by Maeshay k. Lewis
For New Pittsburgh Courier

Novelist/essayist Fred Beauford made a very interesting statement in his editorial, “When Novels Mattered” in a recent issue of the Neworld Review. Speaking of the most famous Black novelist Ralph Ellison, he said he envied him for the fact that Ellison had great demands on him from both the Black and White community.

Today, some 57 years after publication of Ellison’s landmark “Invisible Man,” in the so-called “post-racial America,” Black writers have little demands made of them and are free to write whatever they can dream up/ And with the ease of self-publishing and print on-demand publishing, they can thumb their noses at the New York publishing establishment, publish their works themselves and still have a successful writing career.

So part of the present dilemma is what to do with all of this new-found freedom. Some of the answers can be found in an interesting new book, “Mediations and Ascensions: Black Writers on Writing,” edited by Dr. Brenda M. Greene and Fred Beauford. In this book, part of the proceedings from the eighth National Black Writers Conference at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, and published by Chicago’s Third World Press, some of America’s leading Black writers discussed the state of their craft.

What’s most intriguing about the content of this important book is just how far Black writers have come since Ellison’s days. Here we have the famous mystery writer, Valerie Wilson Wesley, expounding on the art of the murder mystery; and pages later, authors Samuel Delaney, Tananarive Due and Walter Mosley discuss the differences between speculative fiction and science fiction.

Despite the many advances made by Black authors, who are now writing in many genres, on may topic and not just race, Mediations and Ascensions also offers up some disquieting moments.

One panel’s takes a clear look at the often disconnect between the hip-hop generation and the civil rights generation.

The book also takes on the controversial subject of separate but equal book sections in Barnes & Noble and Border’s bookstores. “Meditations” co-editor Fred Beauford has been an especially harsh critic of what he calls modern day apartheid in the book-selling industry.

“Mediations and Ascensions: Black Writers on Writing” should be on anyone’s list of best books of the year. Congratulations to Third World Press for having the foresight to publish such a worthwhile book.

(“Meditations And Ascensions: Black Writers On Writing,” edited by Brenda Green and Fred Beauford, Third World Press (ISBN 0883782930) 224 p; $18.95.)