A profound and poetic memoir, tracing the wounds that racism and colonialism have left on Black people across borders. 

With astute insight and immersive prose, Bonhomme outlines a personal and political history of life in the United States, Haiti, and Germany, discovering what it means to be Black at home and abroad. She unlearns the lies that she was told about slavery and colonialism and explores how communities are resisting the weight of centuries of history.

Whether examining debt, medical racism, art, or reparations, Tending to Our Wounds cuts a breathtaking course between the past and the present, the individual and the collective―identifying the tendrils of history in the everyday and outlining a path to real freedom.

This “vivid, moving, funny, and heartfelt” memoir tells the story of Curtis Chin’s time growing up as a gay Chinese American kid in 1980’s Detroit (Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers).

Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.

Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him—and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.

An American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book—Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award
A 2024 Michigan Notable Book
Best Nonfiction Books of the Year—Kirkus Reviews
Best Books of the Year—Apple Books
 
TIME’s Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2023 • San Francisco Chronicle’s Highly Anticipated Books to Put on Your Radar This Fall 2023 • Washington Post’s Books to Read This Fall 2023 • Eater’s Best Food Books to Read 2023 • Lambda Literary Review’s October’s Most Anticipated LGBTQIA+ Literature

“Mahalia Jackson was the greatest gospel singer of her time and an overlooked leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Her voice seemed born of heaven.” ?Henry Louis Gates Jr.

If Americans today still recognize the name Mahalia Jackson, they might recall that she was perhaps the greatest gospel singer who ever lived. But for many people, there is no awareness at all, not even for an entertainer whose “Move On Up a Little Higher” sold eight million copies, who headlined two Newport Jazz Festivals and performed before four United States presidents.

While this rich musical legacy is admired by those in the know, virtually no one recognizes Jackson’s astonishing role in American civil rights history. In this startling new depiction of the renowned gospel singer, New York Times best-selling author Timothy B. Tyson and Mary D. Williams, an acclaimed gospel singer herself, bring Jackson back to soaring life by positioning her as the major civil rights figure she, in fact, was.

Mahlia Jackson, Moving On Up a Little Higher then traces Jackson’s career from abject poverty in New Orleans to global superstardom, revealing how even after meteoric success, Jackson maintained an unwavering devotion to Black freedom. In the 1930s in Chicago, even before the Civil Rights Movement took its modern shape, she used her rapturous voice to support independent Black political power. Her work only intensified in the 1940s and beyond when she campaigned first for Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later for Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson; headlined in Montgomery for the 1955–56 bus boycott; sang for the Birmingham campaign and on the Selma March; and performed at the iconic 1963 March on Washington, where she urged Martin Luther King Jr. to “Tell ’em about the dream.” In retrospect what becomes historically significant is that Mahalia Jackson was present at so many civil rights events, even singing a divine rendition of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” at Dr. King’s funeral in 1968. Weakened and worn, she succumbed to heart failure four years later at the age of sixty.

Weaving together Mahalia Jackson’s inspiring life journey with her soulful music into a transcendent text, this biography ultimately casts Mahalia Jackson as we’ve never seen her before, as a guiding light for the Civil Rights Movement, whose message still speaks to our struggles today.

5 illustrations

Part memoir by the daughter of the iconic comedian Richard Pryor, part exploration of the historical and contemporary use of the N-word, this hybrid book peels back the curtain on the life of Pryor and interrogates the most perplexing word in the American lexicon, a word he helped popularize.

The N-word is one of the most perplexing, controversial and misunderstood words in the American lexicon. It’s a word that Elizabeth Pryor has not only contemplated, it’s one that she has taught and observed up close.

When a white student quoted her father and blurted out the N-word in the middle of a class she was teaching, Professor Pryor’s worlds collided. In that moment, she was forced to confront the history of the notorious slur in the United States, and her complicated relationship with her father Richard Pryor, who made the word a trademark of his comedy in the 1970s.

As she dives into her research, her own memories of the N-word come flooding back in unprocessed memories that she hadn’t thought about for decades. In reckoning with those memories, Elizabeth goes on a more public journey of discovery of the messy and sometimes surprising legacies of racism in the United States.

A braided narrative that seamlessly integrates the history of the N-word with Elizabeth’s own story of growing up the Black Jewish daughter of Richard Pryor, Something We Said follows Elizabeth as she becomes a leading scholar and teacher of the very word her father put on the pop culture map.

