Pearl Cleage is one of America's most produced African American woman playwrights. This volume collects her major full-length plays and one-acts over the past ten years including Flyin' West -- a turn of the century drama about four black women struggling as true women on America's heartland -- and Blues for an Alabama Sky -- a moving evocation of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1930s. Also included are Bourbon at the Border, Late Bus to Mecca, and Chain.

Talamon saw it all during the golden age of soul, R&B, and funk. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, this young African American photographer from Los Angeles found himself backstage with an all-access pass to the heart of the music scene. He caught his first big break landing a position as a staff photographer at SOUL Newspaper in LA in the early 1970s, just as soul, R&B, and funk were becoming part of the mainstream. He captured the rehearsals and sound checks, recording sessions and costume fittings, the quiet reflective moments and life on the road, and, of course, the wild photo shoots and memorable performances. These photographs define an era famed for its glamour, fabulous fashions, and utter devotion to the groove. Including close to 300 photographs from 1972 to 1982, the extensive Talamon archives are presented in full detail for the first time. Whether you're a diehard soul fan or a thrilled newcomer to the aesthetic magic of the 1970s, the collection exudes the infectious spirit of an exuberant age. Featuring icons such as Earth, Wind & Fire; Marvin Gaye; Diana Ross; Parliament-Funkadelic; Al Green; Gil Scott-Heron; James Brown; Barry White; Rick James; Aretha Franklin; the Jackson Five; Donna Summer; and Chaka Khan and many others; there are also several stops at the legendary Soul Train studios. Talamon documented a visual period in black music that lasted way past the midnight hour and will never come again. This release is an affordable, compact version of our Art Edition, limited to 500 copies and featuring a portfolio of four prints signed by Bruce W. Talamon.

Bestselling author Pearl Cleage returns to the site of her Oprah pick novel, "What Looks Like Crazy On an Ordinary Day," to affirm life's precious wonder once again.

Since Joyce Mitchell was widowed five years ago, she's kept herself mercifully busy by running The Sewing Circus, an all-female group she founded to provide badly needed services to single mothers and other young women at risk. But some nights, home alone, she knows something is missing. And if the state legislature cuts off funding, she'll soon not even have The Sewing Circus to fill up her life. Then one night, at dinner at the home of her best friend, Sister, Joyce finds a perfect meal and a perfect man: tall, dark Nate Anderson, whose unexpected presence touches a chord in Joyce's heart that she thought it had forgotten how to play.

Suddenly, Joyce feels ready to grab a sexy red dress and the life that goes with it...if she can somehow keep her girls safe from the dark forces aligning against them.

After a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living with the Atlanta brothers and sisters with the best clothes and biggest dreams, Ava Johnson has temporarily returned home to Idlewild--her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits by cold reality. But what she imagines to be the end is, instead, a beginning. Because, in the ten-plus years since Ava left, all the problems of the big city have come to roost in the sleepy North Michigan community whose ordinariness once drove her away; and she cannot turn her back on friends and family who sorely need her in the face of impending trouble and tragedy. Besides which, that one unthinkable, unmistakable thing is now happening to her: Ava Johnson is falling in love.

Acclaimed playwright, essayist, "New York Times" bestselling author, and columnist Pearl Cleage has created a world rich in character, human drama, and deep, compassionate understanding, in a remarkable novel that sizzles with sensuality, hums with gritty truth, and sings and crackles with life-affirming energy.

In this inspiring memoir, the award-winning playwright and bestselling author of "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day" reminisces on the art of juggling marriage, motherhood, and politics while working to become a successful writer.
In addition to being one of the most popular living playwrights in America, Pearl Cleage is a bestselling author with an Oprah Book Club pick and multiple awards to her credit. But there was a time when such stellar success seemed like a dream. In this revelatory and deeply personal work, Cleage takes readers back to the 1970s and '80s, retracing her struggles to hone her craft amidst personal and professional tumult.
Though born and raised in Detroit, it was in Atlanta that Cleage encountered the forces that would most shape her experience. Married to Michael Lomax, now head of the United Negro College Fund, she worked with Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first African-American mayor. "Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs" charts not only the political fights, but also the pull she began to feel to focus on her own passions, including writing--a pull that led her away from Lomax as she grappled with ideas of feminism and self-fulfillment. This fascinating memoir follows her journey from a columnist for a local weekly (bought by Larry Flynt) to a playwright and Hollywood script writer, an artist at the crossroads of culture and politics whose circle came to include luminaries like Richard Pryor, Avery Brooks, Phylicia Rashad, Shirley Franklin, and Jesse Jackson. By the time Oprah Winfrey picked "What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day" as a favorite, Cleage had long since arrived as a writer of renown.
In the tradition of greats like Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, and Nora Ephron, Cleage's self-portrait raises women's confessional writing to the level of great literature.

When Regina Burns married Blue Hamilton, she knew he was no ordinary man. Regina enjoyed a circle of engaging friends and her own work as communications consultant, but she especially relished the company of her husband, who never ceased to be a source of passion and delight. Then everything changes. Frightened women are showing up in West End, seeking Blue's protection from lovers who have suddenly become violent. When the worst offenders begin to disappear, the speculation seems to implicate Blue and his long-time associates. Now that Regina is pregnant, her fears for Blue's safety have become an obsession that threatens the heart of their relationship. Returning to the Atlanta neighborhoods of her last two novels, Pearl Cleage has crafted a warm, witty novel that illuminates the core of every woman's hopes and dreams.