Life Matters: A Collection of Short Stories

by The BookClub Seattle

Overview

In a compilation of short stories, members of an all-female, African American book club share original tales inspired by real-life experiences that cover a wide range of relatable themes that include: Dealing with life threatening illnesses and exploration into ancestral ties; Encouraging parishioners to continue struggles in the segregated south and a church going con artist; Neighborhood relationships brought about by a car and family relationships as seen through the eyes of the young and younger; Challenging life after Jim Crow and Black survival in corporate America; A young child's escape from abuse and a military adolescent's transition from Europe to the states; and explorations into the myth of love at first sight and a casual girls' night out. We wrote about the things and people that matter in our lives.

Life Matters shares short stories that interweaves diverse characters and situations to provide a glimpse into different eras and challenges within African American history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781731503688
Publisher:	The BookClub Seattle
Publication date:	11/17/2018
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	186
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.43(d)

About the Author

We are “The Book Club”, a group of 12 African-American women who decided to get together 25 years ago in Seattle Washington to talk about books by African-American authors.

“The Book Club” has been featured in newspaper articles on both coasts and was interviewed on Cheryl Robinson’s “All About Books” Maryland pod-cast. In the recent past, we received recognition from J. California Cooper in one of her last works of fiction “Life is Short but Wide” as people important to her.

We are very active mothers, grandmothers, retirees, career women, entrepreneurs, empty nesters, stepmothers, single parents, single women and childless by choice. We have the experiences and the complications of being wives, lovers and friends. We are successful paralegals, consultants, social workers, managers, executives, directors, HR specialists, accountants and teachers. Some of us have been friends for over 60 years.

We love the meetings. They are an escape from our day-to-day rigors and guarantee a good time with good friends and good food. We create an atmosphere which fosters the power of positive thinking. We can let our hair down or take it off. We can remove the masks we show the outside world and just be ourselves. We have had local and national Black authors attend our meetings.

Just as we enjoy our meetings, we also enjoy other activities. We have traveled to Martha’s Vineyard, The National Black Theatre Festival and NYC. We’ve hosted forums for other bookclubs and residents to discuss readings like “The Help” and “On American Soil.” We have attended numerous local readings, plays and musicals.

Editorial Reviews

Reading Life Matters is like being in a jazz club listening to the bass converse with the piano while the sax wails and the drums swing. Each story is a solo that speaks of life's pains and pleasures, all the while inviting the audience to respond with shouts of recognition.

Life Matters - Nancy Rawles

These first-time authors do a splendid job of providing us with readings to support the notion that we are sisters still traveling life's road, finding our way, and enjoying the journey."

Life Matters - Mona Lake Jones

These new authors share their vulnerability, but frame their lives around hope, goodness, and resilience, and you come away loving them and knowing how deeply their lives matter.

Life Matters - Dr. Louise Wilkinson