From one of the most electric and consequential figures to emerge from the contemporary American labor movement, the remarkable story of his battle to create the first Amazon union in the U.S. and a powerful call to arms on behalf of the working class

In the early days of the Covid pandemic, warehouse worker Chris Smalls and his colleagues continued showing up as the rest of the world was shutting down. A dedicated and experienced Amazon employee, increasingly frustrated by the inner workings of the retail giant, Smalls had already felt himself reaching a breaking point. So, when coworkers around him began falling ill, and with no transparency or assurances of safety coming from those in charge, he made the only choice left available to him. He staged a walkout with friend Derrick Palmer, eventually finding himself on the picket line without a job. But what began as a demand to keep essential employees safe in a crisis would grow into a movement devoted to achieving dignity and security for the American wage worker, sparking a groundswell of organizers at the most notable companies across the nation—including Starbucks, Trader Joe's, and Apple—and leading to lasting change for labor.

When the Revolution Comes is the riveting inside story of how a young Black man from Hackensack, NJ with little-to-no resources led a scrappy band of Staten Island warehouse workers in an improbable fight against Amazon, the second largest private employer in the U.S., and won. This epic David-and-Goliath tale traces Smalls’ dramatic story, from a childhood spent navigating his dad’s stints in and out of prison to his early pursuits of a career in music; from his years of sacrifice and economic uncertainty as a father of three, fighting a miasma of warehouse managerial politics in an effort to make ends meet, to his ascension as the leader of a new generation’s labor movement. Along the way, he details lessons learned from a life spent working paycheck-to-paycheck, advocating for those around him, and persevering in the face of adversity, and shares how those lessons helped him build the coalition that became the first-ever union of American Amazon workers.

A deeply personal and eye-opening account of the creation of the Amazon Labor Union, When the Revolution Comes is both a searing exposé of what it’s like to be working class in America today as well as the empowering story of what is possible when the overworked, underpaid, and disempowered join together, a movement born in community.

Legendary baseball player and manager Dusty Baker reflects on his extraordinary career—filled with invaluable lessons on perseverance, leadership, and living life meaningfully on the field and off.

Dusty Baker walked with baseball legends and became one himself. After he signed with the Braves in 1968 at the age of nineteen against his father’s wishes, no less than the great Hank Aaron promised to take Baker under his wing. Mentored by Aaron, Orlando Cepeda, and Willie Mays, Baker became a premier hitter, helping take the Dodgers to a World Series victory in 1981. He would bookend this with another championship in 2022, this time as a manager helping guide and redeem a Houston Astros team humbled by a cheating scandal. Respected by generations across the game, Baker has come to embody the spirit of the sport—and yet, to discuss his baseball career is only to scratch the surface of a remarkable life.

Crossroads will bring readers into the mind of one of baseball’s mavericks: a curious, inquisitive thinker whose deep interest in the worlds of music, wine, and the simpler joys of life charts a journey of success, struggle, faith, and perseverance. Baker's memoir is filled with hard-earned wisdom and a love for life so plentiful, it seems to radiate from every sentence.

A true American original, counting among his friends presidents and dignitaries, bluesmen and artists, Baker weaves a spell of life at the crossroads, where fate turns on our decisions and the unexpected answers that sometimes seek us out when we least expect it.

The creator of the viral TikTok series “Who TF Did I Marry?” shares an even more unfiltered account of how she reclaimed herself, fought through toxic relationships, and regained her foundation through healing and deep self-reflection.

When Tareasa “Reesa Teesa” Johnson decided to disclose the full details of her turbulent marriage in a 50-part TikTok series, from first meeting to the finality of divorce, she hoped it would help at least one person from making similar mistakes. In a flash "Who TF Did I Marry?" went global, becoming a movement. Millions around the world were enraptured and identified with Tareasa's story, ultimately sharing their own experiences of heartbreak and deceit.

While “Who TF Did I Marry?” questioned the relationship, What (TF) Do I Do Now? probes deeper, asking “Where did I lose myself?” Through reflection, acceptance, and humor, Tareasa unravels even more details of what caused her to stay in a partnership where familiarity became too comfortable, and loneliness was a scarier proposition than owning her solitude. Tareasa’s indelible voice and keen perspective shares new, engrossing stories and practical insights as she regains her footing and her faith in herself, offering readers the chance to do the same.

Probing, personal, and incredibly relatable, What (TF) Do I Do Now? isn’t a self-help guide, but an empowering conversation with the reader, illuminating the courage it takes to trust yourself because healing is on the other side of pain.

In this inspiring memoir, a Black woman pilot leading the way for other aviatrixes shares her journey of fulfilling a lifelong dream to fly—and how she rediscovered her passion in the face of tragedy and adversity.

Before being cleared for takeoff, Captain Nia Gilliam witnesses the World Trade Center attacks from the co-pilot’s seat on the runway of Newark Airport. Struggling with the harrowing sights unfolding before her, she finds the composure to take off as smoke billows from the Twin Towers. In a moment that changed everything, for her and the world, Gilliam's dedication to the skies is forever shaken and she resolves to never fly again.

