Ancestor Trouble received a starred review from Kirkus! “The current wave of interest in genealogy, heredity, family history, and responsibility for past injustices crescendos in a comprehensive work combining personal narrative and reporting,” the reviewer says. “Exhaustively researched, engagingly presented, and glowing with intelligence and honesty.” ⭐️ This part made me laugh out loud in recognition: “These ruptures seeded a project . . .
I always believed that as an intuitive writer I couldn’t stick to an outline, but I was wrong. The loose structure I came up with when I started writing Ancestor Trouble was my guiding light. If you’re curious, I write a little bit about my book’s structure and table of contents in my latest newsletter. I’d also like to thank Honorée . . .
Supply chain issues are hitting books hard, and if there are new ones you’d like to order for yourself or as gifts for the holidays, it sounds like it would be a good idea to place the orders now. Here are a few of the new books I love (and have mentioned in recent newsletters), if you’re not sure where . . .
This website has undergone a complete redesign for the first time since it launched in 2002, almost two decades ago. Eep! I adore this iteration so much that I’m hoping to blog more often, if only to spend more time looking at it. All thanks to Lorissa Shepstone and Gordon Clemmons, the brilliant Being Wicked team. Late last week I . . .
In the order received, here are some positive words about my upcoming book, Ancestor Trouble, from writers I admire who took time from their own important work to craft this praise: Abbott Kahler, Laila Lalami, Maaza Mengiste, Sarah Smarsh, and Dionne Ford. I’m grateful beyond measure to each of them, knowing, as Alexander Chee has said, that “writers are often terrifying to normal people” because there’s “almost . . .