Hi, readers. We hope you’re doing well and are staying safe. We recorded this chat shortly after the protests began, but due to continuing health issues in Dani’s family, it just now got published. The delay doesn’t matter, though, because the topic we discuss will never go stale: the importance of Black lives, Black joy, Black stories and Black survival. We also talk about wtf is up with Just Kidding Rowling, how we’re too old for social media and what’s gonna happen when the ‘rona pops back up. This episode was made possible with the help of Mocha Girls Read and The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt by Jill Watts. Do you have a suggestion for a future #BCLChat? Email us at contact@blackchicklit.com or tweet us at @blackchicklit. And don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to Black Chick Lit on iTunes.

Black Chick Lit

BCL Chat: Black Lives Matter

Hi, y’all. A few things before we get to the episode: Thank you for being so patient as we get episodes out. Between motherhood, a pandemic, a cancer diagnosis and failing technology, things have been rough. This episode was recorded before the murder of George Floyd and the protests that followed, hence why there is no discussion of it. We plan to talk about it in a future chat. Black Lives Matter. ✊?  Now, let’s get into. Previously, we read Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke, and we weren’t thrilled with Darren’s apparent naïveté surrounding race and law enforcement. Well, Attica knocked us the fuck out with her follow-up, Heaven, My Home. We follow Texas Ranger Darren has he heads into Hopeland, Texas, to find the missing child of a prominent white supremacist gang member. While there, he confronts the town’s generational racism, family drama and even some fucking ghosts. And then there’s that ending. It knocked us out. Be sure to join us in our next episode when we fully explore the Black Lives Matter movement. Thanks to our patrons for their support: Adoria, Ali, Bryonna, Emily, Frank, I Found This Great Book Podcast, Kat, Katie, LaToya, Maria, Montara and Sylvia. Join us on Patreon starting at only $2 a month and help support the podcast! As always, thanks for listening and be sure to rate, review and subscribe to us on iTunes. Special thanks to Suite45 for our theme song, Jones’n.

Episode 36: Heaven, My Home

Urban Lit Month continues? We read Their Eyes We're Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston and couldn't help but spot a few similarities between Janie Crawford and a few of other past heroines. (*cough* Zoe *cough*) Her tragic background. Her wild and crazy man problems. Her relationship with a fast-talking man who introduces her to sex, fighting and gambling. Don't tell us this book isn't a proto-urban lit title! We also discuss Tea Cake and his never-ending schemes, Hurston's history with the Niggerati (bet you didn't know about that!) and that mad dog who hitched a ride on that cow. Be sure to join us next month when we read Attica Locke's Heaven, My Home.  As always, thanks to our patrons for their support: Frank, Kat, Montara, Bryonna, Ellen, I Found This Great Book Podcast, Sylvia, Adoria, Ali, Emily, LaToya and Maria.  Join us on Patreon starting at only $2 a month and help support the podcast! Thanks for listening and be sure to rate, review and subscribe to us on iTunes. Special thanks to Suite45 for our theme song, Jones’n.

Episode 35: Their Eyes Were Watching God

2020 is about some real shenanigans. Between the brown-face fiasco Jeanine Cummins brought with her American Dirt release and the Barnes & Noble "Diverse Editions" mess, we've been facepalming since the new year began. Flatiron Books tried to both-sides their way out of the Cummins mess with the year's worst PR statement. B&N took the classier route and just cancelled themselves. Listen in as we stare agog at the state of modern publishing, and be sure to join us next month when we read the Black literary classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. Do you have a suggestion for a future #BCLChat? Email us at contact@blackchicklit.com or tweet us at @blackchicklit. And don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to Black Chick Lit on iTunes.

BCL Chat: Oh No Baby! What Is You Doin'?

We’re doing something different this month. Things are a bit busy with family and babies, so for this episode, we’re sharing a special, previously recorded crossover episode. Mollie joins Dani on the Ice Planet Podcast to discuss book six of the series, Barbarian’s Mate.   The Ice Planet Barbarians series follows a group of human women alien abductees as they adjust to life on a barren ice planet populated by big, blue aliens with heart worms. It’s a lot more romantic than I’m making it sound, I promise. Be sure to share your opinions on the topic by tweeting us at @blackchicklit or emailing us at contact@blackchicklit.com. Want more? Join us on Patreon and, starting at only $2 a month, get access to polls, special Patreon episodes and videos. As always, thanks for listening and be sure to rate, review and subscribe to us on iTunes. Special thanks to Suite45 for our theme song, Jones’n.

