Showing results by narrator "Adenrele Ojo" in All Categories

It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, 17-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is 21, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth.

Now entering its second century, the prestigious annual story anthology has a new title, a new look, and a new guest editor. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and young emerging voices. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Adichie, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.

What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? When can we say that we truly belong? These are some of the questions of place and belonging that renowned cultural critic Bell Hooks examines in Belonging: A Culture of Place. Traversing past and present, Belonging charts a cyclical journey in which Hooks moves from place to place, only to end where she began—her old Kentucky home.

Based on nearly a decade of reporting, Invisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. Born at the turn of a new century, Dasani is named for the bottled water that comes to symbolise Brooklyn's gentrification and the shared aspirations of a divided city. As Dasani moves with her family from shelter to shelter, this story traces the passage of Dasani's ancestors from slavery to the Great Migration north.

In January 2020, as people started dying from a new virus in Wuhan, China, few really understood the magnitude of what was happening. Except, that is, a small group of scientific misfits who in their different ways had been obsessed all their lives with how viruses spread and replicated - and with why the governments and the institutions that were supposed to look after us, kept making the same mistakes time and again. This group saw what nobody else did. A pandemic was coming. We weren't prepared.

Professional distance runners Elvin Kibet and Shadrack Kipchirchir grew up in rural Kenyan villages. Though their lives began in poverty, both were driven to reach their full potential, to gain an education, and make a difference. And they would find their way to do just that through the high-pressure world of distance running.

From werewolves and vampires, to demons and aliens, the monster is one of the most recognizable figures in horror. But what makes something, or someone, monstrous? Award-winning and up-and-coming authors like Richard Kadrey, Cassandra Khaw, Indrapramit Das, Priya Sharma, and more attempt to answer this question. These all-new stories range from traditional to modern, from mainstream to literary, from familiar monsters to the unknown . . . and unimaginable.

She's the only sister in a family of alpha males. Loved, treasured, and sheltered by her brothers, Kat McClain is working to heal the pain of a failed marriage to a man she loved from her teenage years and move on with her life, but she's a woman; she has needs, and she's understandably lonely. Tommy Kirby has protected her brother since he was barely a man and has been a silent staple in the McClain family for just as long. He loves his job, his life, and is loyal to his employer. More than anything, he wants a family of his own. Perhaps these two are exactly what the other desires.

It's 1924 in Branchville, South Carolina, and three women have come to a crossroads. Gertrude, a mother of four, must make an unconscionable decision to save her daughters. Retta, a first-generation freed slave, comes to Gertrude's aid by watching her children, despite the gossip it causes in her community. Annie, the matriarch of the influential Coles family, offers Gertrude employment at her sewing circle, while facing problems of her own at home.

Years ago, Old Earth sent forth sisters and brothers into the vast dark of the prodigal colonies armed only with crucifixes and iron faith. Now, the sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are on an interstellar mission of mercy aboard Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, a living, breathing ship which seems determined to develop a will of its own. When the order receives a distress call from a newly-formed colony, the sisters discover that the bodies and souls in their care - and that of the galactic diaspora - are in danger.

Davie—an ugly duckling growing up in small-town Mississippi—is positive her life couldn’t be any worse. She has the meanest mother in the South, possibly the world, and on top of that, she’s pretty sure she’s ugly. Just when she’s resigned herself to her fate, she sees a movie that will change her life— Sixteen Candles. But in her case, life doesn’t imitate art.

An inspiring exploration of the goddesses of the West African spiritual traditions and their role in shaping Yoruba (Ifa), Santeria, Haitian vodoun, and New Orleans voodoo.

This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who "shares the blood" by two women there, Gilda spends the next 200 years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story.

Inspired by the Academy Award-nominated Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, an intimate and vivid look at the legendary life of Nina Simone, the classically trained pianist who evolved into a chart-topping chanteuse and committed civil rights activist.

Thorn Marsh was raised in a house of whispers, of meaningful glances and half-finished sentences. Now she's a journalist with a passion for truth, more devoted to her work at the London Journal than she ever was to her ex-husband. When the newspaper is bought by media giant The Goring Group, who value sales figures over fact-checking, Thorn openly questions their methods, and promptly finds herself moved from the news desk to the midweek supplement, reporting heart-warming stories for their new segment, The Bright Side, a job to which she is spectacularly unsuited.

When Jovani Higgs shows up as the latest artist in residence at Romey University, Professor Sharla London can’t believe his resemblance to the gorgeous fantasy man she’s been dreaming about. She wants to write it off as her mind playing tricks, but the mysterious artist seems just as drawn to her.

bell hooks reflects on the ways in which the emotional health of black women has been and continues to be impacted by sexism and racism. Desiring to create a context where black females could both work on their individual efforts for self-actualization while remaining connected to a larger world of collective struggle, hooks articulates the link between self-recovery and political resistance. Both an expression of the joy of self-healing and the need to be ever vigilant in the struggle for equality, Sisters of the Yam continues to speak to the experience of black womanhood.

Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene is back, trying to get her feet on solid ground after unravelling an international conspiracy. But as the sparks of Congressional hearings and political skirmishes swirl around her, Avery is approached at a legal conference by Preston Davies, an unassuming young man and fellow law clerk to a federal judge in Idaho. Davies believes his boss, Judge Francesca Whitner, was being blackmailed in the days before she died. Desperate to understand what happened, he gives Avery a file, a burner phone, and a fearful warning that there are highly dangerous people involved.

Voodoo hoodoo is the unique variety of Creole voodoo found in New Orleans. This rich compendium includes more than 300 authentic voodoo and hoodoo recipes, rituals, and spells for love, justice, luck, prosperity, health, and success. Cultural psychologist and root worker Denise Alvarado, who grew up in New Orleans, draws from a lifetime of recipes and spells learned from family, friends, and local practitioners.

Pull up a chair at Big Earl's diner and meet the 'Supremes': three women from Plainview, Indiana, who've been best friends since their high-school days in the Sixties. Clarice is a pious wife and mother struggling with her husband's infidelity; Barbara Jean must confront the tragic reverberations of a youthful love affair; and Odette, whose fearlessness has saved her friends many times, now faces a terrifying situation of her own.