture from the Black Male perspective.” That’s all I wanted to know. And then I perhaps should have added, “Is there a large enough interest in this type of writing from these types of writers to make ripples in the mainstream i.e. bestseller list, major news media.”
That’s it...all I wanted Yukio.
As for Percival, he’s a mad genius, amazing writer, but has he made ripples in the mainstream? Maybe this is where you’re perceiving ambiguity. Is there a definition of mainstream? Is there a definition of a mainstream impact? Of course there isn’t, because reading and books is an area that lives by subjective results, analysis and opinions, which equals...ambiguity.
I hope this clears things up for you. My, what I strong post—just like all your others. But that one was stinger! I do declare, if my feathers could be ruffled, you would have come awfully close to doing so.
Written With Warmth
Brian Egeston
|
Mike Evans
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 11:46 am: |
|
I would not classify Percival Everett as either mainstream or southern; he is from the south but the vast majority of his fiction takes place in the west. When I think of his stories I conjure up these vast southwestern or more often northwestern vistas. I believe Suder, Erasure & Zulus are the exceptions. Everett could hardly be considered mainstream, his literary concerns, his style, his imagination do not seem to mesh with those of more mainstream writers whose concerns might be to mine one paricular style or niche. |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 04:07 pm: |
|
Brian:
St. Louis is the South and all that ain't good--that it is not is a mistake made by many who thought they were Up Nawth when they got off the train up here-to their everlasting regret or it is a deliberate attempt to deny all these sh*tkickers and bumpkins round here.
St. Louis is as South as a barbecued pig snoot sammich with potato salad on top. It is a South as a tripe sammich. It is a South as pickled pig's feet. As south as greens cornbread blackeyed peas and sweet potato pie. It just tries to deny it. |
Brian Egeston
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 05:59 pm: |
|
Chris:
Touché.
Very well done, my friend.
Brian |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 17, 2003 - 09:12 am: |
|
Brian:
Well, randall kenan's literature is definitely "southern," if you're talking about southern culture, dialect, and settings from the black male "perspective."
As regards to Everett's work, I say that he is a southern(west or east) writer, who doesn't limit himself to southern writing. |
akaivyleaf
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 21, 2003 - 11:45 am: |
|
Born and raised across the river from St. Louis in East St. Louis I must concur with Chris on the fact that St. Louis is southern. Many deny its existence as a slave state, refusing to believe that the tenants of slavery so vastly consumed their fair city and state but alas it is a fact. The slave mentality still exists among the vast majority of people who exited trains at Union Station coming from more southern origins and brought tradition, culture and character with them. THe notion of southernism still resides in St. Louis and East St. Louis today and will forever remain.
I couldn't wait to flee the area and where did I end up? Further south in Atlanta where their ain't much difference with the food I eat here, versus what mama cooked, no difference in the vernacular or inflection of tone, no difference in mentality- In 14 years I've had no reason or call to be homesick. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 21, 2003 - 12:24 pm: |
|
akaivylead and chris H:
I'm sure you quite right,(though i have never been to St. Louis nor am i a southerner) especially since St.Louis is was a slave state. Similarly, but perhaps not to the same degree, many northern cities are southern. The great migrations during the two great wars brought many southerners to the north who reproduced their southern culture in the north and altered it so that it would be more conducive to northern conditions. Additionally, they maintained their cultural ties in the south; many traveling back home to visit relatives, while others kept property or saved in the north and brought property in the south....their southernness is passed down to their children, grandchirren, etc...through their language, food, and religiousity. There is a historical monograph called AlabamaNorth by Kimberley Phillips, arguing that Cleveland is/was a southern rooted northern city....also check out John Edgar Wideman's and Diane McKInney-Whetstone's fiction, and i'm sure others, who illustrate how southern culture remains rooted in the North......things are never so clear cut(ie northern/southern) as long as we hold on to our culture....whether it be african or southern african american culture..... |
yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 21, 2003 - 12:27 pm: |
|
akaivyleaf:
sorry for the misspelling! |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, July 21, 2003 - 12:50 pm: |
|
Hi akaivyleaf and Yukio. I am not from the south but I really love "soul" food. And I think that the word "soul" is what reminds blacks that no matter how far removed they are from their southern origins, if they have "soul" they are, in a sense, "southern". |
paulette
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, January 09, 2004 - 07:35 pm: |
|
A GREAT WRITER!
Dark Things- David M. Humphrey Sr.
There are novels that, when you pick them up you can put them down. Where the intention of perusing a few pages before bed is the goal, NOT in this case....
DARK THINGS is a treat of true delightful excitement and pure adrenaline. From the moment you begin, you are thrown into the very thick of chaos. A whirlwind of drama and mayhem surround you as you learn of the characters plight and names. What seems like a quick intro, is merely a formality... for as the story quickly unfolds your feeling of angst grows.
This is a story unlike any other. It's characters? Humans ... Celestial Angels... Dark things, and the plot, this combination makes for the best incredible read you will ever have!
This is not a book you put down ...UNTIL YOU'RE FINISHED... otherwise you will annoyingly find that, "life" just gets in the way. Many times I found that I couldn't stop reading and when I did... my mind was reeling. Sleep wasn't important, finding out what happened to the characters was.
I was right there.... in the operating room as Virginia barely clung to life, there when Mahatiel was attacked... there when the dark things plotted to steal what didn't belong to them... there as they devoured souls in there path..... there.. NO! It wont do for you to just read the review. This is a novel that has to be read to gain the FULL understanding of what I mean.
It's hard to believe that such an piece of work is the first for David M. Humphrey Sr.
The images and clarity of this work of literary art mandates it be read. I honestly believe that this only the first of many novels to come. In excited anticipation I eagerly await the next installment. As a voracious reader, I have to say that this is a book that all who read will enjoy.
DARK THINGS will make an incredible movie. It has everything to captivate an audience and MORE! The word is spreading about DARK THINGS.
This is definitely one for your book club(s). So if you've found that your book club is a little drab... in need of some life... this the book.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Get it amazon.com Got it? GOOD! WILL |
|
Email This Page