African American Short Stories

What if you were raised to be a hooker and, worst of all, your father was your pimp? In "Keepin' It in the Family", this isn't just a nightmare for the Collins daughters, this is reality. Raised without the guidance of their mother, Diamond, Essence, and Chanel were forced onto the streets at a very young age. They were expected to make that money by any means necessary or face the wrath of their daddy, Dallas Collins. Can the girls band together to free themselves from Dallas?

After breaking up with his longtime girlfriend, Tyrese is heartbroken. Using the money he saved up for her engagement ring he goes to Las Vegas where he meets beautiful stripper, Aaliyah. After hitting it off in the club, the couple agrees to go on a date where a romance blossoms. Things get hot and heavy between the two and Tyrese realizes that Aaliyah is more than just a rebound. This African American erotic romance is less than 7,000 words and is for mature readers only.

There's a saying in Brooklyn that if you come from my part of town, you're from around the way. Well Lyric, Juicy, and Precious are all from around the way. They all live in Crown Heights, one of the most notorious sections of Brooklyn, but to them it's just a place they call home. Around the Way Girls 2 is a fast-paced look at the life of some street-smart women who think they know it all but are about to get the lessons of their lives.

Nathaniel is a well-intentioned, if naive, British cleric feeling blessed to educate a West African village about the benevolent power of God. But as slavers encroach, Nathaniel’s endeavor is daunted by the realities unfolding on the beautiful homeland of his congregation. It seems the Devil has power too. What follows for Nathaniel is a profound spiritual upheaval as he questions his purpose and even his humanity.

In this heart-warming short story, meet wife and mother Eugeena Patterson. Eugeena has always been the glue keeping her fragmented family together. When her teenage daughter is rushed to the hospital, Eugeena’s usual attempts to maintain peace in her family reach a breaking point. Will her troubled teenage daughter rip the family apart?

A group of women contemplate violence after they’re sent into foreign territory to make husbands of the enemy. A support network of traumatized joggers meets to discuss the bodies they’ve found on their runs. And a town replaces its Confederate monument with a rotating cast of local residents. Slippery but muscular, sly but electric, this stunning debut collection moves from horror to magical realism to satire with total authority. In these stories, characters build and remake their sense of home, be it with one another or within themselves.

Kyron Santos, Kaylin's older brother, was used by Tasha Macklin to get back at Trae for his infidelities, a relationship that ultimately ended in pregnancy, murder, broken relationships, and mistrust. No one knew about the court-ordered sessions that Kyron was forced to attend. At least not until Mari, his woman who stuck by him throughout the majority of his prison bid, dropped the recordings off to Trae Macklin, Tasha's husband.

There's a sayin' that if you come from my part of town, that you're from around the way. Around the Way Girls 4 is a look at the life of some street-smart women who think they have the world in the palm of their hands but are about to find out that things aren't always what they seem.

"Dizzy & Gillespie" unfolds as an emotionally rich mystery, intertwining the lives of a devoted daughter and her aging mother. Within their once-grand, now-fading New York City apartment, they face the relentless challenges of poverty, the encroaching tides of gentrification, and the relentless passage of time. Their bond, tested by life's struggles and their community's transformation, finds a glimmer of hope with the arrival of two rescue kittens, Dizzy and Gillespie. However, the actions of a new neighbor soon set off a chain of events that will alter their lives forever. This story ...

In her dynamic debut, Halle Hill’s Good Women delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. A woman boards a Greyhound bus barreling toward Florida to meet her sugar daddy’s mother; a state fair employee considers revenge on a local preacher; a sister struggles with guilt as she helps her brother plan to run away with a man he's seeing in secret; a young woman who works for a scam for-profit college navigates the lies she sells for a living.

"Stay Scheming": Karlie Houston is broke, betrayed - and running from a bounty on her head. Turns out the real owners of the payday loan office she ripped off weren't cool with her idea of employment bennies. "Who Can You Trust?": Struggling bank teller Porsha has no time for Cinderella fantasies. She's working overtime to keep her tragedy-struck family off the streets. But her new boyfriend, Game, is smart, seductive - and sure-thing successful. So why not work his rock-solid plan to steal from her bank?

