Is My Character “Black Enough”? Advice on Writing Cross-Culturally

Tu Books Publisher and Editorial Director Stacy Whitman shares advice on writing cross-culturally for an author who wonders, “Is my character black enough?”

Community Village‘s insight:

Another decision to make: Should the character code switch?

I suppose some people speak the same way in all situations, but I speak differently when I’m at work verses when I’m at home or around friends.

Also, code switching can be done by any character – regardless of their ethnic background.

@getgln

See on blog.leeandlow.com

Dream of the Water Children: The Black Pacific

It’s official! My Book will be published in the Fall of 2014 – by 2Leaf Press. I will keep everyone updated. I have provided the Vimeo introductory video here.  More will follow. While watching thi…

See on waterchildren.wordpress.com

Donna Bailey Nurse: Addressing mixed race in literature | CBC Books | CBC Radio

Throughout February and March, literary journalist, teacher and author Donna Bailey Nurse will be blogging for CBC Books about black Canadian writers and their important works.

See on www.cbc.ca

Seeking Wonderful Young Adult Novels That Deal With Race

What would you recommend to a not-so-bookish teen?

See on www.npr.org

Susan Straight on the lessons of the mixed-race novel

The novelist Susan Straight is uniquely positioned to write about being mixed race in America, even though she’s not mixed race herself. She had three children with her former husband, who is black.

See on www.latimes.com

Jean Toomer’s Conflicted Racial Identity

He probably wanted to live as he pleased, outside the strictures of segregation; to be judged as a writer for his talents alone. And who can blame him?

See on chronicle.com

Review: The United States of the United Races: A Utopian History of Racial Mixing

In summary, this book does an excellent job at getting readers to revisit their own perceptions of race, whether they consider themselves mixed race or not. The categorization and labels that we use to describe us have a confusing and sometimes bright,sometimes painful history that we need to share in order to have a brighter future. You will need your “thinking cap” on because the book uses college-level vocabulary and historical anecdotes, but your mind will be blown away by the complexity behind even the simplest answers involving identity, love, and society.

See on thiscollegedropout.wordpress.com

The Tragic Mulatto Myth

Lydia Maria Child introduced the literary character that we call the tragic mulatto1 in two short stories: “The Quadroons” (1842) and “Slavery’s Pleasant Homes” (1843). She portrayed this light skinned woman as the offspring of a white slaveholder and his black female slave. This mulatto’s life was indeed tragic. She was ignorant of both her mother’s race and her own. She believed herself to be white and free. Her heart was pure, her manners impeccable, her language polished, and her face beautiful. Her father died; her “negro blood” discovered, she was remanded to slavery, deserted by her white lover, and died a victim of slavery and white male violence. A similar portrayal of the near-white mulatto appeared in Clotel(1853), a novel written by black abolitionist William Wells Brown.

See on www.ferris.edu

Mixed Race Studies » Scholarly Perspectives on Mixed-Race » Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance

In a vibrant blend of social history and biography, award-winning writer Carla Kaplan offers a joint portrait of six iconoclastic women who risked ostracism to follow their inclinations—and raised hot-button issues of race, gender, class, and sexuality in the bargain. Returning Miss Anne to her rightful place in the interracial history of the Harlem Renaissance, Kaplan’s formidable work remaps the landscape of the 1920s, alters our perception of this historical moment, and brings Miss Anne to vivid life.

See on www.mixedracestudies.org

‘My grandfather would have shot me’ | Culture | DW.DE | 26.09.2013

Jennifer Teege grew up in a foster family. Only at age 38 did she discover her biological family’s shocking history. Her grandfather was a sadistic Nazi criminal. Teege deals with the revelations in her new book.

See on www.dw.de