All my writing and interviews in one place!

Hi I've been doing a lot of writing and not a lot of blog posting. The good news is I now have a constantly updated portfolio page right on this website that includes brief excerpts and links to ALL of my recent writing and podcasts: portfolio.cvbell.com. The different tabs link to subsections for interviews, writing about books, and on film and tv I hope you'll give it a visit.

Black Achievement and Joy at the Dawn of American Film

This February I'm basking in the joy of finally writing one of the pieces on Black movie history that I've been thinking about way on the back burner since grad school. If I'm honest, this one made my whole year. I'm proud of this feature I wrote for IndieWire about early Black participation in American film. It's based on copious reading, watching and original interviews with insiders-- film historians and the descendants of American legends Lena Horne and Fayard and Harold Nicholas.

The package has two parts: a dive into the segregated systems, challenges and triumphs of Black artists and a gallery of some of the most memorable performances of the 1920s to 1940s.

The essay: 
How Black Actors Broke Through in Old Hollywood — Day to Day, Role to Role

The list: 
15 Path-Breaking Black Performers of Old Hollywood — and Early American Indie Film

Here's one small taste of the performance I discuss. Cab Calloway and The Nicholas Brothers in Stormy Weather (1943).

New Articles at Publishers Weekly and NPR's Books We Love 2023

NPR's Books We Love has quickly become one of my favorite annual traditions. This year I had the honor of writing about 12 of my absolute faves for this incredible celebration of excellent books including: Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead, The Fraud by Zadie Smith, Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor, and We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian. 

Each one is a tribute, and the collection is searchable by your favorite attributes like genre, setting, and seriously great writing. 

I also have two new articles I'm excited about at Publishers Weekly, a roundup at The Boston Globe, and reviews at BookPage. For links and other news, see recent pubs.

A wealth of amazing reads and literary conversations. 

Being a critic always feel like a privilege, even when deadlines loom one after the other. The past few months have been especially wild, moving from The Enchanters to How to Say Babylon. 

I've reviewed books by Zadie Smith, James Ellroy, and Safiya Sinclair and spent hours talking with Colson Whitehead and Kennedy Ryan.

Also coming soon: a profile of Black horror luminary Tananarive Due and a dive into some of the most influential Black voices in genre publishing.

For summaries and links, please see: "Bio and Recent Writing."

 

New Year, New Writing 

I've been making a list....

For some people the new year is all about fresh starts and resolutions. To me, a new year means obsessive list making — media to anticipate, watch and read. Start with these selections: the books we can't wait to read in 2023 across genres, new adaptations for the small screen, and a standout historical novel. New Year, New Books and Writing.

What's New-- Media, Book Criticism and more

11/14/22  I recently interviewed author Kathryn Ma for Publishers Weekly and reviewed Celeste Ng's Our Missing Hearts for Oprah Daily. Next up: A guide to new bookish television adaptations and a conversation with literary icon Percival Everett.  For a full list of work with links, please click over to: "Bio and Recent Writing."

7/11/2022

I'm excited to have two new reviews to share today. Both make great summer reading:

Honey and Spice, New York Times July 1, 2022 

In this witty and incisive first romance novel, Black British author Bolu Babalola plays with familiar literary romance tropes to explore questions about gender, sexuality and modern dating.

Little Nothings, BookPage July 2022 (Print edition)

In Julie Mayhew's Greek island-set thriller, little cuts do lasting damage and friendships are as intense and heartbreaking as romantic relationships. 

Review: A Play for the End of the World

A Play for the End of the World by Jai Chakrabarti
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book affected me profoundly. It's beautifully rendered historical fiction that begins in World War II and then jumps to the 1970s. It addresses some of the core themes found in fiction of that post war period—the role of art and love in survival.

In Jai Chakrabarti’s debut novel, a play by Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore is a magical and malleable symbol, used to help children accept a dark reality and as a tool for resistance. By staging the play during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, Jaryk and his fellow orphans experienced a kind of liberation by imagination. But while the other children’s relief was temporary, Jaryk had the life-altering fortune and burden of becoming the orphanage’s lone survivor. Unlike his fellow orphans, unlike almost everyone else he had known in the meager years he enjoyed before the war, Jaryk got a chance at a long life.

A Play for the End of the World primarily focuses on what happens next, how new life takes root after extreme ruin. Highly recommend.

Read my full review at BookPage: https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/2657...

View all my reviews

Review: Scandalous

Scandalous by Minerva Spencer
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

I don’t really have words for how much I hated this. Hated that the author exploits slavery for titillation, playing up the idea of the sexy brute and savage at every turn. I have a pretty thick hide by now and yet this elicited a surprisingly painful reaction. There’s nothing modern about this brutal retread/ mashup of the tragic mulatto and pirate romance. I disliked everything about how the male lead, a former enslaved man, was portrayed throughout. But what really made it worse was that the climax and resolution pivot on a secondary character, a Black woman whose voice is obliterated. She’s used as a plot point and then denigrated and replaced as a mother to facilitate the white female lead’s HEA. Just intolerable.

I’m not going to spend more time on this author but I’ll just put this here. This is Martin taking stock of himself after Sarah challenges him about not being able to read and he reacts defensively:

“He turned away from her, as if he could turn away from the vision she had forced him to look at: that of an illiterate brute only aping his betters with fine clothes, rich trappings, and books he could not read.”

That “brute” characterization and the dehumanizing terminology of Martin being like an animal “aping” his betters (a metaphor like this used in a racial context has double meaning) would be less glaring if the text didn’t *repeatedly* and sensationally treat him as such. That's not countered just because Martin is supposedly saved by Sarah. Even Martin's work against the slave trade doesn't come into full view until it's used to prop up their union and her virtue. I understand that the nonsense idea of women humanizing terrible men is a popular trope. But when it's used in this racialized way with a man of color it is egregious and grotesque.

View all my reviews

Review: The Accidental Diva

The Accidental Diva by Tia Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"She was a skittish, trembling Question, and he was the Answer."

This is now a Tia Williams stan account. Truly. Her three adult novels share two things in common that I love: sharp humor and excellent contemporary world-building. Williams builds a social environment that is so rich and authentic it gives me a sense memory of being that Black girl living in New York. And she does all that by showing not simply telling: the dialogue, the cultural references, the characters are all so real, it give me shivers.

So I enjoyed this one a lot. In a nutshell, a smart, talented and well-loved southern girl moves to New York and soon finds her professional footing on the beauty magazine beat. Though she's the lone Black girl in the office, in her social life, she's surrounded by a tight circle of Black women in similar creative positions at the center of the beating heart of the city. It's like if Sex and the City actually looked like the multicultural city it was set in. And she falls in love with a man who's irresistible, brilliant, and, on the surface, all wrong for her. Drama ensues— and it gets messy at times—but The Accidental Diva is a delight all the same.

View all my reviews

NPR's Code Switch Celebrates Black Kiss-Story (and I'm there for it)!

So NPR Code Switch did a fun and thoughtful episode on Black historical romance and invited me to be a part of it. Listening to these amazing authors—Beverly Jenkins, Alyssa Cole, and Piper Huguley talk Black history and romance on Code Switch was a treat and a half this Valentine's week. Getting to take part in it and say my piece? Unreal! 

You can listen to the episode and read the essay referenced in the discussion here: Black Kiss-Story

For a list of some of the best Black-authored and centered histroms out there see my list on Book Riot: 15 MUST READ BLACK-AUTHORED HISTORICAL ROMANCE NOVELS OF THE LAST 25 YEARS