The Women of Brooklyn’s Well-Read Black Girl Book Club
Antoinette Isama, 26, Associate Editor “I was in high school when I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
On Saturday, Glory Edim hosted the second annual Well-Read Black Girl Festival, an extension of her Brooklyn-based IRL and online book club of the same name. She and more than 300 supporters descended upon Pioneer Works in Red Hook for a series of panels, readings, and music performances to celebrate the joy of being a Well-Read Black Girl. Guests included poet Patricia Smith, award-winning memoirist Veronica Chambers, and Newbery honorees Jacqueline Woodson and Renée Watson.
The phenomenon started with a T-shirt, a gift made by Edim’s partner, featuring the phrase “Well-Read Black Girl,” “Erudita Puella Africae” (Educated Girls in Africa), and the names of some of her favorite authors. Inspired by conversations she struck up with strangers while wearing the shirt, Edim decided to start a book club. Since 2015, Well-Read Black Girl has grown into an Instagram community with more than 150,000 followers, where Edim shares the books she’s reading along with quotes from famous black women authors and leaders. To be a part of the WRBG Book Club, you can sign up for Edim’s bi-monthly newsletter, which announces each book of the month and details on how to attend the monthly meetings in person or online.
Edim also edited a book released late last month, Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves, in which she asked some of the most prominent black women writers, including Gabourey Sidibe and Lynn Nottage, to write essays about a black author, character, or book that changed their lives. Between events at the festival, we pulled guests aside to ask the same question: Which black woman author has changed the way you think, and why? Just like the writers Edim celebrates in her book club, their answers are varied and inspiring.
Gina Cherelus, 26, Journalist
“Within the last three years, I'd say Assata Shakur'sautobiography, that blew me away. Mainly because I didn't really know too much of her story. I learned about her when I was at Florida A&M University. Her feeling like an outsider in where you were, your first feeling of rejection of what's normal and what you're told you should accept because that's just the way it is as a black woman, and how she turned her back to that, found herself, and was just a leader in her own right. That changed my life. I didn't know all that she had gone through, through the Black Panther Party, running from the FBI, settling in Cuba. We had this black superwoman in our midst, and it's not a fictional story.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Within the last three years, I'd say Assata Shakur'sautobiography, that blew me away. Mainly because I didn't really know too much of her story. I learned about her when I was at Florida A&M University. Her feeling like an outsider in where you were, your first feeling of rejection of what's normal and what you're told you should accept because that's just the way it is as a black woman, and how she turned her back to that, found herself, and was just a leader in her own right. That changed my life. I didn't know all that she had gone through, through the Black Panther Party, running from the FBI, settling in Cuba. We had this black superwoman in our midst, and it's not a fictional story.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Pilar Walker, 30, Licensed Mental Health Counselor
“I read Gabrielle Union’s book recently [We’re Going to Need More Wine]. There's common things that I went through. She's a black woman but she grew up in a very suburban area feeling like she had to act a certain way when she was around certain people. Then growing into who she was and not trying to like feel like she has to [code switch] depending on the group of friends she was around. I felt that was very heartwarming because growing up in the Bronx, and I also lived in Florida, I felt like when I'm around certain people I have to act a certain way. [The book showed me] I wasn't the only one like that, there wasn't anything wrong with me, and I can become who I am, understanding the different experiences I've had no matter who I'm around.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I read Gabrielle Union’s book recently [We’re Going to Need More Wine]. There's common things that I went through. She's a black woman but she grew up in a very suburban area feeling like she had to act a certain way when she was around certain people. Then growing into who she was and not trying to like feel like she has to [code switch] depending on the group of friends she was around. I felt that was very heartwarming because growing up in the Bronx, and I also lived in Florida, I felt like when I'm around certain people I have to act a certain way. [The book showed me] I wasn't the only one like that, there wasn't anything wrong with me, and I can become who I am, understanding the different experiences I've had no matter who I'm around.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Dominique Thomas, 27, Research Coordinator
“My favorite black author would have to be Alice Walker. The Color Purple is my favorite book of all time. I love the style that it's written in. Journaling is something that's personal and important to me. And, reading a book about journalism, black women, strong black women, and the struggles that they had to face during that period, overcoming those and coming together as sisterhood is a very valuable thing in the black community. I love to see that in literature and in stories and in our storytelling.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“My favorite black author would have to be Alice Walker. The Color Purple is my favorite book of all time. I love the style that it's written in. Journaling is something that's personal and important to me. And, reading a book about journalism, black women, strong black women, and the struggles that they had to face during that period, overcoming those and coming together as sisterhood is a very valuable thing in the black community. I love to see that in literature and in stories and in our storytelling.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Selihah White, 25, Book Publishing
