It’s Lit
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John Ridley Talks Reshaping Both the Past and Future of DC Comics With The Next Batman and The Other History of the DC Universe
As a part of DC’s ongoing Future State event, The Next Batman depicts a near-future where Bruce Wayne/Batman is believed to have been murdered by a private, hyper militarized police force called The Magistrate. With caped crusading becoming a crime punishable by death, Tim Fox—son of tech genius Lucius Fox—dons the cape and cowl to…
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PageTurners: Historic Black Women and the Literary Legacies They've Paved
It has already been a historic year for Black women, and this week we can reflect on the legacies of history-making women who paved the way for our successes today. The long-awaited biography Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells; Cicely Tyson’s, Just as I Am: A Memoir; and…
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Capping Off a Winning Week, Amanda Gorman's First 3 Books Have Preemptively Garnered a Million First Prints
Ask any author or publisher, and they’ll tell you that garnering enough demand for reprints of any book is a very good sign. With that in mind, a million prints ordered prior to publication is a very rare indication of a predicted hit. After her performance at last Wednesday’s inauguration, Amanda Gorman’s publisher Penguin Random…
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All Boys Aren't Blue: George M. Johnson's Bestselling Memoir-Manifesto Becomes a Star-Studded Filmed Reading
Last year may not have brought an abundance of pleasures, but one of its standouts was George M. Johnson’s literary debut, All Boys Aren’t Blue. The Root 100 honoree’s “memoir-manifesto” not only became an instant bestseller and Amazon Best Book of the Year honoree but garnered a development deal with Gabrielle Union’s production company, soon…
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Four Hundred Souls: A Landmark Anthology Announces a Star-Studded Audiobook Cast
When The 1619 Project debuted in 2019, it shed much-needed perspective on the history of African descendants in America—and our birthright to a country founded upon the labor of our ancestors. In February, that history will be explored in even more depth with the publication of Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America,…
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'I’m the Whole Damn Aisle': The Root Presents: It’s Lit! Gets Into the Thick of It With Michelle Buteau
To say that Michelle Buteau keeps it real would be an understatement. The comedian, actress and now author of Survival of the Thickest: Plus-Sized Essays in a Small-Minded World, published in December by “Simon and Schu-Schu,” as she affectionately calls it, is proudly unfiltered—and hilariously so on this week’s episode of The Root Presents: It’s…
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PageTurners: In With the Old and In With the New
Today has been really emotional. My own moods swung from pure delight to pure anxiety as I woke up this morning and realized that #45 had left the White House as President for the last time—then pessimistically waited for something bad to happen during the Inauguration—but then tearing up the moment Vice-President Kamala Harris was…
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'This Is Not a Fight That Is Over': The Root Presents: It's Lit! Has a Word About Anti-Racism With Kenrya Rankin
Remember that time a huge swath of Americans convinced themselves the country was “post-racial” following the election of our first Black president, Barack Obama? Well, if the much-needed formation of the Black Lives Matter movement, a countless four years of Donald Trump, and 2020’s uprisings for racial justice didn’t convince them otherwise, last week’s full-scale…
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PageTurners: We’re in for a Helluva Literary Year
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to find joy in reading again. I had this same goal last year–and let’s face it, every year for a while now–and even felt the hope of achieving that goal when we all went into lockdown, assuming I would have plenty of time to read and get back…
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After Writing a New Chapter for Georgia, Stacey Abrams Is Publishing a New Legal Thriller
One of the most fun facts about Stacey Abrams, the attorney, political powerhouse, voting rights activist and former (and possibly future) gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, is that she’s also a prolific author. In fact, over the past two decades, she’s quietly written eight popular romance novels under the pseudonym “Selena Montgomery” in addition to her…