The Saturday Evening Quill: Stories, Poems & Plays by Boston's Women of the Harlem Renaissance

By Karen Rae Levine

Genres: History, General Fiction, Literary Fiction, Short/Flash Fiction Collection, General Poetry

Because the Harlem Renaissance wasn’t limited to Harlem.

Boston’s Saturday Evening Quill Club published its celebrated literary magazine, The Saturday Evening Quill, annually from 1928 to 1930. The three issues contain stories, poems, and plays by some of the most talented, prolific, and distinguished African American writers of the era.

W.E.B. Du Bois said of The Saturday Evening Quill, “Of the booklets issued by young Negro writers in New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere, this collection from Boston is by far the most interesting and the best.”

This complete collection, encompassing all three issues, honors the contributions by the women of the Saturday Evening Quill Club.

17 Stories, 2 Plays, 75 Poems m 2 Illustrated Poems for Children, by Dorothy West, Helene Johnson, Edythe Mae Gordon, Alvira Hazzard, Gertrude Schalk, Florida Ruffin Ridley, Alice E. Furlong, Florence Marion Harmon, Marion G. Conover, Gertrude Parthenia McBrown, Grace Vera Postles, and Lois M. Jones

Including three of Dorothy West’s early stories: “An Unimportant Man,” “Prologue to a Life,” and “Funeral”