“Most recently, one of the books that touched me was Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson. Who is here tonight [at the festival], which is amazing! I saw so much of my younger self in that book … I thought that I had known myself, but it was nice to take a step back and read stories about a girl that really resonated with me, and I think it's affected my reading practices a little bit differently. I think I look for my younger self in books now.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Most recently, one of the books that touched me was Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson. Who is here tonight [at the festival], which is amazing! I saw so much of my younger self in that book … I thought that I had known myself, but it was nice to take a step back and read stories about a girl that really resonated with me, and I think it's affected my reading practices a little bit differently. I think I look for my younger self in books now.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Kukukwa Ashun, 22, New York University Student
“Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. I read it senior year of high school and I literally loved everything about it. I can't even put into words how much that changed my life! Seeing a book written by a black woman, studying it in class, when curriculum is predominately white and about white authors, it was just refreshing. Completely. I remember it. I still carry Song of Solomon to this day, from high school.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. I read it senior year of high school and I literally loved everything about it. I can't even put into words how much that changed my life! Seeing a book written by a black woman, studying it in class, when curriculum is predominately white and about white authors, it was just refreshing. Completely. I remember it. I still carry Song of Solomon to this day, from high school.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Candice Hoyes, 38, Recording Artist
“Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I think she found so much power in the way she told those love stories in the book, and I love the way she kept all the vernacular in tact. She told the story in so many levels and so powerfully, in a time where there was no permission for a woman to tell stories like that. The more that I studied [Hurston]’s life, the more she influenced me. The album that I'm recording right now, Love Liberates, is all inspired by oral histories. One of them is a story Zora Neale Hurston told about being a child and chasing the moon. I use her words, as the lyrics, so everything that I read and formed my mind early in life, is coming into my composition now.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I think she found so much power in the way she told those love stories in the book, and I love the way she kept all the vernacular in tact. She told the story in so many levels and so powerfully, in a time where there was no permission for a woman to tell stories like that. The more that I studied [Hurston]’s life, the more she influenced me. The album that I'm recording right now, Love Liberates, is all inspired by oral histories. One of them is a story Zora Neale Hurston told about being a child and chasing the moon. I use her words, as the lyrics, so everything that I read and formed my mind early in life, is coming into my composition now.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Antonia Adams, 25, Kindergarten Teacher
“Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing, is a compilation of work by a bunch of leaders and well known black authors. There's stuff from Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni, the names that we're very familiar with. The anthology is kind of organized over the space of time; writing from the reconstruction period to when we were dealing with the civil-rights movement, and moving into today. Seeing how people have fought for their right to be literate, to enjoy and engage with books, to write and how literacy was always a path for freedom for the black community.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Black Ink: Literary Legends on the Peril, Power, and Pleasure of Reading and Writing, is a compilation of work by a bunch of leaders and well known black authors. There's stuff from Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni, the names that we're very familiar with. The anthology is kind of organized over the space of time; writing from the reconstruction period to when we were dealing with the civil-rights movement, and moving into today. Seeing how people have fought for their right to be literate, to enjoy and engage with books, to write and how literacy was always a path for freedom for the black community.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Morgan Cuffie, 36, English Teacher/Podcaster/Writer
“I'm going to have to say Ntozake Shange. I just was speaking to somebody about how Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo, is like literally the book I go to when I need to remind myself to be unapologetically myself. To remind myself it's okay to be in my skin, it's okay to feel the feelings I feel, have had the relationships I've moved past, and start the relationships I'm about to start.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I'm going to have to say Ntozake Shange. I just was speaking to somebody about how Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo, is like literally the book I go to when I need to remind myself to be unapologetically myself. To remind myself it's okay to be in my skin, it's okay to feel the feelings I feel, have had the relationships I've moved past, and start the relationships I'm about to start.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Amma Addo, 37, Admin for a Nonprofit
