Showing results by narrator "Julienne Irons" in All Categories

These days, hot chicken is a "must-try" Southern food. Restaurants in New York, Detroit, Cambridge, and even Australia advertise that they fry their chicken "Nashville-style." But for almost seventy years, hot chicken was made and sold primarily in Nashville's Black neighborhoods—and the story of hot chicken says something powerful about race relations in Nashville, especially as the city tries to figure out what it will be in the future. Hot, Hot Chicken recounts the history of Nashville's Black communities through the story of its hot chicken scene.

Carmine Luedke, a shy, narcoleptic bookkeeper hides from the world and comforts himself by reciting arcane mathematical equations and proofs. Unable to stay awake during the day, he works through the night balancing the books. But suddenly, the numbers aren’t adding up….One fateful night, an unexpected and shocking reunion with a long-lost friend he believed to be dead sends shockwaves through Carmine's carefully crafted routine. She arrives with an urgent plea and vanishes into thin air, leaving him with more questions than answers.

Our narrator is a gifted photographer, an uncertain wife, an infertile mother, a biracial woman in an America that's coming undone. As she grapples with a lifetime of ambivalence about motherhood, yet another act of police brutality makes headlines, and this time the victim is Noah, a boy in her photography class. Unmoored by the grief of a recent, devastating miscarriage and Noah's fight for his life, she worries she can no longer chase the hope of having a child, no longer wants to bring a Black body into the world.

A troubled Delia Ellis returns to her old neighborhood, Don Mount Court, to retrieve a beloved childhood diary. While the entries uncover significant revelations around her mother's past, it is Delia's return home that leads to a true understanding of the circumstances that forged her identity.

During the recent presidential election, "media literacy" became a buzzword that signified the threat media manipulation posed to democratic processes. Meanwhile, statistical research has shown that eight- to eighteen-year-olds pack more than eleven hours with some form of media into each day by "media multitasking." Young people are not only eager and interested to learn about and discuss the realities of media ownership, production, and distribution, they also deserve to understand differential power structures in how media influences our culture.

Taking up that challenge and drawing from Baldwin's fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and interviews, You Mean It or You Don't will spur today's progressives from conviction to action. It is not enough, authors Hollowell and McGhee urge us, to hold progressive views on racial justice, LGBTQ+ identity, and economic inequality. True and lasting change demands a response to Baldwin's radical challenge for moral commitment. Called to move from dreams of justice to living it out in communities, churches, and neighborhoods, we can show that we truly mean it.

Jade Brown, a twenty-four-year-old first-generation Jamaican woman living in Toronto, must find a way to pick up the pieces and discover who she is following the mysterious death of her twin sister. Grappling with her grief, Jade seeks solace in lovers and friends during an array of hilarious and heartbreaking adventures. As she investigates some of life's most frustrating paradoxes, she holds tight to old friends and her ex-girlfriend, lifelines between past and present.

Seven years ago, Austin Dash's dangerously jealous wife, Naomi, nearly stabbed him to death, an act that landed her in prison. Freed from her influence, Austin filed for divorce and took their young son to Atlanta for a fresh start. He established his own business and met the loving, gentle-hearted Brooke. Swept up in a charmed romance, they marry and prepare to welcome a new baby into their lives. But memories of Naomi haunt Austin's nightmares . . . And now, she's back.

Teaching for Justice & Belonging: A Journey for Educators & Parents provides a practical and powerful blueprint to unrooting racism in the educational setting. The book is an easy-to-understand guide designed to cultivate an educational experience that inspires a culture of true belonging, liberation, and justice for all.

Sam is dead, which means that Elsie Jane has just lost the brilliant, sensitive man she planned to grow old with. The early days of grief are a fog of work and single parenting. Too restless to sleep, Elsie pores over Sam's old love letters, paces her house, and bickers with the ghosts of Sam and her dead parents night after night. As the year unfolds, she develops an obsession with a local murder mystery, attends a series of disastrous internet dates in search of a "replacement soulmate," and solicits a space-time wizard via Craigslist.

Sal has been looking forward to first grade for a long time. But her excitement quickly turns to disappointment when she learns that her best friend, Griff, is in the other first-grade classroom and has the most popular teacher. Then Sal’s name is spelled wrong on her name tag, she trips in front of the cool fifth graders, and her self-portrait doesn’t turn out the way she wanted it to. In fact, everything about school is an absolute disaster. Poor Sal!

From the start, the War on Drugs targeted Black, Brown, and Indigenous Americans already disadvantaged by a system stacked against them. Even now, as white Americans who largely escaped the fire capitalize on the legalization movement and a booming cannabis industry, their less fortunate peers continue to suffer the consequences of the systemic racism in policing and failed drug policy that fueled the original crisis. In Waiting to Inhale, Akwasi Owusu-Bempah and Tahira Rehmatullah issue a powerful call for a racial reckoning and provide a roadmap to redress this deep and abiding injustice.

Six short stories set in the worlds of Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter, Bubba the Monster Hunter, and The Dead Old Ladies Detective Agency from award-winning author John G. Hartness!

A distillation of profound insights on love and happiness. With warmth and wisdom, Mack explores the frustration and futility of seeking love from others, instead of yourself—and in the future, instead of in the present. In short-form meditations, Love from the Inside Out invites you into an intimate conversation about relationships and into your own personal inquiry on love. Inside, some of your most cherished thoughts, opinions, and beliefs about love and relationships will be questioned and challenged—if not refashioned and revised.

In Extra Credit! 8 Ways to Turn Your Education Expertise into Passion Projects and Extra Income, a team of accomplished educators and content creators delivers an illuminating and engaging handbook for educators who seek to bring in extra income with their professional and personal talents. In the book, you'll explore a wide variety of potential income streams, including leveraging social media platforms, creating educational resources, writing, and online courses, just to name a few!

Monsters of the Upside Down, beware! Travis Langley (author of the acclaimed Batman and Psychology) returns with a group of expert contributors to explore these and other questions to shine a light on true human nature through the Netflix series and cultural phenomenon Stranger Things.

The companions are caught in the destructive path of a nihilistic doomsday cult devoted to killing anyone over the age of twenty-one, even their own people. Ricky falls under the spell of their charismatic leader when his allies are imprisoned and scheduled for a showy execution. Someone needs to argue the case for his allies, but it’s an argument that will require some very special persuasion... of the 9 mm caliber variety!

Seeking insights into the Gaia Force, Krysty travels with Ryan to the hidden island enclave of the Sisters of Mother Earth. While there, Ryan reaches some much-needed inner peace, while Krysty gains new insights into her connection with Gaia. But the Sisters are unprepared for a raid by an invader who can channel Earth powers with a ferocity unseen before, burning through earth witches like the Sisters and Krysty in his quest for absolute power... unless the companions can defeat him and his mercenary army.

Raised to be the ultimate scam artist, April has been many women to many people. She seduces, extracts fortunes, then vanishes without a trace. And now she's finally living her dream of having two perfect—separate—lives. That means two mad-successful identities, and two unsuspecting husbands. But a mysterious package has just arrived—and its contents threaten to expose April's every scandalous secret . . .