Sweet Dreams Radio
25 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago -Sweet Dreams Radio is the perfect podcast for people who suffer from sleeping difficulties. Host Lena Tyree reads works of fiction & poems written by Black authors. This is your new bedtime story. In honor of Black authors, inclusive to all. Allow the sound of Lena Tyree's soothing voice to ease you into a fortress of slumber. You deserve sweet dreams.
Homepage Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
25 Once Upon a Holiday: An Anthology
December 02, 2020 00:00 - 49 minutes - 34 MBWe're celebrating the entire month of December with stories of Holiday romance. This book is comprised of stories written by three of romance's most sizzling authors. Holiday Heat by Beverly Jenkins For Eve Clark, winter usually means long cold nights spent alone until she's persuaded to attend a masked ball. Abandoning her inhibitions, she shares a blissful tryst with a mysterious partner. Candy Christmas by Adrianne Byrd Peace on earth and goodwill to all men? Not if the man in questio...
24 Washington Black
November 25, 2020 00:00 - 47 minutes - 32.6 MBAuthor Esi Edugyan introduces us to the life of eleven-year-old George Washington Black—or Wash—a field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, who is initially terrified when he is chosen as the manservant of his master’s brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a lif...
23 The Wild Adventures of David Felipe
November 18, 2020 00:00 - 36 minutes - 25.2 MBDavid Jerome Hendricks brings us the life of David Felipe, a former police officer, and US Marine and US Army combat veteran of two wars. Felipe has formed his own spy agency and hires female assassins to do his dirty work from Medellin, Colombia to Grenada, West Indies. David Felipe lives a life of adventure, sex, murder, and secret deals. Hendricks is the featured first-time author this month. Having traveled the world while serving in both the US Marines and US Army, some of his own per...
22 An Unkindness of Ghosts
November 14, 2020 00:00 - 41 minutes - 28.8 MBIn this imaginative sci-fi novel, author Rivers Solomon introduces us to Aster who lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve h...
21 The Warmth of Other Suns
November 04, 2020 00:00 - 37 minutes - 26.2 MBAuthor Isabel Wilkerson chronicles the untold story of the Great Migration, an exodus of nearly six million African-Americans from the Jim Crow South to Northern and Western states. Using stunning historical detail and first-hand accounts, Wilkerson beautifully captures the cross country trips spanning over fifty years. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/sweetdreams_radio)
20 My Life on the Last Pew: A Collection of Thoughts from a Wandering Soul
October 27, 2020 23:00 - 37 minutes - 25.7 MBJarrett G. Pratt is a first-time author whose poetic style is designed to stimulate interactions that appeal to multiple generations. This project uses engaging humor and cultural imagery to deliver inspirational content to spoken word and poetic culture and the subculture of African American Manhood in these critical times. This book is a message of confidence in the voice of a young black educated man in America. My Life on the Last Pew is available for purchase here: https://www.amazon.c...
19 A Kind of Freedom
October 20, 2020 23:00 - 46 minutes - 32.2 MBIn her debut novel, author Margaret Wilkerson Sexton captures the emotional changes of one family spanning across three generations in New Orleans - a city impacted by segregation and economic inequality. The book highlights the societal forces at work to undermine Black success and the family unit but sheds light on the enduring love amidst the struggle. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/sweetdreams_radio)
18 Not Without Laughter
October 13, 2020 23:00 - 46 minutes - 32.3 MBAuthor Langston Hughes, a powerhouse of the Harlem Renaissance and best known for his poetry, published this debut novel in 1930. This stirring coming-of-age tale unfolds in 1930s rural Kansas. A poignant portrait of African-American family life in the early twentieth century, it follows the story of young Sandy Rogers as he grows from a boy to a man. It is a vivid exploration of growing up in a racially divided society, with an absentee father, and strong female figures. A rich and import...
17 Wild Women Don't Wear No Blues
October 06, 2020 23:00 - 43 minutes - 30 MBBringing together fourteen African-American women, author Marita Golden has compiled saucy and spicy essays that serve as an exploration into the contemporary black female psyche. These essays - nine of which were written expressly for this book - range in style and content from Audre Lorde's now-classic polemic on eroticism to Miriam DeCosta-Willis's moving essay about her husband to Audrey B. Chapman's hopeful "Black Men Do Feel About Love." Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/swee...
16 Kindred
September 29, 2020 23:00 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MBIn this novel, author Octavia Butler explores the dynamics and dilemmas of antebellum slavery from the sensibility of a time-traveling late 20th-century black woman, who is aware of its legacy in contemporary American society. Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South where she has encounters with her ancestors and becomes entangled in the planta...
15. Love, Loss, Found
September 15, 2020 23:00 - 40 minutes - 27.7 MBAuthor Tanisha Alston captures the literal (and sometimes not so literal) varying ranges of emotion of the title in this collection of eight short stories. Bringing to life rich characters experiencing various degrees of love, loss, and being found, Love, Loss, Found weaves together stories that take the reader on an emotional journey. Characters shine and envelop the reader in stories that highlight the discovery and loss of love, the mourning of old lives left behind, revelations of new l...
14. Here Comes the Sun
September 08, 2020 23:00 - 59 minutes - 40.9 MBIn this award-winning novel, Jamaican author Nicole Dennis-Benn explores the lives of two sisters who are fifteen years apart, with eldest sister Margot working to help make a better life for the youngest by becoming a sex worker. Thandi, the younger sister battles with what's expected of her versus what she really wants for her life moving forward. The sisters' tales intertwine with the story of their abusive mother, Delores. This novel deals with the intricacies of love, race, colorism, we...