“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf (by Ntozake Shange). It was before the black community started paying attention to mental illness, and I remember when I was a child always being extra sensitive, and for some reason [this book] just articulated that it's okay to not be okay. Also, the importance of having a sister circle to go to. I just love the camaraderie amongst the characters, even though they seemed completely different, they were still supportive of each other.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf (by Ntozake Shange). It was before the black community started paying attention to mental illness, and I remember when I was a child always being extra sensitive, and for some reason [this book] just articulated that it's okay to not be okay. Also, the importance of having a sister circle to go to. I just love the camaraderie amongst the characters, even though they seemed completely different, they were still supportive of each other.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Eboni Ewart, 31, Corporate Banking
“I recently read, An American Marriage[by Tayari Jones], that was the one that I felt in my soul! Just to connect with someone's real experience when their husband goes away. He [is sent to prison and] not guilty, and they lose five years of their marriage. From my perspective, I've been married for eight years, and if that were my husband, because that could have been my husband, what would I have done? That was a book that really changed my life and my perspective.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I recently read, An American Marriage[by Tayari Jones], that was the one that I felt in my soul! Just to connect with someone's real experience when their husband goes away. He [is sent to prison and] not guilty, and they lose five years of their marriage. From my perspective, I've been married for eight years, and if that were my husband, because that could have been my husband, what would I have done? That was a book that really changed my life and my perspective.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Dana Nurse, 24, NYC Public School Teacher
“Staceyann Chin, she is a Jamaican poet. I started reading her in high school. When I first got introduced to her, she was a Def Jam poet. She really changed my life as a poet, because she was the first black female, lesbian, Caribbean poet, that I had ever encountered. That really made me feel like, ‘Okay, there's a place for me in this work.’ She also spoke very openly about her sexuality and did not change pronouns in her poems to appease folks. She was very stylistic in the way she performed, and that was revolutionary for me as a 16-year-old girl.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Staceyann Chin, she is a Jamaican poet. I started reading her in high school. When I first got introduced to her, she was a Def Jam poet. She really changed my life as a poet, because she was the first black female, lesbian, Caribbean poet, that I had ever encountered. That really made me feel like, ‘Okay, there's a place for me in this work.’ She also spoke very openly about her sexuality and did not change pronouns in her poems to appease folks. She was very stylistic in the way she performed, and that was revolutionary for me as a 16-year-old girl.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Glory Edim, 35, Founder of Well Read Black Girl
“I have several books that have left a lasting impact on my life. Without question Maya Angelou’s I KnowWhy the Caged Bird Sings is one of the novels that just made me feel accepted. I was really in love with the dialogue and the really unconventional life that Maya Angelou lived. She was someone who was very fearless and lived her life without any judgement, she really was a risk-taker. It was the first time I was able to see myself in a book and in a story as a black woman, and I've read several times that her goal was to really write stories for young black girls to see themselves, to grow into the women they were meant to be, and I just thought that was so profound. I feel that so much of my mission is connected to that. To writing into the invisible spaces and breaking out of conformity and really being your own woman, in any sense, whatever that means to you. I thank Maya Angelou for that.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I have several books that have left a lasting impact on my life. Without question Maya Angelou’s I KnowWhy the Caged Bird Sings is one of the novels that just made me feel accepted. I was really in love with the dialogue and the really unconventional life that Maya Angelou lived. She was someone who was very fearless and lived her life without any judgement, she really was a risk-taker. It was the first time I was able to see myself in a book and in a story as a black woman, and I've read several times that her goal was to really write stories for young black girls to see themselves, to grow into the women they were meant to be, and I just thought that was so profound. I feel that so much of my mission is connected to that. To writing into the invisible spaces and breaking out of conformity and really being your own woman, in any sense, whatever that means to you. I thank Maya Angelou for that.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Jessica Artis, 40, Food Industry