Now, Gilliam traces her path to the pilot’s seat, from the moment her mother showed her an article of Black aviation pioneer Bessie Coleman to the day she ditched school to pay her respects at the funeral of Janet Harmon Bragg, the first Black woman to earn a commercial pilot’s license, where she ultimately met her future mentor. Alongside the grit and determination to work towards her dream, Gilliam captures the challenges, both personal and societal, and triumphs of earning her spot in the pilot’s seat. But just as Gilliam’s life begins to soar, the aftermath of 9/11 thrusts her into a moment of unforeseen decisions. As she finds the fortitude to stand strong after a national tragedy, she confronts bias as the first pregnant pilot at her airline, fights to overcome postpartum depression, and navigates a career transition that would take her away from the life she’d worked so hard for.

Cleared for Takeoff is a deeply affecting story, tracing Gilliam’s roots to navigating a male-dominated industry and illuminating one woman’s unwavering faith in herself.

The autobiography of a Black woman who defied nineteenth-century conventions to become a preacher, popular speaker, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist. 

Sojourner Truth was an incredible, remarkable, epoch-defying woman who escaped from slavery and successfully sued for her son’s freedom, in addition to her career as a wildly successful orator and activist—a woman alive to the hypocrisies of her age, and unafraid to talk about them.

Her autobiography, which she dictated, is an outstanding historical document. Truth’s tale sheds a light on realities of slavery that are still rarely discussed: that she was a slave in upstate New York, not on a Southern plantation; that Dutch was her first language; that the circumstances of her slavery isolated her from a broader Black community; that her experience of religion was a racially integrated one, and became the means of her independence. Ultimately, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth is the story of a great American that reveals aspects of slavery and free Black life that are too often overlooked.

The soul-stirring intersectional biography of the most famous Islamic woman scholar working today, from the two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist author of If the Oceans Were Ink and Home, Land, Security.

“A testament to what it means to labor for justice from inside a faith tradition—to love it enough to transform it . . . The Lady Imam is right on time to ignite our courage.”—Valarie Kaur, bestselling author of See No Stranger and Sage Warrior

A feminist scholar-activist, single mother of five, and queer advocate, amina wadud has led a struggle against Islam’s patriarchal establishment that’s been felt keenly all over the world. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X before her, wadud has mobilized faith’s potential as an engine of equality. Yet this American trail-blazer’s story has never been told in book form—until now.

Born Mary Teasley, the daughter of a Methodist preacher, wadud grew up in Maryland with a rare vantage on socioeconomic divides, living through poverty and her sister’s death from an illegal abortion. A gifted student, teenage wadud was sent to live with affluent white families in Weston, Massachusetts. After cross-country hitchhiking and a stint in a Buddhist ashram, she converted to Islam as a twenty-year-old Ivy League student.

wadud devoted her life to studying the Qur’an and challenged centuries of patriarchal interpretations, finding in it equality for all. In Manhattan in 2005, she became the world’s most famous—and infamous—Islamic scholar when she became the first woman in 1400 years to lead men and women together in public Friday prayers.

The Lady Imam chronicles the life of a singular figure not only in Islam, but also in feminism, Black history, and gender studies. With unprecedented access through years of interviews and archival research, Carla Power has written the definitive account of wadud's extraordinary life while shedding light on our deepest questions about faith, family, and social justice.

Finalist for the 2025 Wainwright Prize in Nature Writing

"Extraordinary . . . Surprising at every turn and rewarding in ways you never expect."—Marlon James

“An extraordinary, necessary book from a brilliant writer. A new song of the earth.”—Robert Macfarlane

From an exciting new voice in international literature, a profoundly moving memoir that explores the Black experience in the natural world and the transformative power of plants.

Jason Allen-Paisant grew up in the May Day Mountains of Jamaica. The cycles of his boyhood revolved around tending the plots of cabbage, tomatoes, and yams dotting the clay hillsides; playing beneath the cavernous roots of cotton trees; and climbing trunks of the fruit trees that fed him and his grandmother. But as a student of the literature of colonial England, in which the landscape of heather and moors has long been thought of as ideal, these years of subsistence and community evoked more shame than pride, and a language for the natural world that surrounded him remained elusive.

Years after leaving the island to attend university in England, and eventually achieving a position as a lecturer in Leeds, he finds himself “alienated from land, from planting, from watching things grow.” Walking among the trees in Yorkshire, he wonders how his own body will be perceived and can’t help but think of the epidemic of anti-Black violence across the Western world. He returns to Jamaica and the intimate archives of knowledge in his late grandmother’s grung, determined to reclaim his cultural inheritance, and ultimately to rediscover a “second life of seeing,” based on old ways of knowing.

