Published Works
“Django Unchained” (film review), Cineaste, 2013
Essay in symposium on Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, The Threepenny Review, Spring 2013
Love for Sale and Other Essays, Autumn House Press, 2013
“Edward and Charles” (on Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus), The Threepenny Review, Winter 2013
“Three Funerals and a Wedding” (personal essay), The Threepenny Review, Winter 2012
“Faith and Faithlessness: Alexander Payne’s The Descendants” (review), The American Shot, December 29, 2011
“Evoking the Extremes of Human Experience” (on Thelonious Monk’s “Bright Mississippi”), Oxford American, November 2011
“Love for Sale” (personal essay), The Threepenny Review, Summer 2011, translated and reprinted in Danish publication Jazz Special
“Table Talk” piece, The Threepenny Review, Spring 2010
Signifying Nothing (novel), 2009
“Dreams of Laura” (essay), The Threepenny Review, Summer 2009
“Table Talk” piece, The Threepenny Review, Spring 2009
“Mingus, Marcus, and Us” (jazz essay), The Threepenny Review, Fall 2008 — nominated for The Essay Prize
“Chameleon Street” (DVD review), Cineaste, Summer 2008
“On the Road to Freedom” (book review), The Crisis, Spring 2008
“Good Moments in a Tough World: The Films of Charles Burnett,” Cineaste, Vol. 33, No. 2, 2008
“What Is This Thing Called Love?” (jazz essay), The Threepenny Review, Fall 2007
“How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)” (capsule movie review), Cineaste, Vol. 32, No. 4, 2007
“Table Talk” piece, The Threepenny Review, Spring 2007
“On, Zadie” (essay on Zadie Smith’s novels), The Threepenny Review, Fall 2006
“Jazz Gods and Monsters” (essay on Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane), The Threepenny Review, Spring 2006
“On Unhappiness, Friendship, and Charlie Brown” (essay), The Reading Room, Issue Six, 2006
“Say It Loud” (essay on James Brown and review of Brown’s memoir), The Threepenny Review, Fall 2005
“For Bean” (essay on jazz musician Coleman Hawkins), The Threepenny Review, Fall 2004
“African Americans in Cinema: The First Half Century,” Cineaste, Vol. 29, No. 4, 2004
“Tribute to Rudolph Fisher” (essay on Harlem Renaissance writer), Black Issues Book Review, May-June 2003
“For Dean” (personal essay), The Threepenny Review, Spring 2003
“Call Him . . . Ishmael” (cover story on Ishmael Reed), Black Issues Book Review, January-February 2003
“Ali” (movie review), Film Quarterly, Summer 2002
“Chester Himes and the Test of Time” (essay on Chester Himes’s crime novels), Paperback Parade, No. 58, 2002
“How I Became Black” (personal essay), The Reading Room, Issue Four, 2002
“Almost There” (essay on Colson Whitehead’s novels), The Threepenny Review, Spring 2002; selected for inclusion in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 232, 2007
“Monster’s Ball” (movie review), Cineaste, Vol. 27, No. 3, 2002
“Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth” (book review and interview with author, Derrick Bell), Black Issues Book Review, September-October 2002
“Revenge of the Nerd: A Look at Black Exploitation Films,” The Iowa Review Web site, 2002
“Burning All Illusions: Writings from the Nation on Race” (book review), Black Issues Book Review, September-October 2002
“Yet a Stranger: Why Black Americans Still Don’t Feel at Home” (book review), Black Issues Book Review, July-August 2002
“The Essential Harold Cruse: A Reader” (book review), Black Issues Book Review, May-June 2002
“Miracle at St. Anna” (book review), Black Issues Book Review, March-April 2002
“Memories of an Ex-would-be Cartoonist” (personal essay), The Threepenny Review, Summer 2001
“Returning the Gaze: A Genealogy of Black Film Criticism (book review), Cineaste, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2001
“St. Clair Bourne: Documenting the African-American Experience” (essay and interview), Cineaste, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2001
“Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten” (book review), Black Issues Book Review, May-June 2001
“Petty Cash” (short story), Apalachee Review, No. 49, Spring 2001
“Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray” (book review), Black Issues Book Review, November-December 2000
“Return of the Marksman: Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison” (book review), The Threepenny Review, Spring 2000
“Don’t Cry for Me: An Attack on Racial Condescension in Coverage of the Arts,” The Reading Room, Issue Two, 2000
“Homecoming” (movie review), Cineaste, Vol. 25, No. 2, 2000
“Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone” (essay on James Baldwin’s novels), The Iowa Review, Vol. 29. No. 2, 1999
“Miss Evers’ Boys” (video review), Cineaste, Vol. 24, No. 4, 1999
“On Jazz: Notes of an Enthusiast,” The Threepenny Review, Summer 1999
“Sugar, Muhammad, and Me” (essay on boxing), The Threepenny Review, Spring 1999
“We Hardly Knew Ye: Four Early Films of Paul Robeson,” Cineaste, Vol. 23, No. 4, 1998
“Independent’s Day” (capsule movie review), Cineaste, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1998
“Black and American: What Does It Mean?” (personal essay), Commonweal, February 13, 1998
“The Devil Beats His Wife: Small Moments and Big Statements in the Films of Charles Burnett,” Cineaste, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1997; reprinted in The Best American Movie Writing 1999, St. Martin’s Press, 1999
“L.A. Confidential” (capsule movie review), Cineaste, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1997
“Cinemas of the Black Diaspora” (book review), Cineaste, Vol. 22, No. 4, 1997
“Black Is . . . Black Ain’t” (movie review), Cineaste, Vol. 22, No. 4, 1997
“Con Air”(capsule movie review), Cineaste, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1997
“The Brother from Another Race: Black Characters in the Films of John Sayles,” Cineaste, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1996; selected for inclusion in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 198, 2005
“Paris Blues, Visited” (movie essay), The Iowa Review, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1996
“Black Film/White Money” (book review), Cineaste, Vol. 22, No. 2, 1996
“Race and Anger” (personal essay), Commonweal, February 23, 1996
“Inventing Our Names, Our Selves” (essay on black American names), Commonweal, March 24, 1995; reprinted in Interconnections, Harcourt Brace, 1997
“Stand” (short story), The Brownstone Review, No. 1, 1995
The Meteor Man (novelization), Scholastic, 1993
Black Americans of Achievement: Charles Chesnutt (biography), Chelsea House, 1992
“Company Man and Jumping Ship” (book reviews), Emerge, June 1992
“Another Name for My Brother” (short story), Scholastic Voice February 8, 1991
“Judgment” (short story), published in Terry McMillan’s anthology, Breaking Ice, 1990; reprinted in How We Live Now, 1992, and Crossing the Color Line, 2000
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