“Proper Library” appears in Ferrell's award-winning collection of short stories entitled Don't Erase Me (1997). Most of the stories in the collection portray the lives of poor back girls and women; the title story tells of a young woman whose stepfather has infected her with the HIV virus.

Streetlights: Illuminating Tales of the Urban Black Experience (1996) is a short story collection that includes both a story from Carolyn Ferrell and one from her late mentor, journalist Doris Jean Austin.

Doris Jean Austin's After the Garden (1988) follows the lives of a black family living in New Jersey in the 1940s and 1950s. Austin was known primarily as a journalist, and this novel was her fiction debut.

Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers (2000) includes Ferrell's story “Can You Say My Name?” as well as stories by noted authors Edwidge Danticat...