The inspiring memoir of a brilliant young man who, sentenced to life in prison, refused to surrender his future—a story so powerful that it transformed even the judge who handed down the sentence.
 
If our world were more just, Chris Young would have been crossing a stage at college graduation at the age of 22. Instead, he was marched into a maximum-security federal prison, facing life under mandatory drug sentencing laws. Like far too many young Black men from his neighborhood in Clarksville, Tennessee, this was where his story was supposed to end.
 
But one day in the prison library, a book caught his eye: an encyclopedia. As he began to turn the pages, Chris felt himself transported. Knowledge became a portal. He began to confront the nihilism around him, the trauma of his past, and the cruelty of a system determined to confine him. From the library, his cell, and even solitary confinement, Chris built an education from scratch, studying philosophy, art, anthropology, history, physics, and politics. He learned to analyze the stock market and taught himself how to code without a computer. He trained his mind—and refused to let prison dictate the limits of his imagination. At his sentencing hearing, Chris gave such a moving speech that the judge resigned from his lifetime appointment to the bench and fought to free him.
 
Started in solitary confinement and finished beyond bars, The Wound Is Where the Light Enters is a powerful meditation on choice, consequence, and human potential, told through the story of a man who was never given a chance—and who fought until, at last, he was.

A critical collection of conversations with Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones and other Black women writers that changed the scope of Black literature in the 20th century and beyond.

“Black women writers and critics are acting on the old adage that one must speak for oneself if one wishes to be heard.” —Claudia Tate, from the introduction

Long out of print, Black Women Writers at Work is a vital contribution to Black literature in the 20th century. 

Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the practices and critical linkages between the work and lived experiences of Black women writers whose work laid the foundation for many who have come after.

Responding to questions about why and for whom they write, and how they perceive their responsibility to their work, to others, and to society, the featured playwrights, poets, novelists, and essayists provide a window into the connections between their lives and their art.

Finally available for a new generation, this classic work has an urgent message for readers and writers today.

This edge-of-your-seat Indigenous murder-mystery set in Costa Rica from Pura Belpré and Walter Dean Myers Award-winning author of Saints of the Household is perfect for fans of Firekeeper's Daughter and Patron Saints of Nothing.

How far would you go to protect your land? To protect your family?

Told in multiple points of view, Together We See follows Ulá Dominguez, a Bribri-American teenager, searching for the truth behind her land-activist father's mysterious death on their Native territory in Costa Rica. Ulá and her brother, Kabék, uncover secrets and corruption as they face off against illegal loggers, kidnappers, settlers, and the local government in the hunt for clues. Their only allies are a few family friends and relatives still living in Bribri, as well as a young journalist, who may be in danger himself. But as details of their father's death emerge, long-held trust is broken. And in this sinister web of deception, no one is safe.

Inspired by real-world missing, dead, and attacked Indigenous activists, award-winning author Ari Tison writes her first novel in prose and pushes the envelope yet again by pulling together a propulsive story full of grief, environmental justice, and the fight for retribution.

This heart-pounding Southern gothic horror debut from Beatrice Winifred Iker, takes readers to Bricksbury University, the oldest and most storied HBCU in the nation. But as one student is about to find out, a long history comes with a legacy of secrets.
 
Zora Robinson is an ambitious grad student in her dream program, Appalachian Studies, at Bricksbury University. When her thesis advisor hands her a strange diary and suggests she research the local folklore about a beast roaming the woods surrounding campus, Zora finds a community uneager to talk to an outsider.
 
As she delves into the history of the beast, she uncovers a rumored secret society called the Keepers that has tenuous ties to the beast…and Bricksbury itself. Zora soon finds herself plagued by visions of the past, and her grip on reality starts to slip as she struggles to uncover what is real and what is folklore. But when a student goes missing, Zora starts to wonder if the Keepers ever really disbanded.
 
There’s something in the woods and it has its eyes on Zora.

