Stephanie Andrea Allen's Blog, page 3
June 13, 2017
Braid Fail, or Everything Ain’t for Everybody
“I want them out, now!”
“Have you tried witch hazel? Why don’t you wash them first?” My daughter waits patiently for me to respond, although I can see the exasperation in her eyes. Or maybe it’s sleep, it’s 5:30 a.m.
“Nope. Maybe I’m just one of those people who can’t wear braids.”
“Okay, but there’s some witch hazel under the sink.” Andrea turns to go back to bed; it’s barely light outside, and she is not a morning person.
“When you get up from your nap I want you to help me take them out.”
...
May 25, 2017
Difficult Women
My latest over at the BLLC Review!
I recently read Roxane Gay’s Difficult Women and when I finished, I felt like I needed a surgeon to put my heart back together. This collection of short fiction is powerful, at times hard to read, so much so that I’d advise to you read it a story or two at a time. Before my […]
via Difficult Women — Black Lesbian Literary Collective
April 3, 2017
National Poetry Month 2017
It’s that wonderful time of year when the literary spotlight shines on poetry! Happy National Poetry Month (NPM)! Throughout the month of April, I’ll highlight poetry collections. For most of my life I’ve said that I wasn’t a “poetry person”. I hadn’t felt a strong need for or connection with it. As a kid, though, I loved my grandfather’s well-worn copy of Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne and the humorous verse of Shel Silverstein.
Lately, however, events in my life have cre...
March 30, 2017
Five Classic Black Lesbian Books that You’ve Probably Never Heard of But Need to Read
My latest over at the BLLC Review!
I recently attended a literary conference focused on lesbian literature and was shocked at how many attendees didn’t know anything about Black lesbian literature outside of two or three authors. Most were familiar with Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories, which celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, and Audre Lorde, the consummate Black lesbian poet, but that was about it. Full disclosure: I wrote an entire dissertation on the marginalization of Black les...
March 18, 2017
#9 Serendipity, or the Evolution of an Anthology
Serendipity, or a series of fortunate events; this what always comes to mind when I think about the evolution of my first anthology, Lez Talk, A Collection of Black...
March 12, 2017
#8 Safely and Without Incident
Are you on your way home?
It’s around 9:40 p.m. last night and I’d just sent my 26 year-old daughter a text message. She didn’t respond, but a couple of minutes later my phone rang. She told me that she and her friend were headed to Applebee’s (ewww!) for something to eat before heading back home, which was about two hours away. I sighed the bone deep sigh of mothers all over the world and tried not to fuss.
“Okay, just don’t stay too long.” I knew I sounded ridiculous, she’s 26 for goodness...
February 25, 2017
A Failure to Communicate: Stories
Beautiful review of my new book by the amazing Claudia Moss!
I have ever been a lover of literature, of the power of words to introduce new realities, challenge my view of the world and broaden my perspectives on people and ideologies.
In her premiere story collection, S. Andrea Allen dips her quill in the ink of creativity and offers up literature that broadens readers’ perspectives, I believe, on subjects not typically broached in contemporary story collections. Allen’s work d...
February 20, 2017
#7 On (Not) Writing Last Week
I’m tired.
Like many of you, I’m tired of waking up to new reports of inanity by 45 and his cronies, and wondering how much more we will suffer before it is all over. I’m exhausted with worry for my immigrant, queer, and Muslim friends.
Day before yesterday, I was on a flight from Atlanta to Houston, and all I could think about was whether or not there’d be an incident. There was a Sikh man on our flight, and several folks with accents I could not identify. I readied myself; I would not remai...
February 16, 2017
The Next Girl and Other Lesbian Tales
My latest over at the BLLC Review!
The Next Girl and Other Lesbian Tales by Tawanna Sullivan is an eclectic short story collection with a little something for everyone. I live for short story collections, so I was excited to discover this writer. I use the term “discover” loosely here, because Sullivan is one of the founders of Kuma2.net, a website that focused on publishing Black lesbian erotica back in the early 2000s, so she’s been writing for quite some time. While I was familiar with th...
February 12, 2017
#6-Bangs
For years, my sister blamed me because her hair wouldn’t grow in the front. It wasn’t my fault; I was only ten when I took the marcel iron to her hair to give her bangs. And she’d let me do it. It never occurred to me that her hair wouldn’t grow back. You see, I’d wanted bangs, and I’d watched Sister Brummett do them at the beauty shop, and my ten-year-old self figured I could do it too. I just needed to practice, and who better to practice on than my little sister? Mama had a straightening...
