TFBWL BOOKMAIL 🧡♥️ This bookmail is a bit bittersweet as it’s shaped and crafted by Valerie Boyd, who passed away in February 2022. An incredible researcher, editor, historian, professor and writer. I never had the pleasure of meeting her but will always be grateful for her autobiography on Zora Neale Hurston, WRAPPED IN RAINBOWS. 🖤🖤🖤 Thank you to the folks at @lookoutbooksuncw for sending me an arc of her latest which drops on November 15th. 🙏🏿🖤 BIGGER THAN BRAVERY: BLACK RESILIENCE AND RECLAMATION IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC features pieces written by many of our faves like Karen Good Marable, Deesha Philyaw, Alice Walker, Pearl Cleage, Tayari Jones, Imani Perry ⚡️💖⚡️💖 It’s descriptor reads - “Award-winning author & scholar of the Black archive Valerie Boyd curates this anthology of original essays and poems alongside some of the most influential nonfiction published on the subject, inviting readers into a conversation of restorative joy and enduring wisdom. Bigger than Bravery captures what Boyd calls the first draft of history with poems serving as deep breaths between narrative essays to form a loose chronology of this unprecedented time. Sorrow and outrage have their say but the stories in these pages are bright with family, music, food, and home, teaching us how to nourish ourselves in our communities. Looking ahead as much as it looks back this book offers a window into a hopeful, complex present, establishing an essential record of how Black people in America insist on joy as an act of resistance.” I’m looking forward to reading and discussing this one because it’s giving me an intersection of craft, culture and spirit and I always find that literary space nurturing and inspiring!! This was Valerie Boyd’s last book project and she saw it not only as an anthology but as a gathering and a lineage for future generations of Black writers and editors. I can feel her heart radiating off its pages. Very grateful 🥹🖤 #valerieboyd #blackwomenwriters #blackbookstagram #blackbooks #bookmail #essays #nonfiction #newbook #TFBWL