A soulful collection of illuminating essays and interviews that explore Black people's spiritual connection to the land and the climate justice crisis, curated by the acclaimed author of Farming While Black.
Author of Farming While Black and co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, Leah Penniman reminds us that ecological humility is an intrinsic part of Black cultural heritage. While racial capitalism has attempted to sever our connection to the sacred earth for 400 years, Black people have long seen the land and water as family and treating the Earth as a home essential.
This thought-provoking anthology brings together today's most respected and influential Black environmentalist voices. These varied and distinguished experts include Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Alice Walker; the first Queen Mother and official spokesperson for the Gullah/Geechee Nation, Queen Quet; marine biologist, policy expert, and founder and president of Ocean Collectiv, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson; and the Executive Director of the North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers, Land Loss Prevention Project, Savi Horne. These leaders address the essential connection between nature and our survival and how runaway consumption and corporate insatiability are harming the earth and every facet of American society, including racial violence, food apartheid, and climate justice.
Those whose skin is the color of soil are reviving their ancestral and ancient practice of listening to the earth for guidance. Penniman makes clear that the fight for racial and environmental justice demands that Black people put our planet first and defer to nature as our teacher.
Contributors include:
Alice Walker - adrienne maree brown - Dr. Ross Gay - Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson - Rue Mapp - Dr. Carolyn Finney - Audrey Peterman - Awise Agbaye Wande Abimbola - Kendra Pierre-Louis - Latria Graham - Awo Enroue Onigbonna Sangofemi Halfkenny - Dr. Lauret Savoy - Ibrahim Abdul-Matin - Savi Horne - Dr. Claudia Ford - Dr. J. Drew Lanham - Dr. Leni Sorensen - Queen Quet - Toshi Reagon - Yeye Luisah Teish - Yonnette Fleming - Naima Penniman - Angelou Ezeilo - James Edward Mills - Teresa Baker - Ira Wallace - Pandora Thomas - Toi Scott - Aleya Fraser - Chris Bolden-Newsome - Savonella Horne Esq - Dr. Joshua Bennett - B. Anderson - Chris Hill - Greg Watson - T. Morgan Dixon - Dr. Dorceta Taylor - Colette Pichon Battle Esq - Dillon Bernard - Sharon Lavigne - Steve Curwood
Virtuosic in his use of literary forms, nurtured and unbounded by his identities as a Black man, a gay man, an intellectual, and a Southerner, Randall Kenan was known for his groundbreaking fiction. Less visible were his extraordinary nonfiction essays, published as introductions to anthologies and in small journals, revealing countless facets of Kenan's life and work.
Flying under the radar, these writings were his most personal and autobiographical: memories of the three women who raised him--a grandmother, a schoolteacher great-aunt, and the great-aunt's best friend; recollections of his boyhood fear of snakes and his rapturous discoveries in books; sensual evocations of the land, seasons, and crops--the labor of tobacco picking and hog killing--of the eastern North Carolina lowlands where he grew up; and the food (oh the deliriously delectable Southern foods!) that sustained him. Here too is his intellectual coming of age; his passionate appreciations of kindred spirits as far-flung as Eartha Kitt, Gordon Parks, Ingmar Bergman, and James Baldwin. This powerful collection is a testament to a great mind, a great soul, and a great writer from whom readers will always wish to have more to read.
An ambitious, honest portrait of the Black experience in flyover country. One of The St. Louis Post Dispatch's Best Books of 2020.
Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have become so synonymous with the Midwest. After the 2016 election, many traditional media outlets renewed their attention on the conditions of "Middle America," but they often marginalized or completely overlooked the experience of the Black people who live there.
Edited by Terrion Williamson, the director of the Black Midwest Initiative, Black in the Middle places the voices of Black midwesterners front and center. Filled with compelling personal narratives, thought-provoking art, and searing commentaries, this anthology explores the various meanings and experiences of blackness throughout the Rust Belt, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. It brings together people from major metropolitan centers like Detroit and Chicago as well as smaller cities and rural areas where the lives of Black residents have too often gone unacknowledged to create "a timely, compelling collection that allows predominantly Black Midwesterners to reclaim their home, histories, and future."
A much-needed corrective to common narratives about the Midwest.
When Mary Ann Shadd Cary--the first Black woman publisher in North America--declared, "break every yoke . . . let the oppressed go free" to congregants in Chatham, Canada, in 1858, she joined a tradition of African American women speaking for their own liberation. Drawing from a rich archive of political speeches, acclaimed activist and author Janet Dewart Bell, the author of Lighting the Fires of Freedom, which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, explores this tradition in Blackbirds Singing, a soaring new collection of African American women's speeches, gorgeously packaged to make it the perfect gift.
