December is National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give It to Somebody Not Black Month. That's right, I established it last year. After all, it's hard for anyone—of any color—to make it as a novelist without the support of a wide audience, which, for black authors, means the support of white folks. That's why I, a black author, started the blog White Readers Meet Black Authors and launched this annual awareness campaign. Whether it's because of a lack of media exposure or the absence of word of mouth, I don't think white readers hear much about black novelists, except for Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Colson Whitehead, and a few others, so they don't know which of our books they may like. Below are a few suggestions. Others can be found at welcomewhitefolks.blogspot.com.
| For those who like | Buy |
| Toni Morrison's A Mercy | The Book of Night Women by Marlon James |
| Jane Smiley's Ten Days in the Hills | Kiss the Sky by Farai Chideya |
| Ann Patchett's Run | Before I Forget by Leonard Pitts Jr. |
| Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore | Big Machine by Victor LaValle |
| Greg Iles's The Devil's Punchbowl | Black Water Rising by Attica Locke |
| Kathryn Stockett's The Help | The Air Between Us by Deborah Johnson |
Carleen Brice is the author of the novels Children of the Waters (One World Books, 2009)
and Orange Mint and Honey
(One World Books, 2008), for which she won the 2009 First Novelist Award from
the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in Denver.
