Blackout List

The Black Publishing Power Initiative is asking readers to buy two books written by Black authors during the week of June 14 – 20. If you’re looking for ideas, here’s a few African-American crime writers I’ve read and can recommend. I’ve met most of these authors as well, and they’re all really cool people. So if you’d like to support this initiative and are looking for something new to read in crime fiction, buy a couple of their books (or all of them). In no particular order, here’s some writers I think you should check out:

Rachel Howzell Hall
Alexia Gordon
Gary Phillips
Gar Anthony Haywood
Attica Locke
Walter Mosley
Kellye Garrett

There are, of course, many others. Below are some additional resources for discovering books by other crime writers of color.

And if you’re interested in exploring some foundational works of African-American crime literature, you might also want to try books by Barbara Neely and Chester Himes.