ChickenBones: A Journal
for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes
www.nathanielturner.com 
Raoul liked what he heard: the sounds of a New Orleans evening
in the Treme area muted by the wood of old buildings, sounds mingling
like the melodic strains of a brass band improvising, different elements
going to the fore and then receding
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Books by Kalamu ya Salaam
The Magic of JuJu: An Appreciation of the Black Arts Movement / 360: A Revolution of Black Poets
Everywhere Is Someplace Else: A Literary Anthology / From A Bend in the River: 100 New Orleans Poets
Our Music Is No Accident / What Is Life: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self
My Story My Song (CD)
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Kalamu’s Feminist Erotica
Summaries
1) “Raoul’s Silver Song “ (Street Lights, ed. Martin Simmons;1996) — that’s in an anthology called street lights, edited by martin simmons (if i remember his name correctly). one of the few stories i have published that has a new orleans setting.
2) “Do Right Women ” (Dark Eros, ed. Reginal Martin; 1999) — an essay on classic blues singers of the 20s — all of whom were women. that’s in dark eros. when you read it you will understand why i suggest you deal with it.
3) “Murder” (Obsidian II; date?) — that’s in obsidian ii. it’s a short story but it’s not fiction per se, even though that’s the category it’s put in. about a friend who was the victim of an armed robbery.
4) “Could You Wear My Eyes ?” (Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction, 2001)
5) “Where Do Dreams Come From“ (late 60s-early 70s) — that’s in an obscure, speculative fiction literary journal. it is from the late sixties, early seventies. would be could also to show how long these concerns have been evident in my published fiction.
6) “Another Duke Ellington Story ” (published in Italy; journal?; date?) — that’s been published in italy. i don’t even know the name of the journal, but i can find out and get the publication date. the story is about duke ellington, but the focus is on a female audience member.
7) “Forty-Five Is Not So Old “ (Dark Eros, 1999) — that’s in the anthology dark eros, but i think it is listed under a pseudonym that the editor used because he was also using some of my poetry and a rather long essay.
8) “I Sing Because…“ (Essence, 1999) — i sing because… that’s in a journal that came out once, called “anasi” and was later picked up and is in the december 1999 issue of essence magazine. it’s a piece about an enslaved sister who decides she is not going to have any more children.
9) “Sister Bibi” (We Be Word Sorcerers, 1973) — in the we be word sorcerers anthology, edited by sonia sanchez. that’s from way back in the game. early 70s if i’m not mistaken. one of my early fiction publications. it will give you a perspective on the published fiction around the theme of women.
10) “Just Like a Woman” (Kente Cloth, edited by James Mardis, 1997) — that’s in an anthology called kente cloth. despite it’s title, the main characters are men but it deals with the social definition of what it means to be a woman.
11) “the roses are beautiful…” that’s in afterhours, which i still haven’t seen. but you have.
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AALBC.com’s 25 Best Selling Books
Fiction
#1 – Justify My Thug by Wahida Clark #2 – Flyy Girl by Omar Tyree #3 – Head Bangers: An APF Sexcapade by Zane #4 – Life Is Short But Wide by J. California Cooper #5 – Stackin’ Paper 2 Genesis’ Payback by Joy King #6 – Thug Lovin’ (Thug 4) by Wahida Clark #7 – When I Get Where I’m Going by Cheryl Robinson #8 – Casting the First Stone by Kimberla Lawson Roby #9 – The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth by Zane
#10 – Covenant: A Thriller by Brandon Massey
#11 – Diary Of A Street Diva by Ashley and JaQuavis
#12 – Don’t Ever Tell by Brandon Massey
#13 – For colored girls who have considered suicide by Ntozake Shange
#14 – For the Love of Money : A Novel by Omar Tyree
#15 – Homemade Loves by J. California Cooper
#16 – The Future Has a Past: Stories by J. California Cooper
#17 – Player Haters by Carl Weber
#18 – Purple Panties: An Eroticanoir.com Anthology by Sidney Molare
#19 – Stackin’ Paper by Joy King
#20 – Children of the Street: An Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery by Kwei Quartey
#21 – The Upper Room by Mary Monroe
#22 Thug Matrimony by Wahida Clark
#23 – Thugs And The Women Who Love Them by Wahida Clark
#24 – Married Men by Carl Weber
#25 – I Dreamt I Was in Heaven – The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang by Leonce Gaiter
Non-fiction
#1 – Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable #2 – Confessions of a Video Vixen by Karrine Steffans #3 – Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love by Zane #4 – Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny by Hill Harper #5 – Peace from Broken Pieces: How to Get Through What You’re Going Through by Iyanla Vanzant #6 – Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey by Marcus Garvey #7 – The Ebony Cookbook: A Date with a Dish by Freda DeKnight #8 – The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by Frances Cress Welsing #9 – The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Godwin Woodson
#10 – John Henrik Clarke and the Power of Africana History by Ahati N. N. Toure
#11 – Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure by Tavis Smiley
#12 –The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
#13 – The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life by Kevin Powell
#14 – The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
#15 – Why Men Fear Marriage: The Surprising Truth Behind Why So Many Men Can’t Commit by RM Johnson
#16 – Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire by Carol Jenkins
#17 – Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority by Tom Burrell
#18 – A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
#19 – John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard
#20 – Alain L. Locke: The Biography of a Philosopher by Leonard Harris
#21 – Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number: Black Women Explore Midlife by Carleen Brice
#22 – 2012 Guide to Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino #23 – Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul by Tom Lagana #24 – 101 Things Every Boy/Young Man of Color Should Know by LaMarr Darnell Shields
#25 – Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class by Lisa B. Thompson
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The Untold Story of Americas Largest Slave Revolt
By Daniel Rasmussen
In January 1811, a group of around 500 enslaved men, dressed in military uniforms and armed with guns, cane knives, and axes, rose up from the slave plantations around New Orleans and set out to conquer the city. They decided that they would die before they would work another day of backbreaking labor in the hot Louisiana sun. Ethnically diverse, politically astute, and highly organized, this slave army challenged not only the economic system of plantation agriculture but also American expansion. Their march represented the largest act of armed resistance against slavery in the history of the United Statesand one of the defining moments in the history of New Orleans and the nation.