“Recently, I read Passing by Nella Larsen, and some of the things she said in the 1920s are still relevant today in 2018. Especially how the times have been, the culture right now. I feel like people always are looked down upon. When they're trying to speak up about different rights people are like, ‘That's old news,’ and I'm like, ‘Racism is very real,’ colorism is very real, and these things are happening right now.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Recently, I read Passing by Nella Larsen, and some of the things she said in the 1920s are still relevant today in 2018. Especially how the times have been, the culture right now. I feel like people always are looked down upon. When they're trying to speak up about different rights people are like, ‘That's old news,’ and I'm like, ‘Racism is very real,’ colorism is very real, and these things are happening right now.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Chelsea Warren, 24, Marketing Assistant
“I've been reading the biography of Assata Shakur [Assata: An Autobiography], and I feel like that book just really put things in perspective for me. Like, women taking charge of themselves, reclaiming their power against challenges, and knowing that they have to work within in order for everything to be external and manifest what they can. For now, I'm really looking in the past and then kind of balancing it out to the future.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I've been reading the biography of Assata Shakur [Assata: An Autobiography], and I feel like that book just really put things in perspective for me. Like, women taking charge of themselves, reclaiming their power against challenges, and knowing that they have to work within in order for everything to be external and manifest what they can. For now, I'm really looking in the past and then kind of balancing it out to the future.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Maya Iginla, 30, Marketing and Communications
“The one that always comes to my mind first is Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It changed my life because her perspective of writing about blackness, and her observation of what that entails in American culture as an African, coming in as an outsider and her perception of how she didn't even realize that she was black until she came to the U.S. and what that all really meant, really resonated with me a lot. I'm half Nigerian and I've long kind of felt like an outsider in black culture here, not really sure how to claim that. I think it was really, really refreshing and resonated with me. It helped me to claim and understand my own blackness and feel like it could come in many different forms.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“The one that always comes to my mind first is Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It changed my life because her perspective of writing about blackness, and her observation of what that entails in American culture as an African, coming in as an outsider and her perception of how she didn't even realize that she was black until she came to the U.S. and what that all really meant, really resonated with me a lot. I'm half Nigerian and I've long kind of felt like an outsider in black culture here, not really sure how to claim that. I think it was really, really refreshing and resonated with me. It helped me to claim and understand my own blackness and feel like it could come in many different forms.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Marleine Marcelin, 28, Social Work Graduate Student
“Ntozake Shange. I think maybe it's because of her recent death, but For Colored Girls truly and honestly changed my life. I was exposed to that book in college, before then I hadn't heard of her. I was a part of an organization that was putting on a play based on that book, and I got to be The Lady in Green, so it was really fascinating to read the entire book and read her poems. I think that each and every single one of those poems gave language to what it is that I was experiencing as a woman of color at a predominately white institution, but also the beauty of becoming a black woman and being comfortable in my own skin.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Ntozake Shange. I think maybe it's because of her recent death, but For Colored Girls truly and honestly changed my life. I was exposed to that book in college, before then I hadn't heard of her. I was a part of an organization that was putting on a play based on that book, and I got to be The Lady in Green, so it was really fascinating to read the entire book and read her poems. I think that each and every single one of those poems gave language to what it is that I was experiencing as a woman of color at a predominately white institution, but also the beauty of becoming a black woman and being comfortable in my own skin.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Lauren Morrow, 31, Arts Public Relations
“I would say Zadie Smith really impacted me as a reader and as a writer. I think On Beauty was the first book of hers that I read. I think I read it probably when I was in college. I was just really struck by the depth and complexity of her characters and how much I could relate to them, and the humor that she injected into her writing.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I would say Zadie Smith really impacted me as a reader and as a writer. I think On Beauty was the first book of hers that I read. I think I read it probably when I was in college. I was just really struck by the depth and complexity of her characters and how much I could relate to them, and the humor that she injected into her writing.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Nicole Acheampong, 23, Publicity Assistant at Riverhead Books
“Currently, I would say Claudia Rankine, I'm constantly returning to her. I’m inspired by the way she mixes genre, and the way she is unafraid of both the emotional and the academic tone. So I always go back to her.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Currently, I would say Claudia Rankine, I'm constantly returning to her. I’m inspired by the way she mixes genre, and the way she is unafraid of both the emotional and the academic tone. So I always go back to her.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Antoinette Isama, 26, Associate Editor
