LibGuides: African American Women Writers: April Sinclair

April Sinclair grew up on the south side and became a longtime community activist in Oakland, California. As an activist, she worked to establish literacy instruction in adult prisons, juvenile detention centers, alternative schools, and drug rehabilitation facilities. In the mid-1990’s, while directing a food bank, Sinclair also was an aspiring and determined writer. She had finished only twenty pages of her first novel, Coffee Will Make You Black, when she volunteered to give a reading at a women’s bookstore. The reading was so successful that word spread, and Sinclair fielded phone calls from agents who wanted her to finish the book. Coffee Will Make You Black, which chronicles the life of an African American girl named Stevie from age eleven to age sixteen, was published in 1994. Sinclair published a sequel to her debut novel, Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice (1996), which follows Stevie from her college graduation in the Midwest to her travels to San Francisco and her subsequent realization that all is not as it seems in her small world. She has many unique experiences and has a lot to learn about herself. Sinclair’s next book, I Left My Back Door Open, published in 1999, follows the trials of Chicago disc jockey Daphne Dupree as she struggles to make sense of her life. It is a refreshing look at how a middle-aged woman comes to terms with her live and the lives of those around her. (Guide to Literary Masters & Their Works)

Genre: Coming-of-age stories; Contemporary romances

By April Sinclair

Coffee Will Make You Black: a novel by April Sinclair
In this hilarious and insightful coming-of-age novel, author April Sinclair introduces the charming Jean "Stevie" Stevenson, a young woman raised on Chicago's South Side during an era of irrevocable social upheaval. Curious and witty, bold but naïve, Stevie grows up debating the qualities of good hair and dark skin. As the years pass, her family and neighborhood are changed by the times, from the War on Poverty to race riots and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., from "Black Is Beautiful" to Black Power. Against this remarkable backdrop, Stevie makes the sometimes harrowing, often comic, always enthralling transformation into a young adult--socially aware, discovering her sexuality, and proud of her identity
I Left My Back Door Open by April Sinclair
Daphne "Dee Dee" Dupree has arrived at age 41 with a career she loves, but a romantic life she doesn't. Insecure about her weight and protective of her often-broken heart, Dee Dee is an expert at hiding her inward struggles from the thousands of Chicago residents who hear her on the radio every night. A successful, charismatic DJ for the local blues station, Dee Dee is still looking for the type of love she's missed since her divorce. After a traumatic event at work, Dee Dee meets Skylar, a union mediator who could be just what she's looking for--if only there weren't so many obstacles in their way. Meanwhile, Dee Dee's coworker Jade is nearing her own divorce; her best friend, Sharon, has come out of the closet; and Sharon's teenage daughter is dangerously close to a breakdown. As Dee Dee works to ease the problems of her friends, she finally faces her own troubles--both old and new--in this uplifting, thought-provoking novel.
Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice by April Sinclair
Growing up black in 1960s Chicago, Jean "Stevie" Stevenson came of age amid the tumult of the civil rights movement, learning to value not just her race and gender but her sexuality as well. Now, nearly a decade later, Stevie is a college graduate enjoying a week of vacation in San Francisco. After getting a taste of the bohemian life, she can't bring herself to return home to her family and journalism career in Chicago. Instead, she's determined to spread her wings and discover her true self, experimenting with free love, gay pride, and vegetarianism; forging a friendship with a gay disco queen; and taking a job at the feminist Personal Change Counseling Center. As she falls in and out of love, Stevie takes time to observe both the absurd and the liberating qualities of the West Coast hippie lifestyle--and is constantly reminded that the journey to self-discovery likely has no end point.