Vann R. Newkirk II (@fivefifths) writes for Seven Scribes on the experience of discovering novels by black writers to act as a necessary complement to reading Harper Lee’s reductive portrayals of race in Mockingbird and Watchman:

These books, this canon, represented the exact opposite of what To Kill a Mockingbird meant. They were freedom. They were agency. They were encouragements to find my voice and use it.