I've read every one of Donald Goines' books. So as soon as I heard there was an opportunity for one of his novels to be turned into a movie, I jumped at the opportunity.
When I was a kid, I'd go to the African-American section in the bookstore, and I'd try and find African-American people I hadn't read before. So in that sense the category was useful to me. But it's not useful to me as I write. I don't sit down to write an African-American zombie story or an African-American story about elevators. I'm writing a story about elevators which happens to talk about race in different ways. Or I'm writing a zombie novel which doesn't have that much to do with being black in America. That novel is really about survival.
At first I read mostly books by Southern authors - black and white - because almost all the people I knew were born and raised in the South, starting with my mother. I remember I got a lot of Erskine Caldwell.
I would recommend these books: 'Dream Big, Little One,' by Vashti Harrison, 'I Am Enough,' by Grace Byers, 'Hair Like Mine,' by LaTashia M. Perry, 'Hair Love,' by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley... and of course, my book!
It was a big thing for me to read black writers. 'Fences,' by August Wilson. James Baldwin's 'Amen Corner.' 'The Fire Next Time.' 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X,' of course.
UCLA acknowledged this shift by bringing in Alex Haley (the co-author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X) and Eldridge Cleaver (Soul on Ice) as speakers.
I like to read Octavia E. Butler's 'Wild Seed' over and over again. And J. California Cooper's 'The Wake of the Wind.' That one makes me cry from joy. I'll mourn - I'll actually mourn - and then I'll cry from joy. She's wonderful.
Since, in the best Southern tradition, I was named Edmund Valentine White III, sometimes when people look up my books on Amazon they find 'Chocolate Drops from the South' by my grandfather.
I already optioned a book called The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. I also like The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. And I love all of Octavia Butler's books. She's created some very complicated black heroines with a variety of belief systems. There are many great books out there, but those are a few of the ones that stand out.
