To celebrate the release of Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night — the latest release in Akashic’s Kaylie Jones Books imprint, and one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Summer Books of 2014 — Kaylie Jones sat down to talk with debut novelist Barbara J. Taylor about her inspiration, her writing process, and what keeps her going.
The nurse pulled onto the outer road parallel to the interstate. The blue friendliness of the St. Luke’s sign radiated faintly in the dawn light as he accelerated before the red admonition of the emergency sign took over his view. He clicked off the malfunctioning turn signal. The morning traffic was light, almost nonexistent. He waited until he had reached forty-five miles an hour to remove his skull-and-bones do-rag, the first phase of his elaborate post-work ritual . . .
A typical Thursday. A typical night.
Jerry stretched his feet under the dining table, yawning. His eleventh grade math homework seemed to glare at him from the fluorescent white of the overhead light. They were covering probability in class, something Jerry knew plenty about.
There was a thump above him.
Typical Thursday night . . .
Click to listen to an excerpt of the new audiobook edition Go de Rass to Sleep, as read by worldwide reggae superstar Shaggy!
To celebrate the release of Singapore Noir, the latest in Akashic’s Noir Series, we’re pleased to bring you this decidedly dark sample from the anthology: editor Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan’s introduction to “The Sultry City-State.”
Back in 1949, I lived with my grandparents out in the country on a small farm near Richmond, Virginia. Something serious was going on one day as I entered the kitchen at five thirty in the morning. Grandpa and Grandma were standing at the sink, staring so intently out the kitchen window they didn’t even hear me come in . . .
He spotted the guy with the poodle a block and a half away, as he did every morning . . .
“You need to build your confidence,” he says. “You need to build your self-esteem. You need to build a @better-you. For a @better-us #selfie-rule . . .”