“I was in high school when I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. That kind of put a lot in perspective for me. That there are young, black women writers reflecting or documenting my culture. I'm Nigerian American, and, you know, aside from Things Fall Apart [by Chinua Achebe], growing up I didn't really learn too much about where I come from in schools. I had to go out of my way to find that out. So, for that to be one of her first mainstream best sellers was really cool to see, and kind of put that stamp, like, ‘we're out here, we have stories that aren't all about war, and conflict.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I was in high school when I read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. That kind of put a lot in perspective for me. That there are young, black women writers reflecting or documenting my culture. I'm Nigerian American, and, you know, aside from Things Fall Apart [by Chinua Achebe], growing up I didn't really learn too much about where I come from in schools. I had to go out of my way to find that out. So, for that to be one of her first mainstream best sellers was really cool to see, and kind of put that stamp, like, ‘we're out here, we have stories that aren't all about war, and conflict.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Tameka Davis, 33, Influencer Marketing and Public Relations
“Zadie Smith. Most recently I read Swing Time. It stood out to me, because she took the love of dance and followed a very difficult friendship. And, even though they stopped being friends, I kind of had that in my adolescence. Sometimes it felt like it was hard being friends with other black women and you're wondering what that was about. [In the book], they always still have this bond and even though there was this competition, the friendship stood out and could continue.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Zadie Smith. Most recently I read Swing Time. It stood out to me, because she took the love of dance and followed a very difficult friendship. And, even though they stopped being friends, I kind of had that in my adolescence. Sometimes it felt like it was hard being friends with other black women and you're wondering what that was about. [In the book], they always still have this bond and even though there was this competition, the friendship stood out and could continue.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Keisha, 36, Senior Adviser for a City Agency
“The book that I read most recently that had the biggest impact was The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. I think if I had read that book when I was about 12 years old, that really would have changed my life. It's about a Dominican girl growing up in East Harlem. She’s a poet, and she kind of has to hide it from her family — her very strict, super Catholic mother, which I identify with. So many things happen in the book that allow her to come into being who she is and accepting she’s this woman who's a writer, and she's really good at what she does. I never saw anything like that when I was a kid, and I read tons of books. There was never anyone my age who grew up in an immigrant family who had a lot of pressure to succeed and was just like, ‘I wanna be a writer, and this is what I’m gonna do because I know that I'm good at it.’” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“The book that I read most recently that had the biggest impact was The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo. I think if I had read that book when I was about 12 years old, that really would have changed my life. It's about a Dominican girl growing up in East Harlem. She’s a poet, and she kind of has to hide it from her family — her very strict, super Catholic mother, which I identify with. So many things happen in the book that allow her to come into being who she is and accepting she’s this woman who's a writer, and she's really good at what she does. I never saw anything like that when I was a kid, and I read tons of books. There was never anyone my age who grew up in an immigrant family who had a lot of pressure to succeed and was just like, ‘I wanna be a writer, and this is what I’m gonna do because I know that I'm good at it.’” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Raquel Thompson, 34, Senior Program Manager
“I just reread Chimamanda's Americanah. The first time I read it I was living in Kenya for a couple of years and just coming back from spending a few months across Europe. On that trip across Europe I purposely sought out a bunch of black folks, because growing up here in the U.S., in Brooklyn specifically, you don't encounter black Europeans. I was living in Kenya with a bunch of black feminists, and that book connected the dots in not a way that was romanticizing the connection between all groups but also saying the things that I saw as a challenge. In the book she explores that. During that time I felt I was doing the same, being a black woman, spending time in a bunch of spaces, observing, trying to connect with, but mostly just observing the black women in the different parts of this world. So, it was cool and it made me start writing as well.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I just reread Chimamanda's Americanah. The first time I read it I was living in Kenya for a couple of years and just coming back from spending a few months across Europe. On that trip across Europe I purposely sought out a bunch of black folks, because growing up here in the U.S., in Brooklyn specifically, you don't encounter black Europeans. I was living in Kenya with a bunch of black feminists, and that book connected the dots in not a way that was romanticizing the connection between all groups but also saying the things that I saw as a challenge. In the book she explores that. During that time I felt I was doing the same, being a black woman, spending time in a bunch of spaces, observing, trying to connect with, but mostly just observing the black women in the different parts of this world. So, it was cool and it made me start writing as well.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Shirley Noel, 29, Pastoral Counselor and Student for Marriage and Family Therapy
