Karen Grigsby Bates
Karen Grigsby Bates is the Senior Correspondent for Code Switch, a podcast that reports on race and ethnicity. A veteran NPR reporter, Bates covered race for the network for several years before becoming a founding member of the Code Switch team. She is especially interested in stories about the hidden history of race in America—and in the intersection of race and culture. She oversees much of Code Switch's coverage of books by and about people of color, as well as issues of race in the publishing industry. Bates is the co-author of a best-selling etiquette book (Basic Black: Home Training for Modern Times) and two mystery novels; she is also a contributor to several anthologies of essays. She lives in Los Angeles and reports from NPR West.
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In Charcoal Joe, Mosley brings his iconic private eye Easy Rawlins into the haze of the late '60s, extending a literary odyssey through the transformation of black Los Angeles. -
In her new novel, I Almost Forgot About You, McMillan's heroine confronts midlife malaise by reconnecting with men from her past. -
A new book, Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, explores how faith brought two African-American icons together and eventually tore their relationship apart. -
The veteran singer, songwriter and producer recently released The Reverend Shawn Amos Loves You, which combines old-fashioned blues music with new technology. -
The second mystery by Mette Ivie Harrison boasts details about contemporary Mormon life that most of us aren't privy to. NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates says His Right Hand is is her "one that got away."
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A new young adult book tells the story of a police beating from two perspectives: the black boy who was beaten, and a white boy who witnessed it.
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The prolific author tackled difficult issues of race in novels and poetry. He used his writing to challenge assumptions about African-Americans, including civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. -
A dedicated group of fathers in Los Angeles is working to help neighborhood dads do better by their children and their community. -
Saturday marked the 50th anniversary of the successful crossing of the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, a key moment in the civil rights movement. Journalist Ethel Payne was there. -
Oprah Winfrey has named Ruby, a novel about a beautiful, abused woman in Texas, as her March book club selection. That could make first-time novelist Cynthia Bond into a literary star.
