Black Eyed Peas for the Soul »

Donna Marie Williams, author of Sister Feelgood, is a freelance writer and editor. She lectures throughout the country and lives with her two children in Chicago.

To tell a story well, you have to live a story well -- with courage, persistence, and faith that everything's going to turn out all right. Black-Eyed Peas for the Soul is a collection of stories that reveals universal themes, as well as the unique perspectives of African Americans. The first collection of its kind, Black-Eyed Peas for the Soul boldly dispels the myth of a homogeneous Black culture. Diverse voices -- including those of Zora Neale Hurston, Dawn Turner Trice, and Frederick Douglass -- tell our stories of beginnings, wisdom, patience, hard work, excellence, joy, and miracles. Stories about love, healing, and atonement are told with insight, humor, and gritty honesty.

Arising from these distinct voices is the call for hope. Enjoy these stories and let them guide your soul to a place where you can find solace and draw nourishment, a place that can warm and soothe you, like a bowl of black-eyed peas.

Library Journal

Williams (Sister Feelgood, Crown, 1996) carefully compiles over 60 of some of the most enriching stories told by African American heros and heroines. Many of the authors are well known, from Maya Angelou and Zora Neale Hurston to Shirley Chisholm, Dick Gregory, and Iyanla Vanzant. Most of these inspirational tales detail how African Americans have wrestled with some of life's most difficult dilemmas, including poverty, homelessness, incarceration, divorce, AIDS, racism, and dysfunctional families. Also included in this work are myths and folktales. Throughout, Williams uses the metaphor of a father teaching his grown daughter how to cook a good pot of black-eyed peas. Like that integral part of the African American diet, these stories warm the heart and fill the soul with so much hope and pride that they give energy and real solutions to African Americans and all people willing to take life's challenges head on. Recommended for YA and African American literature collections.Demetria A. Harvin, "Hospital Medicine," New York