African American Women Writers

Set in the Black small-town South of the early sixties, Shay Youngblood's stories capture the richness of being raised into womanhood by a community of women. As seen through the eyes of a girlchild mothered by her 'big mamas, ' the daily lives of ordinary incredible women are dynamically portrayed.

A young Black girl's coming of age in the South in the 1960's. Daughter is the main character, a 25 year old narrator whose mother died when she was very young. She was raised by the women in the community, some blood related, some no, and at the age of 12, she began her journey to womanhood guided by these very diverse, non-traditional, older Black women. As she reflects, Daughter becomes a child again, reliving her vivid memories of growing up, recalling the rituals, the faith healings, the stories she was told and the lessons she learned about survival, healing, faith and mystery.

A drug-taking single mother from Kansas places her daughter, Martha, 7, in the care of two aunts in Georgia. As the girl grows older she enters into a correspondence with her father, a painter whom she has never known. In time, she travels to Los Angeles to confront the hero of her imagination and an erotic relationship develops.

Generating a new understanding of the past--as well as a vision for the future--this path-breaking volume contains essays written by playwrights, scholars, and critics that analyze African American theatre as it is practiced today.

In contrast to other literary genres, drama has received little attention in southern studies, and women playwrights in general receive less recognition than their male counterparts. In Marginalized: Southern Women Playwrights Confront Race, Region, and Gender, author Casey Kayser addresses these gaps by examining the work of southern women playwrights, making the argument that representations of the American South on stage are complicated by difficulties of identity, genre, and region.

Focusing on women who suggest the regional, class, and ethnic diversity contemporary southern writing, Tate discusses such writers as Jill McCorkle, Shay Youngblood, Ellen Douglas, Dori Sanders, Rita Mae Brown, Lee Smith, Alice Walker, Bobbie Ann Mason, Linda Beatrice Brown, and Kaye Gibbons.As these women carve out new definitions of southern womanhood, Tate contends, they also look for ways to retain what is valuable about past conceptions while seeking to revise and expand the traditional roles. In doing so, they reconsider their relationships to home, family, and other southern women; to issues of race and class in the South; to women's obscured role in the region's past; and to the southern land itself.