13. A Lesson Before Dying
September 01, 2020 23:00 - 43 minutes - 30.2 MBIn this novel, loosely based on the life of Willie Francis, a young Black man twice sentenced to the electric chair, author Ernest J. Gaines poses the question - Knowing we're going to die, how should we live? It's the story of an uneducated young black man named Jefferson, accused of the murder of a white storekeeper, and Grant Wiggins, a college-educated native son of Louisiana, who teaches at a plantation school. These two men, named for presidents, discover a friendship that transforms a...
12. Satisfy My Soul
August 25, 2020 23:00 - 48 minutes - 33.3 MBColin Channer is a Jamaican born author, musician, and philanthropist. His writing style taps into spiritual, sensual, and social themes presented from a literary perspective, and as such, he has been referred to as "Bob Marley with a pen". In Satisfy My Soul, Carey McCullough is a playwright, whose life undergoes a dramatic change when he meets Frances, a former singer and member of a mystical African tribe. A one night stand quickly binds them not only by love and attraction but by histo...
11 I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This
August 18, 2020 23:00 - 49 minutes - 34 MBBorn in Ohio and raised primarily in South Carolina & Brooklyn, author Jacqueline Woodson draws inspiration from her roots. She consciously writes for a younger audience, making sure to write about youth with an adolescent audience in mind. Though the characters face difficulties, her books are known for their hope and optimism. In 'I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This', we observe the strength of a friendship between two middle school-aged girls as they explore race, love, power, and loss. Su...
10. The Love Unsaid
August 11, 2020 23:00 - 43 minutes - 29.9 MBAs an educator with a background in psychology and all-around creative, author Omar Rice enjoys writing about the human experience through musings, poetry, prose, and short stories. In this first published work, Rice explores the complexity of love and becoming a vessel of love. 'The Love Unsaid' challenges the way love is viewed and posits that love being the basis of every action is the only way to change the world. This thoughtful and inspiring book can be purchased here: https://www.am...
9. I Love Myself When I Am Laughing
August 04, 2020 23:00 - 45 minutes - 31.2 MBAuthor, playwright, and anthropologist, Zora Neal Hurston was a revolutionary during the Harlem Renaissance best known for her audaciousness, wit, and folk writing style. She conducted field research of folklore among African-Americans in the South, and her many accomplishments include several novels and a play co-written with Langston Hughes. She also served on the staff at North Carolina Central University as well as the Library of Congress. 'I Love Myself When I Am Laughing' is an anthol...
8. A Negro Explorer at the North Pole
July 28, 2020 23:00 - 48 minutes - 33.1 MBThis is an autobiographical tale from Matthew Alexander Henson, an American explorer, who accompanied Robert Peary on seven voyages into the Arctic and with whom he spent a total of 18 years on various expeditions. In 1937, Henson was the first African-American to be made a life member of the Explorers Club, a professional society that promotes scientific exploration and field study. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/sweetdreams_radio)
7. Minnie's Sacrifice
July 21, 2020 23:00 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MBA poet, fiction writer, journalist, and author, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper earned her reputation as the Mother of African-American journalism for her contributions to anti-slavery newspapers. She was a prolific speaker on the abolitionist circuit and helped slaves escape through the Underground Railroad. In Minnie's Sacrifice, the main character is of mixed-race heritage, but raised by Northern White adoptive parents. She later moves to the South after accidentally discovering her true h...
6. Shadow and Light
July 14, 2020 23:00 - 49 minutes - 34.1 MBAn autobiography with reminiscences of the last and present century, was published in 1902 by Mifflin Wistar Gibbs. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gibbs was a carpenter by trade, and later became an activist in the abolition movement, shared a platform with the likes of Frederick Douglass, and assisted in the efforts of the Underground Railroad. Gibbs would later go on to become the first Black elected municipal judge in the United States and was named U.S. Consul in Madagascar for a te...
5. Three Years in Europe: Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met
July 07, 2020 23:00 - 49 minutes - 34.1 MBAmerican novelist, William Wells Brown was an abolitionist, lecturer, playwright, and historian. He is considered to be the first African-American to publish a novel, and the first to have a play and travel book published. Born into slavery in Kentucky, Brown escaped to Ohio at the age of nineteen. This book, published in 1852, is a series of letters written while traveling through Europe. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/sweetdreams_radio)
4. The Sport of the Gods
June 30, 2020 23:00 - 48 minutes - 33.1 MBPaul Laurence Dunbar was an author, playwright, and poet who wrote a number of short stories and novels. He is noted as one of the first influential Black poets in American Literature. 'The Sport of the Gods' written in 1902, centers on a family that is forced to leave the South and subsequently falls apart amid the realities of Northern inner-city life. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/sweetdreams_radio)
3. Violets and Other Tales
June 23, 2020 23:00 - 46 minutes - 32.1 MBMrs. Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson was a poet, essayist, diarist, and activist. She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to mixed-race parents. Her heritage contributed to her complex understanding of gender, race, and ethnicity, topics she often addressed in her work. Her first book, Violets and Other Tales (1895) is a collection of short stories and poems in which she addresses topics such as racism, oppression, family, work, and sexuality. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/sweetdream...
2. The House Behind the Cedars
June 16, 2020 23:00 - 58 minutes - 39.9 MBAuthor Charles W. Chesnutt was a social and political activist. He was of mixed race and as such, some of his books deal with passing and miscegenation, including the novel The House Behind the Cedars. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/sweetdreams_radio)
1. Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands
June 16, 2020 20:00 - 49 minutes - 34.2 MBAuthor Mary Seacole was a nurse of the Crimean War, and a contemporary of Florence Nightingale. Mary was born in Jamaica and had both Scottish and African ancestry. This particular book is an autobiography of her life experiences. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/sweetdreams_radio)