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Ahh, Atlanta… the city, the music, the people… the books. There’s always something happenin’ in The ATL… let’s see what’s currently cookin’ on our Dirty Southern menu…

On Tuesday, popular author Curtis Bunn, known for his steamy romance novels – steamy, as in combustible – held a reading for his latest release, A Cold Piece of Work www.curtisbunn.com at Justin’s restaurant, Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs’ Atlanta-based eatery. Bunn is also the founder of the popular and annual National Book Club Conference www.nationalbookclubconference.com, which will be held July 29-31 at the Atlanta Hyatt Regency and will feature such writers and celebs as Walter Mosley, Tyrese Gibson, Terrie Williams, Roland Martin and Carl Weber, to name a few.

Little as it’s known, Atlanta also happens to be a hotspot for black Science Fiction lovers… think Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus in The Matrix trilogy; Avery Brooks as Commander Benjamin Sisko in Star Trek Deep Space Nine; Nichelle Nichols or Zoe Saldana as Lt. Uhura in Star Trek. That’s right, a substantial number of African Americans love Sci-Fi and Speculative Fiction writing as well, genres represented by the likes of the late Octavia Butler and by Tananarive Due. In fact, Atlanta is the hub for the Black Science Fiction Society, an online and active network for science/speculative fiction lovers with close to 2000 members nationally www.blacksciencefictionsociety.com.

Due, the author of my favorite book in this genre My Soul to Keep http://mahoganybooks.com/index.php/my-soul-to-keep.html, more recently collaborated with actor Blair Underwood and writer Steven Barnes on several book projects and is slated to appear with Barnes at Onyxcon 3 www.onyxcon.com , an August 19-20 arts conference at Atlanta’s Southwest Arts Center highlighting African-American science/speculative fiction, animation and popular culture. Should be a cosmic blast…

Make sure you check out the weekly book review below, courtesy of AALBC. I’ll leave you this week with Five Landmark Fiction Novels by African-American Females…

Keep those pages turning,

Charisse charisse@brandnuwords.com

Book Review of the Week

This week’s review comes from AALBC.com (the African American Literature Book Club) and it is When I Get Where I’m Going. The book, authored by Cheryl Robinson and based in her native Detroit, follows two African-American sisters through a horrific childhood event and into adulthood as they strive for wholeness and to transcend the pain of their past:  http://aalbc.com/reviews/when_i_get_where_im_going.html

Five Landmark Fiction Novels by African-American Females

1)    The Bluest Eye Toni Morrison http://www.amazon.com/Bluest-Eye-Toni-Morrison/dp/B004J02E3I/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309894391&sr=1-2

2)    The Color Purple Alice Walker http://mahoganybooks.com/index.php/the-color-purple.html

3)    Kindred Octavia Butler http://mahoganybooks.com/index.php/kindred-25th-anniversary-edition.html

4)    Beloved Toni Morrison http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375405623/aalbccom-20

5)    Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston http://mahoganybooks.com/index.php/their-eyes-were-watching-god.html

Charisse Carney-Nunes is the award-winning author of the children’s books, I Am Barack Obama, I Dream For You A World, and Nappy. She is the founder of new media publishing company, Brand Nu Words and a senior vice president of the Jamestown Project, a think tank focusing on democracy.

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