Bonus: Black Chick Lit takes over the Ice Planet Podcast

It's the most wonderful time of the year! It's Urban Fic Month! This year, we go back home to Missouri and read Hold U Down by Keisha Ervin. Meet Unique and her girls, Zoe, Kiara and Kay Kay, the mildest criminals the STL has to offer. They live by the code that requires them to make money, spend money and never catch feelings. They will spend the entirety of this book doing none of those things. We follow the clique as they get booed up, hang out at strip-mall night clubs and study at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. This book also competes for "Worst Sex Scene Involving a Perishable Food Item." We had to read about it, so y'all had to hear about it. Be sure to share your opinions on the topic by tweeting us at @blackchicklit or emailing us at contact@blackchicklit.com. Want more? Join us on Patreon and, starting at only $2 a month, get access to polls, special Patreon episodes and videos. As always, thanks for listening and be sure to rate, review and subscribe to us on iTunes. Special thanks to Suite45 for our theme song, Jones’n.

Episode 34: Hold U Down

Happy New Year, y’all! We hope you had a fantastic holiday and a wonderful start to your 2020. ‘Cause RWA certainly didn’t! In case you missed it, the Romance Writers of America are embroiled in what the Guardian calls a "racism row." We attempt to break down what they fucked up this time and, whew, chile. It’s a mess. FYI: This mess is currently ongoing and evolving; in fact, it was a bit out of date the afternoon we recorded. For the latest updates and wtf-ery?, we definitely recommend checking out this Twitter moment with all the details created by Romance Sparks Joy. If you’re curious to learn more, we previously discussed the RWA’s inclusivity and racism problems in a previous episode. Mollie argued that an organization that didn’t look out for all its members was irrelevant and Dani argued that the organization served a purpose and was taking steps to amend their issues. Guess who came out the fool? Do you have a suggestion for a future #BCLChat? Email us at contact@blackchicklit.com or tweet us at @blackchicklit. And don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to Black Chick Lit on iTunes. And don’t forget: January is Urban Fic month! This year, we’re reading Hold U Down by Keisha Ervin. Read up, drink up (’cause you know this is our messiest episode) and join us! 

BCL Chat: RIP, RWA

We can't believe it, dear readers, but we've made it through another year of reading, podcasting and doing both while black. The twitter dramas! The plagiarism scandals! The nacho cheese! We take a look back and reflect on all the books read and craziness wrought in 2019. Which titles did we love this year? Which did we think was worse: Addicted or The Wedding Date? What was our favorite BCL episode of the year? Listen in and find out. Do you have a suggestion for a future #BCLChat? Email us at contact@blackchicklit.com or tweet us at @blackchicklit. And don’t forget to rate, review and subscribe to Black Chick Lit on iTunes. And don’t forget: January is Urban Fic month! Want to pick this year's title? Join us on Patreon for only $2 a month and gain exclusive podcast voting rights.

BCL Chat: We Survived (and Thrived in) 2019

Winter is coming. That means it's time for us to dive into the world of fantasy ( ... er, or into fantasy worlds). This episode, we read N.K. Jemisin's 2010 debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Mollie wasn't kidding when she said this was a sexy book. Gods sexing up gods. Gods sexing up humans. Humans sexing up their cousins. It's wild, y'all. But, in the midst of all the sexy times, there's a deftly crafted murder mystery that took us the majority of the episode to unspool. Listen in and follow along!  Get ready for the next episode, our annual End-of-Year retrospective. We'll chat about the bookish good, bad and the ugly. Got something you want say? Tweet us at @blackchicklit or email us at contact@blackchicklit.com. Thanks for listening and be sure to rate, review and subscribe to us on iTunes. As always, thank you to Suite45 for our theme song, Jones’n.

Episode 33: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Hey, readers! In this month’s episode we discuss the perilous world of shopping for diverse children’s books. We’re overwhelmed by how much there is to consider with presenting children with authentic representation of people of color: When was the first time we saw ourselves in literature? Does it matter who writes and/or illustrates the book? How well do books handle interracial families or inter-community topics like colorism? And is it cheating to just buy your kid a book about a bear? (Answer: yes.) Listen in as we discuss these questions and promote a few of our favorite titles. Join us for our next episode when we read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin. As always, thanks for listening! Be sure to follow us on Twitter at @blackchicklit or check us out on Instagram at @bclpodcast. Links: Just in case you missed the memo,Black people have always been around, thanks. The Pew Research Center wants to know who’s not reading books? I don’t know how we missed this original story, but, yes, quality genre fiction is just as good as quality literary fiction. This chat was inspired by an article published by the School Library Journal that discussed the percentages of published children’s books featuring characters from diverse backgrounds. (A readable version of that graphic.) Data were collected by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

BCL Chat: Our Favorite Diverse Kid Lit Titles

The kids are back in school and we revisit a childhood favorite: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor. And, whew, boy! Ms. Taylor aimed to teach the kids the truth about racism and she went above in beyond to do so. This book had lynch mobs, roving Klansmen and three men being burned alive. The big question is, how were either of us able to read this as kids and not be traumatized? Also, why did Stacey remain friends with the shifty-ass T.J.? And why was Papa Logan so quick to threaten to blow shit up? Be sure to listen in on our next episode when we discuss the issue surrounding diverse kid lit. Thanks for listening and be sure to rate, review and subscribe to us on iTunes. As always, thank you to Suite45 for our theme song, Jones’n.

