Deborah Willis

A Novel

Girlfriend on Mars

Vanishing and other stories

“The emotional range and depth of these stories, their clarity and deftness, is astonishing.” —Alice Munro A finalist for the Governor General’s Awards, Vanishing and Other Stories is the stunning debut short story collection from Deborah Willis. Evocative and passionately written, Vanishing brilliantly explores emotional and physical absences; the ways in which people leave and are left; and whether it’s ever possible to move on.

Vanishing and Other Stories

African-American images from the 1890s to the present

Posing beauty

Vanderzee

Kellie Jones

Richard Cándida Smith

James Christen Steward

Lowery Stokes Sims

Extending the Frozen Moment

Betye Saar

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE* “A sharp, funny take on capitalism, climate change, and our lifelong mission to be loved.” —People A funny, poignant, and page-turning debut novel that skewers billionaire-funded space travel in a love story of interplanetary proportions. Amber Kivinen is moving to Mars. Or at least, she will be if she wins a chance to join MarsNow. She and twenty-three reality TV contestants from around the world—including a handsome Israeli, an endearing fellow Canadian, and an assortment of science nerds and wannabe influencers—are competing for two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars, sponsored by billionaire Geoff Task. Meanwhile Kevin, Amber’s boyfriend of fourteen years, was content going nowhere until Amber left him—and their hydroponic weed business—behind. As he tends to the plants growing in their absurdly overpriced Vancouver basement apartment, Kevin tunes in to find out why the love of his life is so determined to leave the planet with somebody else. An audaciously original debut from an “immensely talented writer” (Emily St. John Mandel), Girlfriend on Mars is at once a satirical indictment of our pursuit of fame and wealth amidst environmental crisis, and an exploration of humanity’s deepest longing, greatest quest, and most enduring cliché: love.

A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present

Reflections in Black

Chris Johnson

Natasha L. Logan

Black males in America

Question bridge

A Celebration of a Culture

Black

Hundreds of photographs documenting the everyday and the extraordinary in black lives. Tucked away in the dusty halls of the Smithsonian archives and neglected by most historians, photographic images of black culture represent a vast, complex, interconnected web of different people, trends, and lifestyles. Although so much is absent from our collective memory, Deborah Willis has dug through the archives and hunted down the remnants that tell the wonderful and tragic history of a people. Tackling all subjects with bravery and frankness, Deborah Willis’s work is a treasure to behold. This collection presents the vibrant panorama of 20th-century black culture in America and beyond, forming one story that resonates throughout the world. Divided into segments that examine in detail such subjects as children, work, art, beauty, Saturday night, and Sunday morning, the photos detail the history and the evolution of a culture. Each photograph, hand-picked by Deborah Willis, America’s leading historian of African-American photography, celebrates the world of music, art, fashion, sports, family, worship, or play. With over 500 photographs from every time period from the birth of photography to the birth of hip hop, this book is a truly joyous exhibition of black culture. From Jesse Owens to Barry Bonds, Ella Fitzgerald to Halle Berry, street scenes to family portraits, Black: A Celebration of a Culture is an inspiration.

A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship

The Black Civil War Soldier

Katharine Derosier Weiss

Sean Ulmer

An illustrated collection of mixed-media collages by early twentieth-century African-American artist Betye Saar that blends spiritual, political, and cultural iconography to create complex works.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE Winner of the 2018 Western Canada Jewish Book Awards - Fiction - The Diamond Foundation Prize Nominated for the 2018 OLA Evergreen Award Energized, irreverent, novelistic stories full of longing, strange humour, and the complications of human entanglement from Governor General's Award nominee Deborah Willis The characters in these thirteen masterful and engaging stories exist on the edge of danger, where landscapes melt into dreamscapes and every house is haunted. A drug dealer's girlfriend signs up for the first manned mission to Mars. A girl falls in love with a man who wants to turn her into a bird. A teenage girl and her best friend test their relationship by breaking into suburban houses. A wife finds a gaping hole in the floor of the home she shares with her husband, a hole that only she can see. Full of longing and strange humour, these subtle, complex stories--about the love between a man and his pet crow, an alcoholic and his AA sponsor, a mute migrant and a newspaper reporter--show how love ties us to one another and to the world. The Dark and Other Love Stories announces the emergence of a wonderfully gifted storyteller whose stories enlarge our perceptions about the human capacity to love.

The Dark and Other Love Stories

*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE* “Every detail is sharply placed . . . a scorching sense of humour and a soft spot for humanity down here on Earth.” —The New York Times “Fleishman Is in Trouble, but in space.” —Bobby Palmer “A sharp, funny take on capitalism, climate change, and our lifelong mission to be loved.” —People What if the person you loved was on another planet? Kevin is a thirtysomething homebody, happily committed to his hydroponics-expert girlfriend, Amber, as they grow weed in their basement in Vancouver. Out of the blue, Amber announces that she has been selected for a reality show where she will compete for one of two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars. If selected, she must stay on Mars for good, because the technology to come home doesn't exist yet. Is this a suicide mission or a bold new frontier? Girlfriend on Mars is the story of love unravelling in a world where truth is dictated by Facebook ads and "reality TV" is as scripted as any politician's speech. With rapt viewers voting for Amber to stay on the show and crates of Mars-mission branded protein shakes arriving at his door, is it any wonder Kevin wants to stay in the basement forever?

'Every detail is sharply placed ... a scorching sense of humor and a soft spot for humanity down here on Earth' The New York Times 'Fleishman Is In Trouble, but in space' Bobby Palmer Kevin is a thirtysomething homebody, happily committed to his hydroponics-expert girlfriend, Amber, as they grow weed in their basement in Vancouver. Out of the blue, Amber announces that she has been selected for a reality show where she will compete for one of two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars. If selected, she must stay on Mars for good, because the technology to come home doesn't exist yet. Is this a suicide mission or a bold new frontier? Girlfriend on Mars is the story of love unravelling in a world where truth is dictated by Facebook ads and 'reality TV' is as scripted as any politician's speech. With rapt viewers voting for Amber to stay on the show and crates of Mars-mission branded protein shakes arriving at his door, is it any wonder Kevin wants to stay in the basement forever?

David Levering Lewis

An incredible treasure trove of more than 150 illustrations detailing a small nation of African Americans prepared to make their mark on America

W. E. B. Du Bois and African American Portraits of Progress

A Small Nation of People

Saturday Night Sunday Morning

African American portraits

Let your motto be resistance

Eileen Myles

Catherine Opie

In the tradition of Robert Frank's photographs of the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and William Eggleston's 1976 "Election Eve" series, 100 photographs offer an intimate political and personal view of one of the most public days of a nation: the inauguration of Barack Obama as the country's first black president on January 20, 2009.

Inauguration

Deborah Willis

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