“The first one that comes to mind for sure is Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of my favorites! I used to read it every year, just because her main character Janie, I love that she made mistakes, but she was striving to figure out who she was and how she wanted others to occupy her space. She was the first time I was able to see a woman be able to say she's more than so and so's wife or so and so's child, which has stuck around with me. Even now, being married, still being able to say, ‘but I'm Shirley,’ yes, I'm unified with someone else, but I am myself, and that's enough.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“The first one that comes to mind for sure is Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of my favorites! I used to read it every year, just because her main character Janie, I love that she made mistakes, but she was striving to figure out who she was and how she wanted others to occupy her space. She was the first time I was able to see a woman be able to say she's more than so and so's wife or so and so's child, which has stuck around with me. Even now, being married, still being able to say, ‘but I'm Shirley,’ yes, I'm unified with someone else, but I am myself, and that's enough.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Deana Haggag, 31, CEO of United States Artists
“I cannot get Whatever Happened to Interracial Love [by Kathleen Collins] out of my head. I'm just like, that woman died years ago and we're celebrating her now? How the hell are we celebrating Kathleen Collins this far out of her passing and how much black female genius existed that we did not recognize, that we did not see? That book, the idea that it's 2018 and almost every part of it is still relevant, I'm like, ‘Damn, what?’ I'm also thinking a little bit about the names we say and the names we don't even know to say. That one has just really sat with me since I picked it up last year, I guess it's just really penetrated my psyche.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I cannot get Whatever Happened to Interracial Love [by Kathleen Collins] out of my head. I'm just like, that woman died years ago and we're celebrating her now? How the hell are we celebrating Kathleen Collins this far out of her passing and how much black female genius existed that we did not recognize, that we did not see? That book, the idea that it's 2018 and almost every part of it is still relevant, I'm like, ‘Damn, what?’ I'm also thinking a little bit about the names we say and the names we don't even know to say. That one has just really sat with me since I picked it up last year, I guess it's just really penetrated my psyche.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Tiffany Morris, 32, Management Consultant
“Zadie Smith, I actually fell in love with her essays. She has a collection of essays called Changing My Mindand the first essay in that collection is actually a response to another beautiful black female author, Zora Neale Hurston, and particularly it's a response to Their Eyes Were Watching God. She writes about black womanhood in that book as a thing that can almost be felt, and about the sisterhood you feel when you’re reading a black writer. That changed my life in that it made me realize the power — it changed my life in that it put into words something that I didn't realize I needed to feel, the feeling of being seen, and seeing someone else fully as a black woman. I don’t often feel that in my everyday life, but I feel it with books. It’s a really beautiful, very deep feeling of love with a stranger who you've never met. It changed me in realizing the beauty of that feeling.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“Zadie Smith, I actually fell in love with her essays. She has a collection of essays called Changing My Mindand the first essay in that collection is actually a response to another beautiful black female author, Zora Neale Hurston, and particularly it's a response to Their Eyes Were Watching God. She writes about black womanhood in that book as a thing that can almost be felt, and about the sisterhood you feel when you’re reading a black writer. That changed my life in that it made me realize the power — it changed my life in that it put into words something that I didn't realize I needed to feel, the feeling of being seen, and seeing someone else fully as a black woman. I don’t often feel that in my everyday life, but I feel it with books. It’s a really beautiful, very deep feeling of love with a stranger who you've never met. It changed me in realizing the beauty of that feeling.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
Abby West, 45, Editor
“I'd have to say, Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. It was one of the first moments of feeling seen and sort of knowing that someone that looked like me and someone with a messy, tragic, inspiring, powerful story had a place in literature. I was a teen when I first read it. Beautiful writing, by a black woman, about a black woman, it made sense for me.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
“I'd have to say, Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye. It was one of the first moments of feeling seen and sort of knowing that someone that looked like me and someone with a messy, tragic, inspiring, powerful story had a place in literature. I was a teen when I first read it. Beautiful writing, by a black woman, about a black woman, it made sense for me.” Photo: Miranda Barnes
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