Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. - book review

Black Issues Book Review, March-April, 2003 by Lynee Gore

I believe we can't deal with our problems unless they are first brought to light. While I don't want to contribute to negative stereotypes, I also don't want to write stock characters.

It is one of the reasons it's harder to be an African-American writer. White writers don't have a sense of duty, and are not honor-bound to show African Americans in all their true brilliance, wit and insight.

I also want to show the ugly side--our self-hatred as slave descendants in a country that told us that we don't represent an ideal of beauty.

What are you working on now?

I'm working on a novel about the Buffalo Soldiers, the post-Civil War African-American cavalry in the western plains.

--Interviewed by Lynee Gore

--Lynee Gore is a writer living in Brooklyn.

Lynee Gore, a former film and television executive, is a freelance writer who hails from Brooklyn, New York. She is currently hard at work on a memoir. Her review of newcomer ZZ Packer's collection of short stories, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, along with an interview with the writer, begin on page 40.