In this nail biting sequel, we continue to run into more and more drama as everyone continues to un-wrap lie after lie and secret after secret in their lives. All Deon wants is peace and to live her life with her future husband to be Keven, but as always there are individuals that never want to see you happy. It seems that Deon just may get her peaceful ending; sometimes you should be careful of the words that come out your mouth. Keven is in a place in his life where he knows what and who he wants. Deon is the only one who holds his attention but we all know that God is truly the author of...

The reality of real love—passionate love—finds its way into the hearts and minds of people, differently, throughout one’s lifetime. On another note, sometimes what some may think is real love for so long, really isn’t. In book two of SA’ID: An Illicit Love, Sa’id goes to Yalina’s aid at the hospital, after hearing the unexpected, shocking news that she had been hurt by the hands of Ubah. When Yalina confesses her love to him through sedation, with reason, Sa’id finds it challenging to reciprocate. As the connection between Sa’id and Blythe grows stronger, he is there for ...

They say love conquers all… However, the question in this matter is, does Sa’id and Blythe’s love has what it takes to overcome the chaos with his wives? In book three of SA’ID: An Illicit Love, the madness continues as Sa’id and Amal take—the trip—to handle Ramsey; upon making their move, Sa’id changes the plan. After a week of making arrangements and staying away from Sa’id after finding out he is married, Blythe buries her mother at a private memorial with the company of LaStonia and Blair. While Yalina waits for her punishment from Sa’id, Ubah eavesdrops on a ...

A young Black girl watches as her aunt’s multiple suitors disrupt her family’s privacy. The same girl, now on the cusp of adulthood, shares her family’s growing fears that her father has disappeared. Acclaimed author Ann Petry penned these and the other unforgettable narratives in Miss Muriel and Other Stories more than 70 years ago, yet in them, contemporary listeners recognize characters who exist today and dilemmas that recur again and again.

Afice is the last of nine generations of women who have survived enslavement, sickness, and hunger. Alone at age seventeen, she sets out through the Louisiana swamps to follow the trail of her ancestors and hear their songs anew. On this journey, Afice must decide how to honor her ancestors while embracing her own future.

A northern white couple has relocated to the South to operate a vineyard on a North Carolina plantation. There, they pass their idle hours listening to the stories of one Uncle Julius, who has a deep knowledge of the land. These stories, however, are more than mere entertainments. They all have their time and place, and they offer not only a quiet commentary on the events of the day but also a deeper reckoning with the plantation’s disturbing past.

Calvin Snow is the new Associate Pastor of Mount Zion and the attention from the single ladies is becoming irresistible. Although his wife Savannah tries to keep things spicy in the bedroom, Calvin finds his life boring and predictable. The couple struggles to stay connected in the midst of all the adversity.

In this episode V of confessions of an Ex-Boyfriend, Cameron, Brandon and Clint decide to be a throuple but this situationship doesn’t last long when one of them becomes extremly jealous. My Confession: "I'm falling for my girlfriend's old man." Cameron is straight. He planned on marrying his girlfriend Samantha after graduation, but when he caught her cheating with his best friend, Bradley, his heart broke in two and he temporarily gave up on love. Later that evening, an older, masculine, and muscular man named Clint showed up at his door. He needed assistance with a problem that only ...

The woman she’s had a crush on for years needs a fake girlfriend, and Elana is ready to volunteer for the job! Toya is in a bind. Her little sister is getting married, and her mother is insisting she bring her girlfriend to the wedding. She’d told a little white lie to get her mom off her back, but now it’s backfiring. Her mom thinks she’s in a committed relationship, so Toya needs to find a pretend girlfriend, and fast. Elana fell in love with Toya the minute she set eyes on her. Unfortunately, she somehow went right into the friend zone. Elana has been hesitant to rock the boat, ...