American Uprising is the riveting and longneglected story of this elaborate plot, the rebel armys dramatic march on the city and its shocking conclusion. No North American slave revoltnot Gabriel Prosser, not Denmark Vesey, not Nat Turnerhas rivaled the scale of this rebellion either in terms of the number of the slaves involved or in terms of the number who were killed.
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Edited by Miriam Decosta-Willis, Reginald Martin, and Roseann P. Bell
The editors are to be congratulated for amassing a collection of erotica worthy in its own right because of the writers showcased, among them Alice Walker, Chester Himes, Gloria Naylor, Jewelle Gomez, Charles Blockson, Audre Lorde, and Essex Hemphill. Coverage is not limited to African American writers but includes African, Caribbean American, and Latin American writers, whether straight or gay, of prose, poetry, or fiction. For some authors, this anthology features their first piece of erotic writing. Readers will be familiar with other selections, for example, Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” As a whole, this book successfully challenges stereotypical notions about black erotica and serves up delightful sexual tidbits for just about everyone’s taste.Faye A. Chadwell, Library Journal
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Intimacy: Erotic Stories of Love, Lust, and Marriage by Black Men
Edited by Robert Fleming
Inventive conceits dominate in Fleming’s second collection of erotic stories (after 2002’s After Hours) by African-American writers both new and established. Sexual frustration proves to be a nice point of entry for sci-fi writer Stephen Barnes in “Jet Lag,” as a writer’s busy schedule and a visiting mother-in-law keep the flames of love in check until a final, explosive release. Kinky sex takes center stage in Reginald Brown’s “Almond Eyes,” a cautionary tale about a young man whose hot, older and erotically adventurous girlfriend might be sucking the life out of him. In Gary Earl Ross’s “Lucky She’s Mine,” a criminologist rescues and marries a battered woman, only to be stalked by her ex after he gets out of prison, while in “Forty-five Is Not So Old,” Kalamu ya Salaam presents the sad dilemma of a middle-aged woman lamenting her husband’s lack of desire for her even as he lies in a hotel with his mistress.
Cecil Brown provides a cheeky moment of comic relief in an excerpt from his novel Days Without Weather, “A Fan’s Love,” in which a woman seduces a comedian after his show, and demands good loving and good jokes to spur her to a stirring climax. Despite the occasional clunker, and the lack of a couple of longer, more complex stories to balance the quick-hit situational material, Fleming has assembled another volume that’s sure to please.
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By James Carville and Stan Greenberg
Its the Middle Class, Stupid! confirms what we have all suspected: Washington and Wall Street have really screwed things up for the average American. Work has been devalued. Education costs are out of sight. Effort and ambition have never been so scantily rewarded. Political guru James Carville and pollster extraordinaire Stan Greenberg argue that our political parties must admit their failures and the electorate must reclaim its voice, because taking on the wealthy and the privileged is not class warfareit is a matter of survival. Told in the alternating voices of these two top political strategists, Its the Middle Class, Stupid! provides eye-opening and provocative arguments on where our governmentincluding the White Househas gone wrong, and what voters can do about it.
Controversial and outspoken, authoritative and shrewd, Its the Middle Class, Stupid! is destined to make waves during the 2012 presidential campaign, and will set the agenda for legislative battles and political dust-ups during the next administration.
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Captain of the Planter: The Story of Robert Smalls
Dorothy Sterlings biography of Robert Smalls is Captain of the Planter: The Story of Robert Smalls (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1958). In most history books, the contributions of Negroes during the Civil War and Reconstructions are ignored. Robert Smalls was one of the heroes who is rarely mentioned. He was a Negro slave who stole a ship from the Confederates, served on it with the Union Army with distinction, and finally served several terms in Congress.
All this was accomplished against the handicaps first of slavery, then of the prejudice of the Union Army, and finally of the Jim Crow laws, which eventually conquered him. Besides its value in contradicting the history book insinuation that the Negro was incapable of political enterprise and that the South was right in imposing Jim Crow laws, Captain of the Planter is an exciting adventure story. Captain Smalls escape from slavery and his battle exploits make interesting reading, and the style is fast moving.Barbara Dodds
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The White Masters of the World
From The World and Africa, 1965
W. E. B. Du Bois Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization (Fletcher)
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan / The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll / Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for Slavery /
George Jackson / Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804 / January 1, 1804 — The Founding of Haiti
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update 16 July 2012
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Home Kalamu ya Salaam Table Short Stories
Related files: Do Right Women Raoul’s Silver Song Forty-Five Is Not So Old I Sing Because… Murder Could You Wear My Eyes Another Duke Ellington Story
Feminism, Black Erotica, & Revolutionary Love And Then They Laughed Feminism, Black Erotica & Revolutionary Love