“A beautiful and urgent work of productive experimentation and philosophical reckoning” (Kwame Dawes), The Possibility of Tenderness is a book for our time.

The incredible and little-known story of Sarah Rector, once the wealthiest Black girl in America, from Coretta Scott King Honor Award winner Tonya Bolden.

The inspiration for the movie Sarah’s Oil, the major motion picture from Amazon MGM Studios.

Searching for Sarah Rector tells the true story of a young Black girl born in Indian Territory (land in today's Oklahoma) in the early 1900s. Author Tonya Bolden sets Rector’s rags-to-riches tale against the backdrop of American history, including the creation of Indian Territory; the making of Oklahoma, with its Black towns and boomtowns; and the wild behavior of many greedy and corrupt adults.

At the age of eleven, Sarah was a very rich young girl. Even so, she was powerless . . . helpless in the whirlwind of drama―and danger―that swirled around her. Then one day word came that she had disappeared.

This is her story, and the story of other children like her, filled with ups and downs, bizarre goings-on, and a heap of crimes.

Out of a trove of primary documents, including court and census records, as well as interviews with family members, Bolden painstakingly pieces together the events of Sarah’s life.

Jess Hilarious, comedy’s whip-smart and unapologetic superstar, continues to push boundaries and offers a hilarious account of the challenges in creating a healthy coparenting relationship and the lessons she’s learned on life's journey.

Before Jess Hilarious ever had dreams of telling jokes in front of sold-out arenas across the country, being featured on Wild-’n-Out, or becoming a cohost on The Breakfast Club, Jess dreamt of marrying her high school sweetheart and raising a family together in their hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. In hopes that having her partner’s child would solidify this outcome, Jess became pregnant at nineteen but begrudgingly learned that the vision she had for her life—as a wife and mother—would have to be reimagined.

After multiple attempts at a relationship between her and her son’s father failed, Jess accepted that, while they would never get married, they were forever linked by the lifetime commitment of raising a child together. With her trademark wit and perspective, Jess shares her experiences with valuable and vulnerable insight for coparents who struggle with what it means to put their children first while protecting them from the ups and downs of adult relationships. ’Til Death Do We Parent is an inspirational journey to coparenting with ease and humor.

A dazzlingly inventive account of kinship and dispossession by a two-time Minnesota Book Award–winning author

In his first work of nonfiction, poet chaun webster blends memoir, archival research, visual poetics, and cultural criticism to trace the ways structural anti-Black violence has shaped his inheritance, and grapples with the question of how to know―and mourn―the kin he was never able to meet.

webster is particularly drawn to his grandfather Reginald, who worked for years as a Pullman porter, who was denied rest while his labor enabled rest for others, and who died without receiving a pension before webster was born. Returning to the figures of Reginald and the train, webster explores the relationship between comportment and confinement, speaking in tongues in the Pentecostal church, the ancestral meeting place of dreams, his fraught relationship with his mother, and moments with his own child. Throughout, webster also reflects on nonbiological kinship, tethering his and his predecessors’ lives to those of several historical Black figures―Harriet Jacobs, John Henry, Henry “Box” Brown, and Henry Dumas, a writer who was killed by New York City police while riding the subway.

Attempting to exhaust the possibilities of the sentence and the grammar of anti-Blackness, webster riffs and rails on the debris within reach. Part elegy, part archival detective story, and part visual poem, Without Terminus is a philosophically rigorous and deeply moving text that takes us beyond the archive of loss.

“All my blessings are the blessings of community.”
―Octavia Spencer

“Give them their flowers while you can” is something Octavia Spencer’s mother often told her, and now, it’s how she lives.
In this captivating memoir, the Oscar-winning actor and producer recounts the seeds of the relationships that grew into the story of her life, from her tender teenage connection with Whoopi Goldberg to her sustaining friendships with Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Allison Janney, Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain, and the many talented, inspiring women whose love and advice have helped her become the woman she is today.
Octavia drove to Los Angeles at twenty-six in search of a career. What she found was her chosen family, and together they built the world in which this book is set: a place where women support one another and the voices of history’s heroines ring aloud.
Give Them Their Flowers is a love letter to female friendship. It is a call to follow your personal passions, create community, and persevere. This is Octavia’s ode to all the women who wake up early to get it done: the mentors, the mothers, and the mother figures, the aunties and the godmothers, the creators, the visionaries, and the best friends.
“Men have given me jobs,” Octavia says. “Women are the reason the world knows who I am.”

Both an epic history and an intimate family story, a startling account of the lives of Black cops in one Midwestern city.

In the wake of the George Floyd protests, a Black police organization in Cleveland called the Black Shield was causing a stir. Officers broke ranks with their fellow cops, aligning themselves with local Black Lives Matter activists and supporting demands for radical reforms. In the midst of these fissures, Wilbert L. Cooper returned to his hometown to write a profile of the organization's president, who had become notorious years earlier for shooting a young unarmed Black man.

