Calling for African American women writers

[Rob Neufeld]

Martha Southgate, author of the novel, “The Fall of Rome,” submits “Writers Like Me," published in Best American Essays 2009. (Go back to original forum, with index.)

Southgate was motivated by her experiences at writers’ conferences, where she encountered far too few African-American literary writers in her middle-age bracket. There’s a vicious cycle at work that makes lower promotion of black writers a business decision.

But it’s also a generational thing: Z.Z. Packer, thirty-plus author of “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” points out that hers was the second generation of college-going African-Americans. She didn’t have to become a lawyer. So, there’s this gap in African-American literature, and Southgate doesn’t want to see that happen again.

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