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By: Willie Lee Kind III, 2023, Paperback
As a young, Black, queer person in a small town in the South where everyone knows everyone, Orders of Service is a coming-of-age exploration of the everyday fever of fleeting relationships, while capturing the romantic, psychic quotidian of the Bible Belt. This commentary on gospel traditionalism is armed with dreams of helping to reshape lived realities where being your truest self could be shunned or ostracized in deeply religious communities. It ruminates on this Deep South narrative by exploring how the age of social media has created a rich underground counterculture that offsets the surface rituals of grief and shame. The poems illuminate lineages of performance and fellowship for queer descendants of the last Black folks out of the Carolina cotton fields, and features Anansi-like speakers (Anansi is a trickster spider featured in West African and Caribbean folklore) while delving into old-school sensibilities and advice. This gospel-fugue bends language in the backwoods of faith and desire. Pulling figures from the stories of childhood―Icarus, a flying boy wanting to escape; Asterion the Minotaur―the wandering son of someone absent; Medusa, a wronged person portrayed as a mankiller; Cerberus, a beastly guardian intent on being a “good” boy― these poems are punky, preachy, prissy, and pink-collar, and all help create the fever-dream that is Orders of Service.
When they go low, we make poem art.
Art heals. For reals. There are scientific studies about it and everything.
When Marla Taviano’s husband of 22 years left unexpectedly in 2020—and she found out 4 months later that he’d been cheating for 4 years—she did what she’s always done with her pain. She wrote about it.
But this time she turned that writing into poems. And then she turned those poems into poem art. And found healing along the way.
This book is full of powerful, punchy poems about divorce, infidelity, and single parenthood. If that’s your story too, let her help you turn your pain into something really beautiful.
By Nicki Pappas, 2022, Paperback
signed, poetry
By: Becca Webb (Author & Illustrator), 2024, Paperback
We follow an alien detective hundreds of years in the future. Living in an evangelical Christian society on the moon, the detective seeks to solve a string of odd and precise murders with the help of his human sidekick. The two work together to try and overcome their differences while putting and end to the killings. Complications arise when societal norms get in the way. As Part 1 in the series, this book's thrilling ending will have you waiting anxiously for the next.
By: Bakari Sellers (Author), 2024, Hardcover
The New York Times bestselling author of My Vanishing Country examines the modern political landscape and policies that are impacting Black families and communities and offers solutions for a better tomorrow.
In late May in 2020, while discussing the murder of George Floyd on CNN, Bakari Sellers spoke from the heart sharing devastating insight that touched millions around the world: “It’s just so much pain. You get so tired. We have black children. I have a 15-year-old daughter. I mean, what do I tell her? I’m raising a son. I have no idea what to tell him. It’s just—it’s hard being black in this country when your life is not valued and people are worried about the protesters and the looters. And it’s just people who are frustrated for far too long and not have their voices heard.”
In this powerful and persuasive book, Sellers expands on the issues he addressed in his New York Times bestseller My Vanishing Country, examining national politics and policies that deeply impact not only Black people in his home state of South Carolina but the lives of millions of African Americans in communities across the nation. Four years later, Sellers has an answer to the question he raised on CNN, offering much-needed prescriptions to help all Black American lives.
Sellers explores inequities in healthcare, education, early childhood education, and policing, drawing on interviews with numerous thought leaders such as pioneering voting rights and poverty activist the Rev. William Barber, and Ben Crump, the civil rights legend who successfully uses the law to achieve justice for people of color in racially charged cases. He also shares his thoughts on conservative media and the forces and dark money behind firebrands such as Tucker Carlson. This thoughtful and practical work is a timely meditation on the state of our world today and how we can all play a part in making it better for tomorrow.
By: Sarah Macklin (Author), 2020, Paperback
Bakari is the netkoleh, ruler of the Ega empire and the living embodiment of the gods. When his eldest son and heir falls ill and dies, Bakari drowns in despair. He decides that the gods are nonexistent and bans the empire's religion. He expects the people to rejoice at being "liberated" but talk of rebellion soon begins instead.
