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Martha Southgate

Goodreads Author

Born

in Cleveland OH, The United States

Website

http://www.marthasouthgate.com

Twitter

mesouthgate

Genre

Literature & Fiction

Influences

Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Chabon, E.L. Doctorow, Louise F ...more

Member Since

December 2007

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Martha Southgate is the author of four novels. Her newest, The Taste of Salt, is available in bookstores and online now. Her previous novel, Third Girl from the Left won the Best Novel of the Year award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was shortlisted for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy award. Her novel The Fall of Rome received the 2003 Alex Award from the American Library Association and was named one of the best novels of 2002 by Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post. She is also the author of Another Way to Dance, which won the Coretta Scott King Genesis Award for Best First Novel. She received a 2002 New York Foundation for the Arts grant and has received fellowships from the Ma ...more

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Martha Southgate’s books

Average rating: 3.64 · 3,518 ratings · 513 reviews · 9 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Taste of Salt 3.45 avg rating — 2,018 ratings — published 2011 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Third Girl from the Left 3.95 avg rating — 752 ratings — published 2005 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fall of Rome 3.82 avg rating — 634 ratings — published 2002 — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Another Way to Dance 3.61 avg rating — 93 ratings — published 1996 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dreaming Out Loud: African American Novelists at Work by Horace A. Porter (Editor), James Baldwin (Contributor), James Weldon Johnson (Contributor) 4.63 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2015 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pod Life: Podcasters' Stories by Robert Southgate, Martha Southgate (Goodreads Author), David Jackson 4.83 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2019 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Contemporary African American Literature: The Living Canon by Lovalerie King (Editor), Darryl Dickson-Carr (Contributor), Eve Dunbar (Contributor) 4.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2012 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dig If You Will the Picture: Writers Reflect on Prince by Sheila Squillante (Goodreads Author) (Editor & Contributor), E. Kristin Anderson (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), William Bradley (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2016	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fall of Rome: A Novel by Southgate, Martha (January 7, 2003) Paperback by Martha Southgate (Goodreads Author), Unknown Author 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Memento Park

by Mark Sarvas (Goodreads Author)

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Jun 01, 2019 12:36PM

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Quotes by Martha Southgate (?)

“In Tulsa, a girl would no sooner have run around with unstraightened hair than she would have run around naked. It would have been worse than running around naked, letting everyone see your naps (40).”
― Martha Southgate, Third Girl from the Left

tags: hair, midwest, natural-hair, self-esteem, white-supremacy

4 likes

“I was raised to respect books - the house was full of them. From the time I was little, it was drummed into our heads that books were almost the most important thing in the world, second only to getting a good education.”
― Martha Southgate, The Taste of Salt

tags: books, reading

4 likes

“You see that beauty as it finally is even though no one wants to see it as it is in a black woman in America, not a hoochie, not a ho, not a mammy, not a dyke, not a cliché, just a woman. A lot of women. Real women doing what they can, making art where they can, making their lives mean something where they can.”
― Martha Southgate, Third Girl from the Left

1 likes

See all Martha Southgate's quotes »

Polls

Which book would you like to see as the selection for our Winter 2011 Group Reads category African American Literature?

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

37 votes 29.6%

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

30 votes 24.0%

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

17 votes 13.6%

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill

10 votes 8.0%

Ain't No Sunshine by Leslie DuBois

7 votes 5.6%

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

7 votes 5.6%

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

6 votes 4.8%

The Kid by Sapphire

5 votes 4.0%

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

4 votes 3.2%

The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate

2 votes 1.6%

125 total votes

3 comments

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Martha’s Quotes

“The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the salt sea.”
― Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)

237 likes

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
― E.L. Doctorow, Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 2nd Series

tags: quoted-by-wally-lamb

417 likes