A young woman harnesses her newfound power to challenge the ruthless man who controls her , in this brilliant and provocative novel from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower.

Mary is a treacherous experiment. Her creator, an immortal named Doro, has molded the human race for generations, seeking out those with unusual talents like telepathy and breeding them into a new subrace of humans who obey his every command. The result is Mary: a young black woman living on the rough outskirts of Los Angeles in the 1970s, who has no idea how much power she will soon wield.

Doro knows he must handle Mary carefully or risk her ending like his previous experiments: dead, either by her own hand or Doro's. What he doesn't suspect is that Mary's maturing telepathic abilities may soon rival his own power. By linking telepaths with a viral pattern, she will create the potential to break free of his control once and for all-and shift the course of humanity.

A bold and haunting debut story collection that follows various characters as they navigate the day-to-day perils of Jim Crow racism from Diane Oliver, a missing figure in the canon of twentieth-century African American literature, with an introduction by Tayari Jones

A remarkable talent far ahead of her time, Diane Oliver died in 1966 at the age of 22, leaving behind these crisply told and often chilling tales that explore race and racism in 1950s and 60s America. In this first and only collection by a masterful storyteller finally taking her rightful place in the canon, Oliver’s insightful stories reverberate into the present day.

There’s the nightmarish “The Closet on the Top Floor” in which Winifred, the first Black student at her newly integrated college, starts to physically disappear; “Mint Juleps not Served Here” where a couple living deep in a forest with their son go to bloody lengths to protect him; “Spiders Cry without Tears,” in which a couple, Meg and Walt, are confronted by prejudices and strains of interracial and extramarital love; and the high tension titular story that follows a nervous older sister the night before her little brother is set to desegregate his school.

These are incisive and intimate portraits of African American families in everyday moments of anxiety and crisis that look at how they use agency to navigate their predicaments. As much a social and historical document as it is a taut, engrossing collection, Neighbors is an exceptional literary feat from a crucial once-lost figure of letters.

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Spanning 45 years of Jamel Shabazz’s photography in Prospect Park, this gorgeous and meditative volume captures the heart and soul of Brooklyn through one of its most cherished spaces.

Known for his iconic NYC street photography documenting the city’s African American community, Jamel Shabazz first gained widespread acclaim with his books Back in the Days and A Time Before Crack, renowned for their vivid portrayal of 1980s style and culture.

However, long before his fame as a photographer, Shabazz served in the military and as a corrections officer for twenty years. After long days at work, he often sought refuge in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, describing it as a place to find inner peace—and, since 1980, he has continued capturing its vibrant spirit.

This collection features his signature portraits of locals, from Afro-Caribbean percussionists at Drummer’s Grove to multicultural families enjoying moments of quiet reflection. Complementing these human-centered images are lesser-seen landscapes revealing the serene beauty of the park.

Together, these photographs underscore its dual role as a bustling cultural hub and a tranquil refuge. Perfect for anyone who cherishes Brooklyn’s cultural history, this volume reveals a new and deeply personal side of Shabazz's work, offering a compelling portrait of community, resilience, and connection within an urban sanctuary.

In the heart of a quiet town, a young woman tends to her plant shop, but beneath the surface of her lush, green sanctuary lies something far darker....

Will you dare to disrespect her plants?

Tucked away in the corner of a neighborhood in Dosan, South Korea, is the Plant Shop. Shop owner Yoohee has started anew, and her meticulously grown foliage thrives under her tender care. To both her customers and herself, Plant Shop is a refuge, where petunias and marigolds bloom and the air itself is like an elixir of peace.

By day, Yoohee dispenses advice on gardening, but she also finds herself offering a special service off the clock. Women who are at their wits’ end come to her about a man they hope might disappear from their lives. Pulling extra hours is taxing, but Yoohee has encountered—and dealt with—these kind of men in her own life, men who treated her (and her beloved plants) with utter disrespect. So as night falls, Yoohee trades her apron for a shovel and a hoe and disappears into her moonlit garden. There, she buries not just the remains of the day, but also the bloody remnants of a few unfortunate encounters.

