Each month Hopeton Hay is joined by Scott Montgomery, Crime Fiction Coordinator of BookPeople, Molly Odintz, Senior Editor of CrimeReads.com, and Amanda Moore, an Austin based crime fiction writer, to discuss their favorite crime fiction and true crime books that were recently published.  Here are our picks:GREENWICH PARK by Katherine FaulknerNOTES ON AN EXECUTION by Danya KukafkaTHE VIOLIN CONSPIRACY by Brendan SlocumbQUARRY’S BLOOD by Max Allan CollinsPARIS NOIR edited by Herve' DeloucheL.A. BURNING by D.C. TaylorOTHER PEOPLE’S CLOTHES by Calla HenkelSTRING FOLLOW by Simon JacobsDIVERSE VOICES BOOK REVIEWSocial media:Facebook - @diversevoicesbookreviewInstagram - @diverse_voices_book_reviewTwitter - @diversebookshayEmail: [email protected] site: https://diversevoicesbookreview.wordpress.com/ 

The guest is is Alex Segura, the bestselling and award-winning author of Secret Identity, which the New York Times called “wittily original” and named an Editor’s Choice. More information on the book is available at http://www.alexsegura.com/books/secret-identity/.Alex is also the author of Star Wars Poe Dameron: Free Fall, the Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series, and a number of comic books – including The Mysterious Micro-Face (in partnership with NPR), The Black Ghost, The Archies, The Dusk, The Awakened, and more.  A Miami native, he lives in New York with his wife and children.DIVERSE VOICES BOOK REVIEWSocial media:Facebook - @diversevoicesbookreviewInstagram - @diverse_voices_book_reviewTwitter - @diversebookshayEmail: [email protected] site: https://diversevoicesbookreview.wordpress.com/ 

This is a recording of a live Zoom panel discussion I moderated as part of Diverse Literary Voices of Texas on February 19, 2022, Underreported: Racial Violence on U.S. Mexico Border in Early 1900s. It featured writers of the book REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE: Critical Reflections On The History Of The Border. REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE is “a trenchant collection of essays that details systematic, extralegal killings of Mexicans along the US southern border in the 1910s and explores the role of officially sanctioned violence in the history of US nation-building.” This panel is cosponsored by PEN America. The panelists were:Sonia Hernández, Co-Editor, REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE, Associate Professor of History, Texas A&M UniversityChristopher Carmona, Writer, REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE, Associate Professor & Interim Director of MAS Academic Program, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyGabriela González, Writer, REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE, Associate Professor of History, University of Texas at San AntonioPhilis M. Barragán Goetz, Writer, REVERBERATIONS OF RACIAL VIOLENCE, Assistant Professor of History, Texas A&M University-San Antonio.

My guest on Diverse Voices Book Review is acclaimed Houston playwright Celeste Bedford Walker.  The author of over 40 plays, she was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2021. Born and raised in Houston Texas, Celeste Bedford Walker attended Jack Yates High School and Texas Southern University, both historically Black institutions in the Third Ward. Her writing has won numerous awards including the National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, the NAACP Theatre Awards for Best Play and Best Playwright, New York’s AUDELCO Award, and Broadway World’s (Houston) Regional Award for Best Play.

My guest on Diverse Voices Book Review was Liliana Valenzuela, an award-winning poet and acclaimed Spanish translator of works by authors such as Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Denise Chavez, and many other writers. She is the author of the full-length poetry collection in two languages Codex of Love: Bendita Ternura(FlowerSong Books, 2020)  and the chapbook Codex of Journeys: Bendito Camino(Mouthfeel Press, 2013), and several artisan chapbooks. A native of Mexico City, Valenzuela lives and works in Austin, Texas.  Her web site is http://www.lilianavalenzuela.com/.Diverse Voices Book Review social media:Facebook - @diversevoicesbookreviewInstagram - @diverse_voices_book_reviewTwitter - @diversebookshayEmail: [email protected] site: https://diversevoicesbookreview.wordpress.com/ 

What are the critical issues facing the Austin metro areas Black community that are inadequately covered by the local media? Local journalist Alberta Phillips moderated a discussion of these issues with Travis County Commissioner for Precinct One Jeffrey Travillion and journalist and civic leader Roxanne Evans.  Some of the critical issues they discussed included affordable housing, gentrification, and access to COVID 19 vaccines east of I-35.  The event was sponsored in part by PEN America.Jeffrey W. Travillion was elected to the Travis County Commissioners Court representing Precinct 1 in November 2016 and took office on the first day of 2017. Travillion is involved in a number of civic activities, including serving as a deacon at the Abundant Life Community Baptist Church.  He is a graduate of Leadership Austin, chairman of the Communications Committee for the Texas State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a member of the board of directors of the Austin Project.Alberta Phillips is a local writer and award-winning journalist, who began her career at an African American publication, The Call and Times, in Cincinnati, Ohio.  The majority of her career has been with the Austin city daily, The Austin American-Statesman, where she rose from a neighbor reporter to Editorial Writer and Columnist, taking the pulse of Austin’s Communities of Color for more than 30 years.   Ms. Phillips launched a public affairs and news show called, ATX Now In Color! The show, a public affairs program that focuses on Communities of Color in the Austin Metropolitan Area, airs Sundays at 1 pm on KAZI-FM community radio.Roxanne Evans has more than 35 years of experience in journalism and public relations.  Evans has been in Austin for more than three decades. She spent 10 years at the Austin American-Statesman, where she began as a reporter and made history when she became the first African American editorial writer and member of the Editorial Board. 