In the north, in a long ago conquered kingdom, the second queen of the empire is sent to deliver the news. Her father, the king, wants to bargain with the netkoleh but she and her siblings know the man can't be reasoned with. Their religion was the last bit of dignity th Ega had left their people. To defy this decree will bring the wrath of the netkoleh down on their lands and hopefully the path to freedom.
Meanwhile, the south is grappling with their recent occupation. The untried leader must balance the needs of her people with the demands of the Ega. The increasing pressures may not only break her but her land as well. In the end, a rash decree by a distant ruler may be the least of her worries.
The bonds of family and fealty will be tested. The strength of nations' faith will be strained. And the fate of the entire empire will rest in the hands of a few.
By: Winnifred Tataw (Author), 2022, Paperback
Book 4 of 5: The Gods' Scion
Author Winnifred Tataw explores kingdoms and worldbuilding in this fantasy novel full of secrets and twists in her latest book, The Sisterhood of Secrets.
The story follows Arcelia, her flawed family, and Prince Rodrick, as they tumble through the deserts and underground city of Siesa Arid. Everything has been off since she found out her mother could be a murderer with the whispers of lies and broken promises hanging over her head.
She hopes that a visit to her twin cousins’ homeland of Siesa Arid may be the kind of family reconciliation she’s been hoping to have. Arcelia and Rodrick are troubled by threats from a criminal organization; they become overwhelmed with moral questions of right and wrong. All with the help and under the watchful eye of the Archangel and God of Life.
By: Winnifired Tataw (Author), 2024, Paperback
"The bloodline awakens, and with it, the power to reshape destinies."
In the thrilling 5th installment of the Gods' Scion series, brace yourself for Rodrick's and Arcelia's new journey that will leave you breathless and yearning for more!
Snakes slither into the forefront as betrayals and curses unravel long-held family mysteries. The battle between Rodrick and Arcelia's royal families reaches new heights, with struggles of power, magic, and, hopefully, loss. More of Rodrick's family secrets rise to the surface and begin to shake the very foundations of loyalty he and his siblings once held.
And with every new revelation, Arcelia begins to doubt who she can trust and believe more and more. She will now have to delve deeper into the darkness that lurks within mortals and deities alike to save the ones she holds dear–even if it kills her.
By Baker A. Rogers, 2020, Paperback
Through the voices of 51 trans men, Baker A. Rogers analyzes what it means to be a trans man in the southeastern United States. Rogers argues that the common themes that pervade trans men’s experiences in the South are complicated by other intersecting identities, such as sexuality, religion, race, class, and place. This study explores the intersectionalities of a group of people who are often invisible, by choice or necessity, in broader culture. Rogers engages with debates about trans experiences of masculinity, ‘passing,’ and discrimination within LGTBQ spaces in order to provide a comprehensive study of trans men’s experiences.
By: Marla Taviono, 2024, Paperback
What makes this such a stellar read is not only is Marla aware of who she is, but she's finally got to the point where she's unabashedly ready to tell us as well!" —Tyler Merritt, author of I Take My Coffee Black and Creator of The Tyler Merritt Project
When you've spent your entire life defined by your faith, who are you when that faith shatters, leaving you to pick up broken pieces, wondering if anything can be saved? Marla Taviano—author, single mom, and former Christian—set out on a journey to find out.
What she uncovered was that, after deconstructing a toxic belief system and working to dismantle systems of injustice, some things hadn't changed. She still loved people and wanted them to be free and whole—and she wanted that for herself too. It just looked different now. So whole: poems on reclaiming the pieces of ourselves and creating something new talks about looking back to move forward, new thoughts on god, our inner lives, embodied living, and books, books, books.
If you long for the freedom to be your true self, if you ache for healing and wholeness for yourself and a broken world, if you need some lighthearted fun amid all the hard, Marla's got you. This book is a collection of mini-love letter poems to herself and all of us.