For Cooper, the news was deeply personal. Both of his parents are retired Black Cleveland cops, his sister was a Cleveland cop, and on his mother's side, there’s been a Cleveland cop in the family since 1950. Unearthing the dramatic histories of the Black Shield and his own family, Cooper tells the intertwined stories of the two: his relatives, who trace their roots back to the Great Migration and who chose policing because it was one of the few stepping stones to economic security and status in a segregated city; and an organization that, over decades of cultural and political upheaval, cycled endlessly between rebellion and acquiescence.

An intimate, bold work of literary nonfiction, The Black Shield is an urgent exploration of the complex duality of the Black cop. Cooper grapples with a knot of contradictions: Is the Black officer a sign of progressive change, or of the system’s masterful way of changing its appearance without changing its outcomes? How can he reconcile the fact that policing helped lift his family out of poverty, and the equally real panic that accompanies being pulled over? Fearless and singularly powerful, Cooper gives us an American story about race and power of a kind that has never been told before.

From Beatrice Dixon, founder of The Honey Pot Company, comes an inspiring memoir about overcoming adversity—personally and professionally—by trusting her intuition and following what she calls her “soul instinct” to build the life of her dreams.

Beatrice Dixon, cofounder and CEO of The Honey Pot Company, shares the powerful story of how trusting her dreams—and her inner voice—led her to build a groundbreaking well­ness brand and transform her life. The Honey Pot Company was born from a literal dream, in which Dixon’s late grandmother shared a recipe for an herbal remedy. When Dixon woke up, she went to her kitchen and formulated what would become the brand’s first product.

But Dixon’s story didn’t start—or stop—there. From being born prematurely without a nose or a forehead to navigating a scrappy adolescence, and pitching a vaginal wellness brand to rooms full of male investors, her journey has been anything but conventional. Through it all, she relied on her “soul instinct” to guide her.

Part memoir, part self-help book, The Soul Instinct is a raw, motivating look at the power of inner wisdom from one of the most influential voices in wellness today—and one of the few Black women to raise significant venture and private equity capital. Dixon imparts the lessons she’s learned throughout her life, including:

* How you must get lost to find your way
* There’s nothing to be ashamed of
* When you don’t know how, do it anyway
* Choose you
* Excellence is the baseline in everything you do
* How to build community in a crisis
* The importance of nurturing your soul

Fascinating, candid, and funny, The Soul Instinct will inspire readers to tap into their intuition and own their story. “The journey is in the seeking.”

A probing essay collection that chronicles one woman’s complicated quest to find home in a fractured America, from the award-winning author of Field Study and contributor to Four Hundred Souls, edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain

At eighteen, Chet’la Sebree began, as she writes, “perfecting the art of leaving.” After moving out of her parents’ house in Delaware for college, the lauded poet, essayist, and academic rarely kept the same address for more than two years—bouncing from city to city, country to country, perpetually in search of her next adventure.

For Sebree, traveling has been a life-long passion, forged during family road trips and vacations with friends; college study abroad programs in Europe; and far-flung writing residencies and job opportunities. She dreamed of one day taking her own Great American Road Trip, Jack Kerouac–style—except refashioned as a millennial Black woman who had also begun considering her next chapter: settling down and starting a solo fertility journey.

During the pandemic, Sebree thought she might finally get her chance to hit the road. But then, George Floyd was murdered, following the killings of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Aubrey, and so many others. As America continued to reveal its most violent self, Sebree started to wrestle with the very idea of home: Where do I belong in a country not meant for people like me to survive? What does this mean for a child I might bring into it?

In Turn (W)here, Sebree turns to the page for answers, seamlessly weaving memoir with history and cultural criticism in a collection of inventive essays bound by themes of movement, home, inheritance, and belonging. Spanning continents, geographies, and states of mind, Sebree lights a pathway for the wanderer, the seeker—anyone propelled into the unknown by the desire for a place to truly belong.

A long-forgotten Black abolitionist who liberated captive workers by the wagonload, brilliantly satirized slaveholders, and gave the underground railroad its name.

Thomas Smallwood was a shoemaker by day and an organizer of mass escapes from slavery by night. Twelve years after purchasing his freedom from slavery, Smallwood took to the press and, over a 16-month stretch starting in 1842, pseudonymously published newspaper dispatches ridiculing and excoriating enslavers by name and offering sobering reflections on the depravity of slavery. With the pen that Smallwood called his “lash,” he leveraged mockery to flip the oppressive racial power structure of America. These dispatches, in which Smallwood was the first to use "underground railroad" in print, are the only accounts of escapes to be published in real time, imbuing Smallwood’s subversive wit with urgency and defiance. His 1851 memoir is prescient on the United States' tormented entanglement with race.