Welcome to Black Perspectives the working title of my new monthly podcast  on critical issues and history in the black community.  It is sponsored in part by PEN America. In this inaugural episode, we feature an interview with Howard French, author of BORN IN BLACKNESS: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1461 to the Second World War.  Traversing 600 years, Born in Blackness retells the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in America, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “darkest” continent.  

Kellye Garrett discussed her latest novel LIKE A SISTER.  In this twisty, voice-driven thriller, no one bats an eye when a Black reality TV star is found dead—except her estranged half-sister, whose refusal to believe the official story leads her on a dangerous search for the truth.  Her web site is Home - Kellye Garrett.Kellye Garrett’s first novel, Hollywood Homicide, was released in August 2017 and was named one of BookBub’s Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time. It won the Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Independent Publisher “IPPY” awards for best first novel. Hollywood Ending, the second book in her Detective by Day mystery series, was chosen a best mystery of 2018 by Suspense Magazine, Book Riot, and CrimeReads, which called it the most fun book of the yearThis is what New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman said about LIKE A SISTER. Kellye Garrett, a break-out star in crime fiction since her debut, has upped the ante with her latest, Like a Sister. A traditional mystery set in the world of reality television and Instagram influencers, it is equal parts charm and heartbreak, with razor-sharp insights on class, race, and family. I’m happy to know that Kellye Garrett is just getting started. I can’t wait to see what she does next.” ―Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of Lady in the LakeWhen the body of disgraced reality TV star Desiree Pierce is found on a playground in the Bronx the morning after her 25th birthday party, the police and the media are quick to declare her death an overdose. It’s a tragedy, certainly, but not a crime.But Desiree’s half-sister Lena Scott knows that can’t be the case. A graduate student at Columbia, Lena has spent the past decade forging her own path far from the spotlight, but some facts about Desiree just couldn’t have changed since their childhood. And Desiree would never travel above 125th Street. So why is no one listening to her?Despite the bitter truth that the two haven’t spoken in two years, torn apart by Desiree’s partying and by their father, Mel, a wealthy and influential hip-hop mogul, Lena becomes determined to find justice for her sister, even if it means untangling her family’s darkest secrets—or ending up dead herself.

My guest is Eric Nguyen, author of the novel, THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER.  With his debut novel, Nguyen tells the story of a Vietnamese immigrant family who struggle to adjust to their new lives after settling in New Orleans.  THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER Provides three points of view on their emotional journey: The mother, who still longs for the husband who chose to stay in Vietnam, the son who was five years old when they left and finds himself caught between the past and the present, and the youngest son who was born in a refugee camp after their escape, and is most at home in their adopted homeland.  Covering over 25 years of their lives all the way to Hurricane Katrina, THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER deftly portrays the challenges of a family staying emotionally tied as each member follows their own path  in search of a new identity.Eric Nguyen earned an MFA in Creative Writing from McNeese State University in Louisiana. He is the editor in chief of diaCRITICS.org. THINGS WE LOST TO THE WATER is his first novel.DIVERSE VOICES BOOK REVIEWSocial media:Facebook - @diversevoicesbookreviewInstagram - @diverse_voices_book_reviewTwitter - @diversebookshayEmail: [email protected] site: https://diversevoicesbookreview.wordpress.com/ 

My guest is Louis Edwards, author of the novel, RAMADAN RAMSEY.  RAMADAN RAMSEY begins in 1999 with the moving (and funny) teenage love story of Alicia Ramsey, a native New Orleans African American young woman, and Mustafa Totah, a Syrian immigrant who works in her neighborhood at his uncle’s convenience store. Through a series of familial betrayals, Mustafa returns to Syria unaware that Alicia is carrying his child. When the baby is born, Alicia names their son Ramadan and raises him with the help of her mother. Years later, when Ramadan turns twelve, he sets off to find Mustafa.RAMADAN RAMSEY also explores the matriarchal lineage of his family, giving it as much importance as if it were, as he said in our interview, a line to Queen Elizabeth.Louis Edwards has published three acclaimed novels, including Ten Seconds, N, and Oscar Wilde Discovers America. Born and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Edwards lives in New Orleans.DIVERSE VOICES BOOK REVIEWSocial media:Facebook - @diversevoicesbookreviewInstagram - @diverse_voices_book_reviewTwitter - @diversebookshayEmail: [email protected] site: https://diversevoicesbookreview.wordpress.com/