Meet These Contemporary Black Authors

Carole Barrowman is an English professor at Alverno College. She is also the author of Hollow Earth series, reviewer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Today she shares some of her favorite black authors that you may not be familiar with. Brit Bennett A few years ago, Bennett’s debut, The Mothers, won lots of acclaim, and awards. Set in present day Southern California, it’s a beautifully written and includes a cast of characters in a small town with all their stories and deep secrets. Her latest, The Vanishing Half, is just as compelling and compassionate. It’s set in the 60s in Louisiana. Dr. Ian K Smith Smith is a regular on The Morning Blend and is the host the daytime TV show, The Doctors. He’s written multiple fitness books. Smith has skills. And they’re on display in The Unspoken, a terrific PI novel set in Chicago, featuring ex-cop, Ashe Cayne. Cayne’s banter is irreverent, his worldview is cynical, and the mystery involving a missing white socialite is terrific. This is the first in a series. I’m already in line for the second. Kiley Reid Reid’s debut Such A Fun Age was one Carole's favorite novels of last year. The point of view is from a 20 year old Black babysitter, Emira Tucker, who, on a trip to the grocery store, is accused of kidnapping the white infant in her care. Emira confronts the consequences of the encounter with wisdom and a big-heart. Attica Locke Locke’s latest in a series featuring a Black Texas Ranger, Heaven, My Home or her earlier riveting stand-alone, The Cutting Season, about a murder in a what used to be a Southern plantation and is now a museum would be excellent book club choices. Locke writes for TV too, most recently the mini-series, Little Fires Everywhere.