"Groundbreaking . . . Chang's lyrical experiment memorably evokes an individual family's time capsule and an artist's timeless yearning to shape carbon dust into incandescent gem." —NPR

Now in paperback, from the poet who “resurrects mediums” (The Millions), a collection of literary letters and mementos on the art of remembering across generations.

For Victoria Chang, memory “isn’t something that blooms, but something that bleeds internally.” It is willed, summoned, and dragged to the surface. The remembrances in this collection of letters are founded in the fragments of stories her mother shared reluctantly and in the silences of her father. They are whittled and sculpted from an archive of family relics: a marriage license, a letter, a visa petition, a photograph. And, just as often, they are built on questions that can no longer be answered.

Dear Memory is not a transcription but a process of shaping and being shaped, knowing that when a writer dips their pen into history, what emerges is poetry. In letters to family, past teachers, fellow poets, and to the imagination itself, Victoria Chang offers a model for what it looks like to find ourselves in our histories.

In her gripping memoir "Lighthouse," Kia Lee courageously shares her personal journey of falling into an abusive relationship and the challenges she faced. With raw honesty, she reveals the insidious nature of emotional manipulation, gaslighting, and abuse that she endured, often without realizing the full extent of the harm. As the story unfolds, the abuse escalates to physical violence, placing Kia in a perilous and life-threatening situation.

"Lighthouse" is a powerful account of survival as Kia navigates the complexities of an abusive relationship and finds the strength to break free. Her story serves as a beacon of hope for others who may be experiencing similar situations, shedding light on the realities of domestic abuse and the importance of seeking help. "Lighthouse" is a compelling and timely memoir that sheds light on a pervasive issue and provides a voice for survivors, bringing hope, awareness, and

understanding to those who may be facing similar challenges.

Through her memoir, Kia Lee aims to raise awareness about the warning signs of abuse, dispel misconceptions, and provide support to those who may be struggling in similar situations. Her courageous storytelling and unwavering resilience are an inspiration to others, offering a message of empowerment and healing.

How do you rebuild yourself when your whole world changes overnight?

Thrust onto the public stage at fifteen years old after the Taliban’s brutal attack on her life, Malala Yousafzai quickly became an international icon known for bravery and resilience. But away from the cameras and crowds, she spent years struggling to find her place in an unfamiliar world. Now, for the first time ever, Malala takes us beyond the headlines in Finding My Way—a vulnerable, surprising memoir that buzzes with authenticity, sharp humor, and tenderness.

Finding My Way is a story of friendship and first love, of anxiety and self-discovery, of trying to stay true to yourself when everyone wants to tell you who you are. In it, Malala traces her path from high school loner to reckless college student to a young woman at peace with her past. Through candid, often messy moments like nearly failing exams, getting ghosted and meeting the love of her life, Malala reminds us that real role models aren’t perfect—they’re human.

In this astonishing memoir, Malala reintroduces herself to the world, sharing how she navigated life as someone whose darkest moments threatened to define her—while seeking the freedom to find out who she truly is. Finding My Way is an intimate look at the life of a young woman taking charge of her destiny—and a deeply personal testament to the strength it takes to be unapologetically yourself.

When you’ve been told over and over that you belong at the bottom, how do you come out on top? Dance Moms star and triple threat Nia Sioux shows the way via her story of resilience, triumph, and defining success for herself.

Young dancer Nia Sioux was only nine years old when she stepped into stardom as one of the original cast members of Lifetime’s reality TV show Dance Moms. Nia learned new choreography week after week and competed against dancers from across the country as well as at her own studio. Perhaps her greatest obstacle was suffering through her dance teacher’s ranking of the girls against each other in her infamous pyramid, where Nia spent the majority of her time on the bottom—all in front of an audience of millions.

But there was much that viewers didn’t see. How her experiences in the studio went far beyond what made it into the show. How she was ostracized for not fitting into an aesthetic that wasn’t designed for girls like her. How her friendships and her mental health crumbled under the strain of the show. How she lost control of her story and her voice.

But don’t be fooled—this is a story about resilience. Nia is not looking for pity, sympathy, or validation as she reflects on her experiences. Instead, she is choosing to use her story as a celebration of triumph. Nia finally gets to tell her story in her own way and in her own words. In this captivating memoir, Nia reclaims both the spotlight and her narrative.

In addition to going behind the scenes of the seven seasons of Dance Moms, she shows how she fought against the negative perceptions that dominated her tween and teen years and emerged as a confident young woman secure in her talents and her direction. Anyone who has ever felt misunderstood, overlooked, or stuck at the bottom of the pyramid will be inspired by Nia’s story of overcoming. “Despite barriers and constant naysayers, assumptions and criticisms, only you know who you are inside and out,” Nia says. “And you have the power to create your own narrative, your own level of success.”

