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Reverse-Gentrification of the Literary World

Akashic Books

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April 2015 News & Features

“Fuck the Celebrities” by Sheila Mannix

He was talking too much; either he had unstable nerves or he was wasted. I asked what he was on.

“Blow,” he said. “Want some?”

I smiled like I felt sorry for him having to ask such a question. He handed me a bag under the table.

“Enjoy,” he said . . .

“Blomfeldt’s Paperboy” by Jeff Esterholm

Blomfeldt, who would die across the bay in a Duluth hospice at the age of eighty-two, first had the dream in 1966, when he was still a detective with the Superior Police Department. The dream skipped back through the years like a needle in the groove at the end of an LP—the tone arm failing to automatically lift, the thup-thup sound—and he was back in the head of Patrick Severson, the fourteen-year-old paperboy . . .

“From the Crossroads of Crack and Rap” by Jason Reynolds

To celebrate the release of our two new Black Sheep titles — Changers Book Two: Oryon by T Cooper and Allison Glock-Cooper and The Shark Curtain by Chris Scofield — we’re thrilled to present a guest post from Jason Reynolds, award-winning author of When I Was the Greatest and The Boy in the Black Suit, on the need for diversity in young people’s literature.

“Last Smoke” by Andrew Cotto

Chris rattled his cigarette pack and placed it on the bar next to his Droid. He considered the cost of another cold beer and the cost of a fresh pack of smokes. He remembered pulling loosies out of a candy jar for a quarter each. Now it was hard to find loosies anywhere, and a pack of smokes in Brooklyn cost thirteen bucks. Even happy hour drinks at this old-school joint were expensive . . .