As men begin to disappear…will anyone ever suspect the Plant Lady?

A highly acclaimed novel from South Korea, Plant Lady brings atmospheric tension and delicate humor to a story of obsession and misogyny that will keep you rooted right to its simmering last page.

A stunning first novel about two young Black artists in London falling in and out of love by a new literary virtuoso, and finalist for the BBC Short Story Award, twenty-six-year old writer and photographer Caleb Azumah Nelson

A stunning first novel about two young Black artists in London falling in and out of love by a new literary virtuoso and finalist for the BBC Short Story Award, twenty-six-year-old writer and photographer Caleb Azumah Nelson

“Open Water is tender poetry, a love song to Black art and thought, an exploration of intimacy and vulnerability between two young artists learning to be soft with each other in a world that hardens against Black people.” —Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing

In a crowded London pub, two young people meet. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists—he a photographer, she a dancer—and both are trying to make their mark in a world that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence, and over the course of a year they find their relationship tested by forces beyond their control.

Narrated with deep intimacy, Open Water is at once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity that asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body; to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength; to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, and blistering emotional intelligence, Caleb Azumah Nelson gives a profoundly sensitive portrait of romantic love in all its feverish waves and comforting beauty.

This is one of the most essential debut novels of recent years, heralding the arrival of a stellar and prodigious young talent.

In New York Times bestselling author Kalynn Bayron's middle grade series, vampires were history . . . until now.

"A sharp vampire tale full of bite, heart, and humor." --Rena Barron, author of the Maya and the Rising Dark series

"Boog and her friends will capture your heart in an instant." --Mark Oshiro, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Sun and the Star

Malika “Boog” Wilson and her best friends have grown up idolizing The Vanquishers, a group of heroic vampire hunters who wiped out the last horde of the undead decades ago. Nowadays, most people don't take even the most basic vampire precautions--the days of garlic wreaths and early curfews long gone--but Boog's parents still follow the old rules, much to her embarrassment.

When a friend goes missing, Boog isn't sure what to think. Could it be the school counselor, Mr. Rupert, who definitely seems to be hiding something? Or could it be something more dangerous? Boog is determined to save her friend, but is she ready to admit vampires might not be vanquished after all?

No one ever expected the Vanquishers to return, but if their town needs protection from the undead, Boog knows who to call.

Inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Watchmen, this adventure launches readers into the exciting world of the Vanquishers.

Cold.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of her.

Why you running from me?

The first question comes to mind each time she turns her back on me.

Rigid and cool to the touch, her heart had ice around it. She’d put it in the deepest, darkest hole and dared anyone to try and fetch it. A man that appreciates a challenge took this one on head first. And, with little bruising, I retrieved it. The red, barely recognizable organ was lifeless. Day by day, I nurtured it, nurtured her, and eventually, it began to beat again. Not just for anyone, but for me. Its revival was life’s greatest reward. The victory didn’t last very long. My lack of experience with handling something so precious led me to make rookie mistakes, ones that cost me her heart and mine, too.

Different.

That’s what I believe him to be.

Who sent you after my heart?

It’s the question that plagued me each time he set out on my path.

His pockets were stuffed and his accounts were limitless, affording him luxuries that not everyone had when it came to me. He didn’t flinch at the notion that he had to pay to play. It enticed him. That was my type. He was my type. But, he knew no boundaries. His quest commenced the second our eyes met, my body hypnotizing him and everyone else in the room around us. Sadly, they were a blur. All I saw was him. Tenacity was his specialty. He was as confident as he was persistent, tireless in his efforts to retrieve the one part of me that I’d buried for safekeeping. And, once he had it in his grasp, like every other man I’d shamefully given it to, he crushed it.