Recommendations – Here are a few of my favorite things... 

Books

  • K For The Way: DJ Rhetoric and Literacy for 21st Century Writing Studies, by Dr. Todd Craig

  • Malcom and Me by Robin Farmer

  • Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley

  • White Magic, by Elissa Washuta

  • Unbound, by Tarana Burke

  • The Girl Who Smiled Beads, by Clemantine Wamariya & Elizabeth Weil

  • Things I Tell My Daughter: An Autoethnography of African American Motherhood, by Dr. Renata Ferdinand
    An Autoethnography of African American Motherhood: Things I Tell My Da (routledge.com)

  • Swing Time, by Zadie Smith

  • How To Be Black, by Baratunde Thurston 

  • The Scent of Burnt Flowers, by by Blitz Bazawule

  • The Colossus Of New York, by Colson Whitehead

  • The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

  • Women Are Talking, by Miriam Toews

  • Boys & Sex: Young Men On Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating The New Masculinity, by Peggy Orenstein

  • Becoming, by Michelle Obama

  • A Promised Land, by Barack Obama

  • The Year of Yes: How To Dance It Out, Stand In The Sun, and Be Your Own Person, by Shonda Rhimes

  • Anything by Toni Morrison—especially Song of Solomon

  • Anything by Alice Walker—especially In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens and The Color Purple

  • Anything by Louise Erdrich—especially Tracks

  • Anything by N. Scott Momaday—especially House Made of Dawn

  • Anything by J. California Cooper—especially The Matter is Life

  • Anything by Zora Neale Hurston—especially Their Eyes Were Watching God

  • Anything by James Baldwin—especially Giovanni’s Room

  • Anything by Leslie Marmon Silko—especially Almanac of The Dead

  • Legacies: An Emerson James Novel

Website: http://www.iamemersonjames.com

In my humble opinion, author JL Williams has created one of the best new detectives of the 21st century. James is smart, complicated, sexy, and dangerous. Buy the book. Visit the website. Legacies is the first in the series. The reviews aren’t wrong. Read it. You won’t be sorry.

• Staging Migrations: Toward An American West (From Ida B. Wells to Rhodessa Jones)

Marta Effinger-Crichlow is a fantastic writer. Staging Migrations… is a Feminist, Womanist, profoundly written love letter to Black women and the history of their meaningful footsteps through time.

• Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris

• Misrepresented People, edited by Maria Isabel Alavrez and Dante Di Stefano

• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

• The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae

• Gothic Queer Culture: Marginalized Communities and the Ghosts of Insidious Trauma (Expanding Frontiers: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality) by Laura Westengard

• Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

• Hood Feminism, by Mikki Kendall

• The End of Men and The Rise of Women, by Hanna Rosin

• Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay

• The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

• The BlackAdemic Life: Academic Fiction, Higher Education. Higher Education, and The Black Intellectual, by Lavelle Porter

• Darkness, by Bharati Mukerjee

• killing rage: Ending Racism, by bell hooks

• Shake Loose My Skin, by Sonia Sanchez

• ‘There Ain’t no Black in The Union Jack’: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation, by Paul Gilroy

• Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, by Afua Hirsch

• Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life, by Ali Wong

• Life Will Be The Death of Me:…and you too!, by Chelsea Handler

• Manifesta: young women, feminism, and the future, by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards

• The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan

• The Blacker The Berry, by Wallace Thurman

• Annie John, Lucy, by Jamaica Kincaid

• Lakota Woman, by Mary Crow Dog

• What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day, by Pearl Cleage

• We Should All Be Feminists, Purple Hibiscus, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• We Are Called To Be A Movement, by Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II

 

Poetry

Just a few of my favorite poets— 

• Audre Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, George Guida, Willie Perdomo, Hattie Gossett, Jayne Cortez, Mariah Gover-ShieldChief, The Poet Ai, Alan Ginsberg, Robert Ostrom, Nina Bannett, Kate Falvey, Jennifer Rane Hancock, Amanda J. Bradley, Todd Fuller, Tracy K. Smith, Sonia Sanchez, Clint Smith, Tyehimba Jess, Brian Fanelli, Joy Harjo, Ntozake Shange, Naomi Shihab Nye, StacyAnn Chin, Chip Livingston, Lisa Lewis, Gwendolyn Brooks, Meena Alexander, Langston Hughes, N. Scott Momaday, Mary TallMountain

 

Podcasts

• American Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s The Slowdown

• Ndapwa, Paleni, and Brigit’s Heard Not Seen

• Marquita Harris’ Unbossed

• Charli Penn and Yolanda Sangweni’s Yes, Girl!

• Dani & Drea’s Spin The Bottle

 

Films

  • One Day We’ll Talk About Today (2019), by Melarissa Sjarief, Jenny Jusuf, Angga Dwiman Sasongko

  • When They See Us—Director, Ava DuVernay

  • 13th—Director, Ava DuVernay

  • Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am

  • Becoming: Michelle Obama

  • Marta Effinger’s forthcoming documentary film Little Sallie Walker. It’s a beautiful examination of how Black women played as children.

http://www.littlesalliewalker.com/

Critics are saying:

“Monique Ferrell’s poems are porcelain figurines, finely wrought, chipped in places, smiling wryly..”
— George Guida