ACHY OBEJAS was born in Cuba and grew up in Indiana, looking across Lake Michigan at Chicago and thinking it was her own Emerald City. The author of three books, including the critically acclaimed Days of Awe, she currently lives in Kenwood, on the South Side, and teaches at the University of Chicago.
BAYO OJIKUTU was born and raised in greater Chicago. He is the son of folks who migrated to the city from West Africa (Lagos, Nigeria) and the Deep South (Shreveport, Louisiana). Ojikutus first novel, 47th Street Black (Three Rivers Press, 2003), won the Washington Prize for Fiction and the Great American Book Award. His second novel, Free Burning, will be released in 2006. Currently, Ojikutu teaches in the Department of English at DePaul University, Chicago.
PETER ORNER was born at Michael Reece Hospital in Chicago. His first book, Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), was a New York Times Notable Book and won the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Goldberg Prize for fiction. His novel, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, will be published in 2006.
NEAL POLLACK worked as a reporter for the Chicago Reader from 19932000, where he wrote the Petty Crime column, among many other assignments. He's the author of three books of satire, including the cult-classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature and the rock-n-roll novel Never Mind the Pollacks. He is a regular contributor to Vanity Fair and Nerve. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his family.
AMY SAYRE-ROBERTS lives in Springfield, Illinois with one beautiful husband and two talented Malamutes (both born in Chicago). Her work has appeared in the American Book Review and the Alchemist Review.
C.J. SULLIVANS idol growing up was Chicago Cub legend Billy Williams. He works by day as a Court Clerk in Brooklyn Supreme and by night as a reporter for the New York Post. The two loves in his life are his twin girls: Luisa Marie and Olivia Kathleen Sullivan. He lives in New York City.
CLAIRE ZULKEY was born in Evanston, Illinois, and lives in Chicago. She has contributed to the Mississippi Review and Chicago Magazine, and published a book of literary humor titled Girls! Girls! Girls! More of her writing can be found on her website, Zulkey.com. Whatever crimes she has committed are not very interesting.
Also available from Akashic Books
BROOKLYN NOIR
edited by Tim McLoughlin
350 pages, a trade paperback original, $15.95, ISBN: 1-888451-58-0
*Finalist stories for EDGAR AWARD, PUSHCART PRIZE, and SHAMUS AWARD
Twenty brand new crime stories from New Yorks punchiest borough. Contributors include: Pete Hamill, Arthur Nersesian, Maggie Estep, Nelson George, Neal Pollack, Sidney Offit, Ken Bruen, and others.
Brooklyn Noir is such a stunningly perfect combination that you cant believe you haven't read an anthology like this before. But trust meyou haven't. Story after story is a revelation, filled with the requisite sense of place, but also the perfect twists that crime stories demand. The writing is flat-out superb, filled with lines that will sing in your head for a long time to come.
Laura Lippman, winner of the Edgar, Agatha, and Shamus awards
BROOKLYN NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS
edited by Tim McLoughlin
309 pages, trade paperback, $15.95, ISBN: 1-888451-76-9
Brooklyn Noir is back with a vengeance, this time with masters of yore mixing with the young blood: H.P. Lovecraft, Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Pete Hamill, Jonathan Lethem, Colson Whitehead, Irwin Shaw, Carolyn Wheat, Thomas Wolfe, Hubert Selby, Stanley Ellin, Gilbert Sorrentino, Maggie Estep, and Salvatore La Puma.
SAN FRANCISCO NOIR
edited by Peter Maravelis
325 pages, a trade paperback original, $15.95, ISBN: 1-888451-91-2
Brand new stories by: Domenic Stansberry, Barry Gifford, Eddie Muller, Robert Mailer Anderson, Michelle Tea, Peter Plate, Kate Braverman, David Corbett, Alejandro Murguía, Sin Soracco, Alvin Lu, Jon Longhi, Will Christopher Baer, Jim Nesbit, and David Henry Sterry.
San Francisco Noir lashes out with hard-biting tales exploring the shadowy nether regions of scenic Baghdad by the Bay. Desperation, transgression, and madness fuel these tales celebrating San Franciscos criminal heritage.
SOUTHLAND by Nina Revoyr
348 pages, a trade paperback original, $15.95, ISBN: 1-888451-41-6
*Winner of a LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD & FERRO-GRUMLEY AWARD
*EDGAR AWARD finalist
If Oprah still had her book club, this novel likely would be at the top of her list
With prose that is beautiful, precise, but never pretentious
Booklist
Southland merges elements of literature and social history with the propulsive drive of a mystery, while evoking Southern California as a character, a key player in the tale. Such aesthetics have motivated other Southland writers, most notably Walter Mosley.
Los Angeles Times
ADIOS MUCHACHOS by Daniel Chavarría
245 pages, a trade paperback original, $13.95, ISBN: 1-888451-16-5
*Winner of the EDGAR AWARD
Out of the mystery wrapped in an enigma that, over the last forty years, has been Cuba for the U.S., comes a Uruguayan voice so cheerful, a face so laughing, and a mind so deviously optimistic that we can only hope this is but the beginning of a flood of Latin Americas indomitable novelists, playwrights, storytellers. Welcome, Daniel Chavarría.
Donald Westlake, author of Trust Me on This
HAIRSTYLES OF THE DAMNED
by Joe Meno
290 pages, a trade paperback original, $13.95, ISBN: 1-888451-70-X
*PUNK PLANET BOOKS, a BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER PROGRAM selection
Joe Meno writes with the energy, honesty, and emotional impact of the best punk rock. From the opening sentence to the very last word, Hairstyles of the Damned held me in his grip.
These books are available at local bookstores.
They can also be purchased with a credit card online through www.akashicbooks.com.
To order by mail send a check or money order to:
AKASHIC BOOKS
PO Box 1456, New York, NY 10009 www.akashicbooks.com, Akashic7@aol.com
(Prices include shipping. Outside the U.S., add $8 to each book ordered.)