It’s Lit
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'Love Is the Strut. Hate Is a Stumble': The Root Presents It's Lit! Salutes the Black Bottom Saints With Alice Randall
In case you haven’t noticed, “Black joy” has been our theme for Black History Month 2021 at The Root—and as the month comes to a close, it’s fitting that we share the joy that is writer Alice Randall. Perhaps you’re familiar with Randall through her bestselling (and controversial) 2001 parody of Gone With the Wind,…
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'No Revolutionary Act Is Without Risk': The Root Presents It's Lit! and Charles Blow Dance With The Devil You Know
Charles Blow hadn’t planned to write a manifesto on reverse migration. In fact, the New York Times columnist and author of the bestselling memoir Fire Shut Up in My Bones was just writing…thoughts. “I just remember one night thinking, ‘Oh, this is a good idea.’ And I just started writing thoughts,” Blow tells us during…
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'Writing to Make a Difference in This World,' Roxane Gay Launches a MasterClass
“You don’t need to be brave when you’re writing; you need to acknowledge that you’re terrified—and do it anyway,” so says author-educator-activist Roxane Gay, who has arguably produced some of the bravest writing of the past decade. Whether deconstructing (and humorously challenging) what it means to be a feminist in Bad Feminist, or plumbing the…
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'I Was Just Consistently Blown Away': The Root Presents: It's Lit! Honors Four Hundred Souls With Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
It’s been just over 400 years since the unintentional founding of Black America—when “20 or so odd Negroes” in captivity were delivered to the shores of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. In the intervening centuries, much—and yet, not enough—has changed. This much-needed conversation was only brought into its full historical context at the national (and even…
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PageTurners: Children's Books Guaranteed to Make Everyone Smile
Children’s books have moved from being about bunnies and flowers (though I dig those) to tackling hard-hitting topics such as race, gentrification and gender. Giving children the opportunity to learn and make their own decisions about those hard-hitting topics through books and reading is powerful…especially during Black History Month. I Affirm Me: The ABCs of…
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PageTurners: Where There Is Strength There Is Joy
Strength and joy go hand-in-hand, and this week’s literary releases beautifully celebrate both. In certain parts of the country, we’re knee-deep in snow and ice, and finding the strength to feel even the littlest joy is quite difficult. But we’ve almost hit the halfway point of February, the days are getting longer, and we can…
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'A Lot of My Favorite Hip-Hop Writers Have Been Women': The Root Presents: It's Lit! Hits The Motherlode With Clover Hope
The first rule of working with Beyoncé is: You do not talk about working with Beyoncé. But that didn’t stop us from asking—after all, our sister-in-writing Clover Hope has now worked on not one, but two projects with Queen Bey. Last year, she was one of the writers behind the summer’s gorgeous Black Is King…
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PageTurners: Manifesting Black Joy Across All Genres
Black literature is something to be celebrated year-round but during this month of socially distanced debauchery, Black authors have set us bookworms up for success. On only the second day of February, many authors pulled out all of the stops and have given us memoirs, short stories, debut novels and untold stories. Journal prompts and…
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So…President Obama Showed Up to the Latest Very Smart Brothas x MahoganyBooks Book Club Meeting. Here's What Happened
Way back yonder—in late 2018—I co-founded a book club with the owners of MahoganyBooks, Derrick and Ramunda Young. This was a no-brainer of a collaboration. For one, all of us are avid readers and they own a physical book store that focuses on books by and for Black people. It was an opportunity to bring…
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'That Ideology of Colorism Affects All of Us': The Root Presents It's Lit! Talks Prose, Passing and the Power of Black Women With Brit Bennett
There’s a reason Black women call each other “sister.” Even if we bear no blood relation or resemblance—and despite our broad variances in color, economic and educational access and life experience—there is an innate knowing between Black women—of what it is to be a Black woman. Writer Brit Bennett has a deep understanding of this…