Hana Irene Carter is showing her fourteen-year-old Asian-black ass this afternoon. She walks through my house and into my kitchen, ignoring me, her grandmother Irene, and four of her other relatives, only smiling at and kissing Emma, my black sheep cousin, on the cheek. She then opens the refrigerator and takes out a beer. She pops the top, takes a long swig, and burps, looking directly at me with an in-your-face, self-satisfied grin.
Before I can act, Irene is up. She pulls the can out of her granddaughter’s hand and dumps the beer out in the sink . . .
Zachary Lipez, coauthor of Please Take Me Off the Guest List, will be touring the Northeast from September 18th through September 25th! He will be joined by fellow authors R.M. O’Brien and Eric Paul. Click for a full list of dates.
Mondays Are Murder features brand-new noir fiction modeled after our award-winning Noir Series. Each story is an original one, and each takes place in a distinct location. Our web model for the series has one more restraint: a 750-word limit. Sound like murder? It is. But so are Mondays. This week, Siobhan Lyons takes us back […]
Tater. His real name was Willam Francis McKinny III, but he got the name Tater because he was about as useless as a potato on legs when he drank. His best friend Nick Plakowitz named him that soon after the two of them started stealing Jim Beam from Nick’s dad’s liquor locker in the basement that was set up like a pool hall. Nick poured water in the square booze bottle so his dad wouldn’t know.
Tater said, “He’s gonna know.”
“Nah, he don’t want to deal with it. He too busy with that paint business of his.”
Tater shrugged. Nick’s dad never said a word . . .
To celebrate the release of Prison Noir — the latest release in Akashic’s Noir Series and edited by National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Oates — we’re pleased to feature a guest post from contributor Eric Boyd, who gives insight into what it’s like to write while incarcerated.
Did you catch Akashic publisher Johnny Temple and Akashic authors Albert “Prodigy” Johnson and K’wan on NPR’s Weekend Edition? Click to learn all about how Infamous Books is reverse gentrifying literature.
Are you a parent going through the Terrible Twos? Did you live through them and survive? Terrible Twosdays is a place to commiserate over the unending shenanigans of your Darling Children (as the online parenting communities say). Nonfiction stories will be considered, so long as names have been changed to protect the guilty. Inspired by […]
A special preview for Primus: Over the Electric Grapevine is available now on iBooks! The preview includes an introduction by Matthew Bellamy and a sneak peek into two full chapters of the book, along with select photos and exclusive audio supplement. Click for more information!
