Hi, readers. We hope you’re doing well and are staying safe. We recorded this chat shortly after the protests began, but due to continuing health issues in Dani’s family, it just now got published. The delay doesn’t matter, though, because the topic we discuss will never go stale: the importance of Black lives, Black joy, Black stories and Black survival. We also talk about wtf is up with Just Kidding Rowling, how we’re too old for social media and what’s gonna happen when the ‘rona pops back...

Hi, y’all. A few things before we get to the episode: Thank you for being so patient as we get episodes out. Between motherhood, a pandemic, a cancer diagnosis and failing technology, things have been rough. This episode was recorded before the murder of George Floyd and the protests that followed, hence why there is no discussion of it. We plan to talk about it in a future chat. Black Lives Matter. ✊🏿  Now, let’s get into. Previously, we read Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke, and we...

Urban Lit Month continues? We read Their Eyes We're Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston and couldn't help but spot a few similarities between Janie Crawford and a few of other past heroines. (*cough* Zoe *cough*) Her tragic background. Her wild and crazy man problems. Her relationship with a fast-talking man who introduces her to sex, fighting and gambling. Don't tell us this book isn't a proto-urban lit title! We also discuss Tea Cake and his never-ending schemes, Hurston's history with the...

2020 is about some real shenanigans. Between the brown-face fiasco Jeanine Cummins brought with her American Dirt release and the Barnes & Noble "Diverse Editions" mess, we've been facepalming since the new year began. Flatiron Books tried to both-sides their way out of the Cummins mess with the year's worst PR statement. B&N took the classier route and just cancelled themselves. Listen in as we stare agog at the state of modern publishing, and be sure to join us next month when we...

We’re doing something different this month. Things are a bit busy with family and babies, so for this episode, we’re sharing a special, previously recorded crossover episode. Mollie joins Dani on the Ice Planet Podcast to discuss book six of the series, Barbarian’s Mate.   The Ice Planet Barbarians series follows a group of human women alien abductees as they adjust to life on a barren ice planet populated by big, blue aliens with heart worms. It’s a lot more romantic than I’m making it...

It's the most wonderful time of the year! It's Urban Fic Month! This year, we go back home to Missouri and read Hold U Down by Keisha Ervin. Meet Unique and her girls, Zoe, Kiara and Kay Kay, the mildest criminals the STL has to offer. They live by the code that requires them to make money, spend money and never catch feelings. They will spend the entirety of this book doing none of those things. We follow the clique as they get booed up, hang out at strip-mall night clubs and study at the...

Happy New Year, y’all! We hope you had a fantastic holiday and a wonderful start to your 2020. ‘Cause RWA certainly didn’t! In case you missed it, the Romance Writers of America are embroiled in what the Guardian calls a "racism row." We attempt to break down what they f****d up this time and, whew, chile. It’s a mess. FYI: This mess is currently ongoing and evolving; in fact, it was a bit out of date the afternoon we recorded. For the latest updates and wtf-ery?, we definitely recommend...

We can't believe it, dear readers, but we've made it through another year of reading, podcasting and doing both while black. The twitter dramas! The plagiarism scandals! The nacho cheese! We take a look back and reflect on all the books read and craziness wrought in 2019. Which titles did we love this year? Which did we think was worse: Addicted or The Wedding Date? What was our favorite BCL episode of the year? Listen in and find out. Do you have a suggestion for a future #BCLChat? Email us...

Winter is coming. That means it's time for us to dive into the world of fantasy ( ... er, or into fantasy worlds). This episode, we read N.K. Jemisin's 2010 debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Mollie wasn't kidding when she said this was a sexy book. Gods sexing up gods. Gods sexing up humans. Humans sexing up their cousins. It's wild, y'all. But, in the midst of all the sexy times, there's a deftly crafted murder mystery that took us the majority of the episode to unspool. Listen in...

Hey, readers! In this month’s episode we discuss the perilous world of shopping for diverse children’s books. We’re overwhelmed by how much there is to consider with presenting children with authentic representation of people of color: When was the first time we saw ourselves in literature? Does it matter who writes and/or illustrates the book? How well do books handle interracial families or inter-community topics like colorism? And is it cheating to just buy your kid a book about a bear?...

The kids are back in school and we revisit a childhood favorite: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor. And, whew, boy! Ms. Taylor aimed to teach the kids the truth about racism and she went above in beyond to do so. This book had lynch mobs, roving Klansmen and three men being burned alive. The big question is, how were either of us able to read this as kids and not be traumatized? Also, why did Stacey remain friends with the shifty-ass T.J.? And why was Papa Logan so quick to...

We try to talk Booktube and get distracted by our general distrust of social media. Inspired by the HuffPost piece titled "Where Are All the Black Booktubers?," we decided to investigate the question ourselves. What we found wasn't that surprising: Plain ol' racism is keeping many Black booktubers from thriving. Naya, of Naya Reads and Smiles (the largest channel lead by a black booktuber), also spoke on the issue in her own video. The disparity between White booktubers and Black booktubers...

Happy August, readers! This month, we wanted a light beach read to help us make it through these remaining dog days of summer. Instead, we got a wild And Then There Were None-inspired murder fest where a man gets boiled alive in a hot tub. Fun. We read They All Fall Down, by Rachel Howzell Hall, and it's full to the brim of assholes. We read as an equally a*****e-y lawyer lures them to a tropical paradise where they're cut down one by one. There are guns, cocaine, poisonous sushi and,...