A poignant and inspiring memoir from the former mayor of Atlanta about her modest, hardscrabble upbringing, and fully appreciating the selfless, loving, fierce, and altogether Southern-twinged lessons her family taught her.

Long before Keisha Lance Bottoms rose to prominence in politics, she was a daddy’s girl from the Westside of Atlanta—the baby of her family who did well in school, though she talked too much in class; an outgoing kid who dreamt of growing up to be elegant and charismatic like her parents, cool like her older siblings and big cousins, and the pride of her very large, Southern family.

After law school, Bottoms worked as an attorney, served as a judge, and was elected to City Council and the mayorship, where she garnered national attention for her leadership during the pandemic and George Floyd protests. Later, she was appointed senior advisor in President Joe Biden’s administration.

Yet Bottoms felt disquieted internally. She was in her early fifties and approaching the age her beloved father was when he died. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something in her life was missing, like she’d forgotten to bring an essential element of herself along for her ascension. Stepping away from the daily political grind, Bottoms realized how much she’d sanded down parts of herself in her path to professional success. She’d tucked away the fuller details about her dad’s drug abuse and prison stint for dealing; the sexual abuse she endured; the eating disorder she developed; the close-knit, utterly unpolished family who doted on her and gave her an incredible foundation of love and confidence but whose influence she’d pruned to a sleek, charming, campaign-ready sheen. She thought that was the price of upward mobility. Then she realized she was wrong.

The Rough Side of the Mountain is about this excavation. It’s Bottoms’s deeply affecting journey to rescue a version of herself that she thought she had to leave behind to succeed. An honor to the lessons from kinfolk plainly told, hers is a timely and heartfelt memoir about unmasking oneself, the joys of authenticity, embracing what you see, and spreading that powerful message.

This powerful biography follows Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s road to the Supreme Court as the first Black woman to be confirmed, for middle grade readers from New York Times bestselling author Garen Thomas and The Washington Post reporter Lori Rozsa. This inspiring story features key childhood moments and all those who influenced and encouraged her along the way.

Before becoming the first black woman on the Supreme Court Ketanji Brown Jackson was a bright and happy kid with big dreams and determination. Guided by her parents, whose own stories influenced her, and who helped her navigate the obstacles she might face as a Black child, Ketanji’s spirit, drive, and belief in herself blossomed. She was popular in school and excelled in academics, debate, and theater, but it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Over the decades, she’d run up against a backdrop of people and Supreme Court rulings that sometimes opened doors for her . . . and sometimes shut them. By remaining true to herself and fighting for what’s right, Ketanji became an inspiration to children everywhere, accomplishing her lifelong goals and ascending to the nation’s highest court, where she now helps decide the direction of our country.

From New York Times bestselling author Garen Thomas and Washington Post reporter Lori Rozsa comes this empowering biography that proves that with perseverance, dreams can come true!

Finalist: PROSE Awards for Excellence in Humanities 2023 - Biography and Autobiography

“A fascinating biography of a fascinating woman.” - Booklist, starred review
“This definitive look at a remarkable figure delivers the goods.” - Publishers Weekly, starred review
"A brilliant analysis." - Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize winner
Featured in Ms. Magazine's "Most Anticipated Reads for the Rest of Us 2022" (books by or about historically excluded groups)

Born in New Orleans in 1875 to a mother who was formerly enslaved and a father of questionable identity, Alice Dunbar-Nelson was a pioneering activist, writer, suffragist, and educator. Until now, Dunbar-Nelson has largely been viewed only in relation to her abusive ex-husband, the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. This is the first book-length look at this major figure in Black women's history, covering her life from the post-reconstruction era through the Harlem Renaissance.

Tara T. Green builds on Black feminist, sexuality, historical and cultural studies to create a literary biography that examines Dunbar-Nelson's life and legacy as a respectable activist – a woman who navigated complex challenges associated with resisting racism and sexism, and who defined her sexual identity and sexual agency within the confines of respectability politics. It's a book about the past, but it's also a book about the present that nods to the future.