Gathering an array of recognized names as well as some new discoveries, in this stunning compilation Bell curates two centuries of stirring public addresses by Black women, from Harriet Tubman and Josephine Baker to Barbara Lee and Barbara Jordan. These magnificent speakers explore ethics, morality, courage, authenticity, and leadership, and Bell's substantive introductions provide rich new context for each woman's speech, highlighting Black women speaking truth to power in service of freedom and justice.
With an expansive historical lens, Blackbirds Singing celebrates the tradition of Black women's political speech and labor, allowing the voices and powerful visions of African American women to speak across generations building power for the world.
In honor of the 100th anniversary of Vanity Fair magazine, Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swellscelebrates the publication s astonishing early catalogue of writers, with works by Dorothy Parker, Noel Coward, P. G. Wodehouse, Jean Cocteau, Colette, Gertrude Stein, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sherwood Anderson, Robert Benchley, Langston Hughes and many others. Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter introduces these fabulous pieces written between 1913 and 1936, when the magazine published a murderers row of the world s leading literary lights.
Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells features great writers on great topics, including F. Scott Fitzgerald on what a magazine should be, Clarence Darrow on equality, D. H. Lawrence on women, e.e. cummings on Calvin Coolidge, John Maynard Keynes on the collapse in money value, Thomas Mann on how films move the human heart, Alexander Woollcott on Harpo Marx, Carl Sandburg on Charlie Chaplin, Djuna Barnes on James Joyce, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., on Joan Crawford, and Dorothy Parker on a host of topics ranging from why she hates actresses to why she hasn t married.
These essays reflect the rich period of their creation while simultaneously addressing topics that would be recognizable in the magazine today, such as how women should navigate work and home life; our destructive fascination with the entertainment industry and with professional sports; the collapse of public faith in the financial industry; and, as Aldous Huxley asks herein, What, Exactly, Is Modern?
Offering readers an inebriating swig from that great cocktail shaker of the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, the age of Gatsby, Bohemians, Bootleggers, Flappers, and Swells showcases unforgettable writers in search of how to live well in a changing era.
Here we have a conversation with Jonathan Franzen, still an unknown author, on the eve of the publication of The Corrections; and one with Roberto Bolaño, near the end of his life. Lydia Davis and Francine Prose break down the intricacies of Davis's methods; Edwidge Danticat and Junot Díaz discuss the power of Caribbean diasporic fiction. This anthology brings together some of the greatest figures of world literature for a brilliant and unforgettable collection of sharp, insightful and intimate author conversations.
German author Burkhard Spinnen revisits moments of bibliophilia mixed with anguish through a personal and historical journey of the books we encounter and the places we meet them. With anecdotes of serendipitously finding vintage copies of literary classics and bemoaning the loaned book you'll never get back, Spinnen reminds us that even if the eBook has made reading during a commute easier, it will never bring us as much pride as a well-stocked shelf. Or recover the smell of ink on paper, or the pleasure of good margins and letter-spaced capitals. For those wanting to keep their hard copies close and chat with friends about the joy books have brought into their lives, The Book offers up a kindred spirit.
"An absolute 'must read' for anyone thinking that centuries of literature being almost exclusively dominated by men."--Library Bookwatch
From the first recorded writer to current bestsellers, Becca Anderson takes us through time and highlights historical women who have left their mark on the literary world.
Historical women writers. This expansive compilation of historical women writers is a chance to delve deeper into the lives and works of famous female authors and learn about some lesser-known greats. Some of the many female authors you will love learning about include: Maya Angelou, Jane Austen, Judy Blume, Rachel Carson, Nadine Gordimer, Dorothy Parker, Joyce Carol Oates, and many, many more.
Explore subjects and literary forms women writers have to offer. The works of these historical women vary greatly. Each is as unique and significant as the women who penned them. With the help of writers, editors, librarians, booksellers, and more, Anderson has crafted a must-read book for women of every background.
Celebrate the impact women have made in our culture. This feminist book is a beacon of brilliance. It is the perfect gift for artists, intellectuals, and anyone who seeks to be inspired by words and profound lives. Most of all, it is a celebration of the journeys and accomplishments of historical women who have worked to have their voices heard in black and white letters across the world.
In this book find:
If you enjoyed titles such as Women in Art, Before They Were Authors, or Book of Awesome Women, then you'll love The Book of Awesome Women Writers.