Episode 32: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

We try to talk Booktube and get distracted by our general distrust of social media. Inspired by the HuffPost piece titled "Where Are All the Black Booktubers?," we decided to investigate the question ourselves. What we found wasn't that surprising: Plain ol' racism is keeping many Black booktubers from thriving. Naya, of Naya Reads and Smiles (the largest channel lead by a black booktuber), also spoke on the issue in her own video. The disparity between White booktubers and Black booktubers is undeniable. “White BookTubers who garner at least 300,000 subscribers on their YouTube channels … and two out of three of them even have their own published novels. On the flip side, the most well-known African-American BookTuber to date is Naya Reads and Smiles, with only 58,000 subscribers, despite having been uploading videos for years. In other news, we also discussed: Toni Morrison passed away, and Roxane Gay wrote a great piece for The New York Times about her legacy. There were also great pieces in The Atlantic, The New Yorker and Sojourners. Speaking of New York Times. An editor at there was demoted following multiple bad takes regarding race and his entitled behavior/harassment toward Roxane Gay. This bold take claiming there's no point in reading anything if it's not a classic. Whether this guy is an asshole for eating three feet of a six-foot sub. 

BCL Chat: YouTube and Black Booktubers

Happy August, readers! This month, we wanted a light beach read to help us make it through these remaining dog days of summer. Instead, we got a wild And Then There Were None-inspired murder fest where a man gets boiled alive in a hot tub. Fun. We read They All Fall Down, by Rachel Howzell Hall, and it's full to the brim of assholes. We read as an equally asshole-y lawyer lures them to a tropical paradise where they're cut down one by one. There are guns, cocaine, poisonous sushi and, deadliest of all, the world's longest silk scarf. Listen in as we discuss this motley crew of murderers and bandits and decide who had the best (worst?) death. No BCLChat question this time! In our next episode, we’re trying something new. Instead of asking you guys a question and sharing your answers, we’re going to pick a topic or issue to discuss and have more structured (read: researched lol) conversations about them. More episodes like our #RITASsoWhite discussion, for example. Next chat, we’re discussing black booktubers and discuss the issues they face on the platform. Thanks for listening and be sure to rate, review and subscribe to us on iTunes. As always, thank you to Suite45 for our theme song, Jones’n.

Episode 31: They All Fall Down

Happy July! It's a chattier chat than usual as we dig into some book news from around Twitter and the business pages. Angie Thomas kicks off Twitter controversy by ... asking not to be tagged in reviews? Microsoft shut down its ebook service, meaning customers who bought books through that service lost them. This is a good reminder to us all that we don’t actually own our ebooks. Loud, ignorant people on the internet are mad that Halle Bailey got a job as Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid remake. We also asked you all what upcoming releases you're most looking forward to. You gave us some great titles to add to our TBR. Thanks to @curvyblackgeek, @almost_esq, @IamTammiJ and @charelliam for sending us their picks! As always, thanks for listening and be sure to check out our next episode when we read and discuss They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall.

BCL Chat: Your Most Anticipated 2019 Reads

This is the last time we talk about this book and this author. That's a promise. We invite our friends from Mocha Girls Read for a special episode. We briefly talk about that crazy YA author who now has a book deal before digging into Jasmine Guillory's The Wedding Date. Spoiler alert: We're all kinds of confused. What does Drew actually look like? What happened to Alexa to make her so stupid? Do these characters ever eat a vegetable? We don't answer any of 'em, but we give it a try. Follow Mocha Girls Read at @mochagirlsread and visit them at mochagirlsread.com. Be sure to check out #SummerSoulLit on Twitter. As always, join us for our next BCL Chat! We want to know your most anticipated reads for the second half of 2019. Take part in the discussion by tweeting us at @blackchicklit. Thanks for listening and be sure to rate, review and subscribe to us on iTunes. As always, thank you to Suite45 for our theme song, Jones’n.

Episode 30: The Wedding Date

Black Chick Lit is a bi-monthly podcast that talks books by and about black women.

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Black Chick Lit

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