Dreaming Out Loud
African American Novelists at Work
by Horace Porter
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Pub Date Apr 15 2015 | Archive Date Dec 01 2015
University of Iowa Press | University Of Iowa Press
Description
Some essays explore the challenges of being an African American writer in the United States, broadly addressing aesthetic and racial prejudice in American publishing and literature and its changing face over the decades. Others are more specific and personal, recounting how the authors came to be a reader and writer in a culture that did not always encourage them to do so. Some are more general and focus on practice and craft, while still other essays offer detailed behind-the-scenes accounts of how famous novels, such as Native Son, Invisible Man, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, and The Color Purple, came to life. Ranging from the Harlem Renaissance, through the Civil Rights movement, and into the twenty-first century, this anthology explores what it has meant to be an African American novelist over the past hundred years.
Found within are essays by twenty-one African American novelists, including Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison, National Book Award-winners Ralph Ellison and Charles Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winners Alice Walker and James Alan McPherson, and well-known canonical writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, and Margaret Walker. Dreaming Out Loud seeks to inspire writers and readers alike, while offering a fascinating and important portrait of novelists at work in their own words.
CONTRIBUTORS
James Baldwin, Arna Bontemps, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Ernest Gaines, Chester Himes, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Charles Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, Gayl Jones, Terry McMillan, James Alan McPherson, Toni Morrison, Walter Mosley, Ishmael Reed, Martha Southgate, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, John Edgar Wideman, Richard Wright
Advance Praise
“What is to be appreciated in this collection of writers working on a black American version of a dream, comes straight down, or up, the pike. The facts are that this volume repeatedly carries an essential epic necessity for our nation. One may or may not agree with every selection, but one can always count on a scholar as serious as Horace Porter to live up to the downhome fairness so important to human depths his rearing offered, and demanded of him.”—Stanley Crouch, cultural critic and author, Don't the Moon Look Lonesome?
“A scholar who both admires and understands writers, Horace Porter has given us groundbreaking studies of Baldwin and Ellison. And now in the pages of this anthology he has brought together a number of illuminating essays by some of our most important novelists, a singular achievement that charts the extraordinary ways the work gets done.”—Jeffery Renard Allen, author, Song of the Shank
“Dreaming Out Loud contains a wide-ranging selection of eloquent, insightful, and provocative writings by African American novelists about the practice and power of fiction-writing. In this brilliantly edited volume, Horace Porter, the distinguished literary scholar, has brought together deeply influential essays by many of the leading novelists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book will be immensely valuable to general readers and scholars of African American literature alike.”—Valerie Smith, co-general editor, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, 3rd edition
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781609383350 |
| PRICE | $24.00 (USD) |
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Average rating from 7 members
Featured Reviews
Monique S, Educator
Great collection of essays describing the craft. This would be a good title to include in a creative writing curriculum.
G D, Reviewer
Really amazing and inspiring collection of essays by African-American writers
Earl M, Reviewer
In Dreaming Out Loud: African American Writers at Work Horace Porter brings together a phenomenal collection of essays spanning the 20th century. These essays are about writing, about being Black and most importantly the union of the two.
There are many wonderful pieces of wisdom here for any writer, which certainly makes this valuable for every writer. The greater value that I believe this volume holds is in addressing the many obstacles (internal and external) and complexities in writing when in the eyes of the industry you are an Other. Does a writer try to write as someone else, or try to de-racialize the accepted concept of good writing so that their writing will simply be "good writing" or does the writer try to find his/her authentic voice and let the universal aspects shine through their more culture-specific voice? After all, What has largely been held up as good writing is when the universal shines through a culture-specific voice but that voice has historically been a White (male) voice and culture, so they are simply taking the freedom for themselves that other writers took without ever realizing it.
This is also a wonderful text for a young Black writer who has not had the opportunity to experience the rich tradition of African American writing. To see the extent to which Black writers have struggled and succeeded will empower the younger writer to continue making strides, in whatever literary direction they choose. As an aside, I would highly recommend reading a beautiful essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books by Derrick Harriell entitled "Chicago State State of Mind (https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/chicago-state-of-mind) about the value of finding and cultivating a safe supportive writing environment.
I highly recommend for any writer but especially for young Black writers. I also believe this is valuable for readers as well, understanding from what these classic works grew. Finally, this can serve as an excellent resource for those interested in 20th century literary history in general since it will expand on what is usually presented as the dominant literary arc.
Reviewed from an ARC made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
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