Fiery, funny, inviting and digressive, Sonny Simmons' memoir is a long overdue celebration of the famed New York free jazz pioneer

Though his years in the New York free-jazz scene of the sixties cemented his reputation as "one of the most forceful and convincing composers and soloists in his field," saxophonist Sonny Simmons (1933–2021) was nearly forgotten by the '80s, which found him broke, heavily dependent on drugs and alcohol, and separated from his wife and kids. "I played on the streets from 1980 to 1994, 365 days a year," Simmons tells jazz historian and biographer Marc Chaloin. "I would go to North Beach, and I'd sleep in the park. The word got around town that Sonny is a junkie, really strung out."
The resurrection of Simmons' career―upon the release of his critically acclaimed Ancient Ritual (Qwest Records) in 1994―has become a modern legend of the genre. In the last two decades of his musical career, Simmons broke through to a new echelon of recognition, joining the pantheon of great innovators and masters of the music. But to this day he remains an undersung figure. Here, in the first ever book dedicated to his life, Simmons recounts his childhood in the backwoods of Louisiana, his adolescence in the burgeoning Bay Area jazz scene and his star-studded life in New York playing alongside the greats.

Michael Jackson’s closest sister pulls back the curtain to reveal the inner workings of the Jackson family, Michael’s tortured soul, and her own love for her brother in this intimate portrait of a beloved, yet troubled, pop legend.

In this shocking New York Times bestselling memoir, La Toya Jackson pays heartfelt tribute to her legendary brother Michael’s tortured soul and offers unprecedented insight into the troubled entertainer’s tragic destruction.

La Toya Jackson was always closer to Michael than anyone knew. Now, she sheds light on the intimate moments she shared with the beloved pop legend and unveils the disturbing behind-the-scenes dealings that she believes foretold his death. Like Michael, La Toya experienced an upbringing that made her vulnerable to exploitation, and her own journey led to hell and back at the hands of her former manager and husband. Here, in vivid and candid detail, she reveals the most painful episodes of her deeply personal story and explores how anyone—regardless of fame, fortune, or status—can be trapped in a cycle of abuse. La Toya ultimately found the courage to break free, rebuild her life and career, and reconcile with her close-knit family. Her unforgettable story will touch the hearts of millions of fans and inspire anyone who feels as if there’s nowhere to go that it is possible to truly start over...

Ralph Ellison is justly celebrated for his epochal novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953 and has become a classic of American literature. But Ellison’s strange inability to finish a second novel, despite his dogged efforts and soaring prestige, made him a supremely enigmatic figure. Arnold Rampersad skillfully tells the story of a writer whose thunderous novel and astute, courageous essays on race, literature, and culture assure him of a permanent place in our literary heritage. Starting with Ellison’s hardscrabble childhood in Oklahoma and his ordeal as a student in Alabama, Rampersad documents his improbable, painstaking rise in New York to a commanding place on the literary scene. With scorching honesty but also fair and compassionate, Rampersad lays bare his subject’s troubled psychology and its impact on his art and on the people about him.This book is both the definitive biography of Ellison and a stellar model of literary biography.

My Bondage and My Freedom is the second of three published autobiographies from one of the most brilliant and eloquent abolitionists and human rights activists in American history. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave was published ten years before in 1845, while The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass was published twenty-five years later.

A dazzling hybrid of personal memoir and criticism, considering the work of Black visual artists as a means to explore loss, legacy, and the reclamation of life through art.

At the age of twenty-one, Erica Cardwell finds herself in New York City, reeling from the loss of her mother and numb to the world around her. She turns inward instead, reading books and composing poetry, eventually falling into the work of artists such as Blondell Cummings, Lorna Simpson, Lorraine O’Grady, and Kara Walker. Through them, she communes with her mother’s spirit and legacy, and finds new ways to interrogate her writing and identity.

Wrong Is Not My Name weaves together autobiography, criticism, and theory, and considers how Black women create alternative, queer, and “hysterical” lives through visual culture and performance. In poetic, interdisciplinary essays—combining analytical and lyrical stream-of-consciousness—Cardwell examines archetypes such as the lascivious Jezebel, the caretaking Mammy, and the elusive Sapphire to formulate new and inventive ways to write about art.

Pioneering and inquisitive, Wrong Is Not My Name celebrates Black womanhood, and illuminates the ways in which art and storytelling reside at the core of being human.

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A New York Times Notable Book

Daring and fiercely original, The Women is at once a memoir, a psychological study, a sociopolitical manifesto, and an incisive adventure in literary criticism. It is conceived as a series of portraits analyzing the role that sexual and racial identity played in the lives and work of the writer's subjects: his mother, a self-described "Negress," who would not be defined by the limitations of race and gender; the mother of Malcolm X, whose mixed-race background and eventual descent into madness contributed to her son's misogyny and racism; brilliant, Harvard-educated Dorothy Dean, who rarely identified with other blacks or women, but deeply empathized with white gay men; and the late Owen Dodson, a poet and dramatist who was female-identified and who played an important role in the author's own social and intellectual formation.

Hilton Als submits both racial and sexual stereotypes to his inimitable scrutiny with relentless humor and sympathy. The results are exhilarating. The Women is that rarest of books: a memorable work of self-investigation that creates a form of all its own.