Tight Spaces

“Not since Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf has there been writing by Black women that has clearly been such a potent laying-on of hands to the spirit that keeps us all keeping-on.”—Small Press Review

“Cherry, Kesho, and Egyirba are talented writers who have folded and tucked novels and short stories into the slim, sketchy pages of their mingled tight spaces. Their essays reveal the dark, familiar hiding places of many black women, the pain of sisterly rivalry, the carefully choreographed dance of mother/daughter relationships, the confusion of puberty and adolescence, the innocent but sometimes crafty transition from looking to touching to sex, the tenderness of maturity, the serenity of 'hush.'”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Three of the most remarkable things about Tight Spaces are its collective creation, its genre-defying genre and its stylistic innovations (varieties of black wimmin's sensual, lyrical, descriptive, humorous language).”—Women's Review of Books

“Tight Spaces gives voice to the difficult odds against which Black women must struggle to become fully themselves. Many of its characters lose their chances to family, to men, to children, to poverty, to madness, to addiction, to not enough elbow room for their souls. Rightly, the book pays attention to casualties as well as to survivors. For the authors, survivors themselves, it is a celebration of life, of creativity. And of the healing power of friends, who are both inspiration for and mirror to the self.”—Belles Lettres