Raymond Andrews' Early Sharecropping Life

The African American novelist's books include Appalachee Red, which won the James Baldwin Prize for Fiction, Rosiebelle Lee Wildcat Tennessee, and Baby Sweets. He's just published a memoir, The Last Radio Baby, about growing up the fourth of ten childen in a sharecropper family in rural Georgia.

Tate's whirlwind writing, which appeared in The Village Voice and Rolling Stone, often referenced pop culture, literary theory and the latest slang. He died Dec. 7. Originally broadcast in 1992.

Performance poet Sapphire has written a new novel, "Push," in the voice of a 16 year-old black girl named Precious Jones, who is pregnant for the second time by her father. Her world opens up when a teacher encourages her to learn to read and write. Sapphire taught reading and writing to teenagers and adults in Harlem and the Bronx for eight years. There's also a new edition of her book of poetry, "American Dreams."