Happy July! It's a chattier chat than usual as we dig into some book news from around Twitter and the business pages. Angie Thomas kicks off Twitter controversy by ... asking not to be tagged in reviews? Microsoft shut down its ebook service, meaning customers who bought books through that service lost them. This is a good reminder to us all that we don’t actually own our ebooks. Loud, ignorant people on the internet are mad that Halle Bailey got a job as Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid...

This is the last time we talk about this book and this author. That's a promise. We invite our friends from Mocha Girls Read for a special episode. We briefly talk about that crazy YA author who now has a book deal before digging into Jasmine Guillory's The Wedding Date. Spoiler alert: We're all kinds of confused. What does Drew actually look like? What happened to Alexa to make her so stupid? Do these characters ever eat a vegetable? We don't answer any of 'em, but we give it a try. Follow...

We're celebrating the little guys (well, gals, tbh) this episode as we discuss your favorite indie authors. Before that, we talk some book news. People keep coming for libraries, and this time it was in the dumbest way possible. Rare Bird is being sued by Natasha Tynes for $13 MILLION and their lawyer found time in his day to send this response. And finally, The Atlantic came for the Goodreads Challenge. Thanks to everyone who replied to our #BCLChat. Check out the authors and books we...

Hey, readers! We embrace our inner conspiracy theorists with our latest read, American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson. It's got everything you'd expect from a spy novel: Cold War politics, assassination attempts, missing sisters and a white dude named Ross. Listen in as we discuss this unexpected piece of African history fanfic. We also talk about Family Matters, Jaleel White's supposedly shady past and that scene from In the Heat of the Night where Sidney Poitier slapped a racist white dude. (It's...

Hey, readers. We've got another chat for you. This time, we wanted to know if y'all reread books and why. Before we get to that, however, we chat about that messy author who got in trouble for snitching, BookRiot's unusually bad romance take and whether or not it's a good idea to tag authors in negative reviews. (Tbh, I feel like that first story should answer that question. Don't be rude to people on social media, 'cause that s**t can come back to bite you bad.) We also unload all our...

We get back to our literary fiction roots and read Oyinkan Braithwaite's debut novel, My Sister, the Serial Killer. This book has it all: love triangles, jealousy and, cake. Surprisingly, not a whole lot of murder. Listen in as we try to figure out just how crazy this family is. (Spoiler: We do kind of love the titular sister; she truly doesn't give a f**k.) Also in this episode, Dani shares her adventures from KissCon in Chicago, Mollie confirms that A Goofy Movie is still the best Disney...

This is our most scandalous episode yet. We discuss the month's biggest controversies and OMG! moments, including #RITAsSoWhite, #BagelGate and Shangela. Who exactly is RITA and what's her problem? Why aren't authors of color getting the shine they deserve? Why can't the RWA just set fire to the whole award season? We try our best to answer these questions, but tbh, we don't come away satisfied. Here are some of the resources we mentioned during the episode: Bronwen Fleetwood's PowerPoint...

Bring the lemon and sugar, 'cause we got the tea. This month, we read Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi and we couldn't help but notice how similar this book is to Avatar: The Last Airbender. A pair of plucky but poor siblings — one magic and one not? Check. A handsome young prince who's tormented by his father and who just wants to do right? Check. An evil regime? A magical summer solstice? A giant fluffy flying thing? Check. Check. Check. Needless to say, we didn't love it. (But,...

It's finally here! We got to speak with the Queen of Black Historicals herself, Beverly Jenkins, and it was a blast. It's easy to see where Loreli's feistiness comes from. We ask her about her place in the romance genre, her writing process and her personal opinions of men with mustaches. (Spoiler alert: She's #TeamStache.) We also learn what she's currently working on and what she hopes to achieve in the future. (We had a slight technical glitch at 44:10. We apologize for the loss of Ms....

Happy Valentine’s Day, listeners! Love is in the air! It’s our annual romance episode, and this year, we’re reading the Slayer of Words herself: Ms. Beverly Jenkins. We read Dani’s favorite Jenkins’ novel, A Chance at Love. (Or as Mollie titled it, The Education of Jake Reed.) There are precocious children, farm animal hijinks and a marriage of convenience that ends up causing more problems than it solves. It’s basically a black historical rom-com, and we loved it. We dig into it all, as well...

Happy New Year! Our first episode of 2019 is a chatty one as we share our 2019 reading and writing resolutions, as well as our goals for the podcast. We also get into the increasing bougieness of the Oscars, our love-hate relationship with the Goodreads Challenge and a number of Instascams (including Fyre Festival). Listen in and share your reading resolutions with us at @blackchicklit. February is Romance month, and this year, we’re finally reading Beverly Jenkins, a.k.a. the Slayer of Words...

We're back for round two of Zane's Addicted, and the second half is as incomprehensible as the first.   We wrap up Urban Fic January with the second half of our discussion of this "erotic" book, and things are problematic, to say the least. The storyline touches on rape, molestation and murder, and none of those topics are handled well. Want a fun drinking game? Count how many times we say the words "gross" and "unsexy." Your liver will hate us. If you're interested in seeing the rest of...