Staying Tuned: Contemporary Soap Opera Criticism examines serials. Broadcast first in 1926 on radio and since 1956 on television Monday through Friday 52 weeks a year, soap operas provide a clear promise to continue for as long as mass medicated entertainment exists. Over the last sixty years, billions have happily suffered along with the gallant men and women of the afternoon. A growing body of scholarly literature exists now to provide insights and suggest answers to the question of why so many continually return to the routine tragedies of daytime drama. Each of our chapters explores an aspect of soap opera which contributes to the endurance of the genre.

"On first meeting, you may not suspect that Tania Hernandez is a bawn Jamaican. A mix of various ethnicities, she embodies the Jamaican motto 'Out of many, one people.' But if her appearance doesn't immediately signal her Jamaicaness, there can be no doubt when the flavour and colour of the island dialect rolls off her tongue. At her performances, where she channels the spirit of the late Jamaican folklorist Louise Bennett-Coverley (Miss Lou), Tania has audiences mesmerized. Through poems, riddles, stories, and songs, she weaves the textured, poetic, and complex tale of the Island. One Pot delivers the same exuberant storytelling and poetry. Blended with recipes that marry traditional Jamaican and worldly cuisine, it mek yuh belly bus' with good food and lively tales. The pages are perfectly seasoned with catchy phrases and cultural witticisms told in the inimitable language and style of Miss Tania Lou (stage name). Dis book noice, yuh see!" -Grace Cameron, editor and publisher JamaicanEats magazine, www.jamaicaneats.com Tania Hernandez, lovingly known as Miss Tania Lou, is a Jamaican-born Canadian who has been performing cultural songs, stories, poems, and skits for over 20 years in Canada, at schools and private functions. She has delighted crowds at the Heritage Singers 40th Anniversary Celebration at the Toronto Centre for the Arts; at "Miss Lou's Room" at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto--a space dedicated to Jamaica's cultural icon, the Hon. Dr. Louise Bennett-Coverley; at the farewell ceremony for Jamaican High Commissioner to Ottawa, Her Excellency Janice Miller; and for the Consul General to Toronto, Mr. Lloyd Wilks. In 2019 she performed at "This is Your Festival" in Gage Park, one of Ontario's largest festivals. Of herself, Tania says, "I provide nostalgia of the good ol' days when there was no TV, or just a black-and-white television. Many people would tell Anancy and other stories in their yard, listen to "Dulcimina," Ranny, and Miss Lou's show on the radio, watch "Ring Ding," go to pantomimes--maintaining a rich, vibrant Jamaican-Caribbean-African heritage whilst they "buss dem belly wid laugh." Tania is a wife, mother, grandmother, mentor, special education teacher, and recording artist who loves reading, jog-walking, sight-seeing, and cooking.

From the author of the National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf and the WINNER of the 2015 Man Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings "An undeniable success.” — The New York Times Book Review A true triumph of voice and storytelling, The Book of Night Women rings with both profound authenticity and a distinctly contemporary energy. It is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they- and she-will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age they see her as the key to their plans. But when she begins to understand her own feelings, desires, and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman, and risks becoming the conspiracy's weak link. But the real revelation of the book-the secret to the stirring imagery and insistent prose-is Marlon James himself, a young writer at once breath­takingly daring and wholly in command of his craft.