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Book Expo 2007: Atria's African-American Luncheon
May 31, 2007
Today I attended the African-American Booksellers Luncheon (sponsored by Atria this year) -- far and away the most congenial BEA event, open to all and always fresh and interesting.
The theme for 2007 was "Writing Outside of Your Comfort Zone," with panelists Nathan McCall, Stacey Patton, Zane, and the writing team of Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due, & Steven Barnes, along with moderator Adrienne Ingrum. Everyone on the panel has written a new book in a genre different from their previous one:
-- McCall, a journalist and the author the autobiography Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America, has a debut novel coming out in October called Them.
-- Patton, a journalist and academic, has a memoir called That Mean Old Yesterday due out in September.
-- The ever-prolific and adaptable Zane will release her first nonfiction title,
Dear G-Spot, in July (just wait until you see the fabulous cover!).
-- Due, Underwood, and Barnes have collaborated on a new mystery series called Casanegra (and yes, Blair Underwood is that Blair Underwood -- but besides star turns on Sex in the City and Madea's Family Reunion, he is the author of Before I Got Here: The Wondrous Things We Hear When We Listen to the Souls of Our Children), the first mystery series for any of them.
A few fun quotes and moments from the standing-room-only crowd in the large ballroom where the luncheon was held:
-- After Steven Barnes decried the lack of creation stories for African-Americans, there were shouts of "Preach it!" from the crowd.
-- Zane, just about everyone's favorite erotic author, saying of herself, "I'm no sexologist!" but also pointing out that her book's cover (with its gorgeous photo of a woman's torso) is much hotter than anything from "Dr. Ruth or Dr. Phil."
-- Stacey Patton describing a newspaper assignment in which she interviewed an older man whose shoeshine business was about to be shut down because of new construction: "We talked about shoes all day... and I finally felt I had stepped into his life... that was a powerful moment."
-- Tananarive Due telling the story of an email from a reader who said that after reading one of Due's books, she (the reader) felt able to cope with and fight off an attacker. "That's the kind of reader I want."
-- Nathan McCall responding to a submitted question about potential reader disappointment when an author tries something new: "Our primary responsbility as artists is to write the book we would want to reader."
Sing it, Brother McCall. Thanks, Atria Books, for a wonderful kick-off to this year's BEA.
Posted by Bethanne Patrick on May 31, 2007 | Comments (1)
