On Being Seen by Toni Morrison
It’s never too late to read Toni Morrison for the first time.
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Posts Tagged: black women
Consider Us Women: A Conversation with Kwoya Fagin Maples
Kwoya Fagin Maples discusses her poetry collection, MEND.
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Rumpus Exclusive: “Dark Girls”
When I was born I came out looking just like them.
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Slippery and Dark and Brilliant: A Conversation with Morgan Parker
Morgan Parker discusses her newest collection, MAGICAL NEGRO.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Renee Simms
Renee Simms discusses her debut collection, Meet Behind Mars, leaving law to become a writer, and writing through major life changes.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Morgan Jerkins
Morgan Jerkins discusses This Will Be My Undoing, getting her start on the Internet, and why her collection of linked personal essays isn’t just another Millennial read.
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To Look for America: A Road Trip, a Soundtrack
One thing I was taught about travel—because my father is a black man born in Alabama in 1950—was that there are safe places for black people to go and places that aren’t as safe.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Brooke C. Obie
Brooke C. Obie discusses the historical basis for her debut novel, Book of Addis, writing to dismantle white supremacy, and why Black speculative fiction is integral to her survival.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Nikki Wallschlaeger
Nikki Wallschlaeger discusses her new collection Crawlspace, why she chose to work with the sonnet form, and how segregation in American never ended.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Yona Harvey
Yona Harvey talks about her path to becoming a poet, Winnie Mandela as an artistic inspiration, and what it means to write more publicly.
...moreThis Week in Trumplandia
Welcome to This Week in Trumplandia. Check in with us every Thursday for a weekly roundup of the most pertinent content on our country, which is currently spiraling down a crappy toilet drain. You owe it to yourself, your communities, and your humanity to contribute whatever you can, even if it is just awareness of […]
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Tara Betts
Tara Betts discusses her newest collection, Break the Habit, the burden placed on black women artists to be both artist and activist, and why writing is rooted in identity.
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: A Roundtable on Writing, Editing, and Race
With Lisa Factora-Borchers, Patrice Gopo, Jennifer Niesslein, Tamiko Nimura, and Deesha Philyaw.
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Gotta Go Gotta Flow by Patricia Smith and Michael Abramson
Alicia Swiz reviews Gotta Go Gotta Flow by Patricia Smith and Michael Abramson.
...moreA Running Start
Over at The Offing, Linda Chavers pens an important letter to “black girls everywhere”: I am giving you the prologue. You must go forward accepting and understanding that no one will ever do it as well as you do, and no one will ever tell you that you do it better than anybody else.
...moreWho Are You Writing For?
In the American imagination the black woman, whether light skinned or dark, is already a sexualized entity, a character upon which so many stereotypes are projected. But as a black woman writing these characters, I need to write beyond the stereotypes, expose their idiocy one page at a time. Morgan Jerkins writes about the complications […]
...moreRepresenting Black Women’s Stories
Why do black characters, in particular, black women of color, have to have some curated, Huxtable-like experience? Why can’t black women, like every other human on earth, be sexual, nerdy, outrageous, or flawed? Why aren’t we allowed to share our stories of affairs, unrequited love, career failures and sexual diversity on camera? For Blavity, Kayla […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Josie Pickens
Josie Pickens talks about building relationships through blogging, changing the narrative around black women in America, and eradicating silence through storytelling.
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“Happily Ever After” for African-American Romance Novelists
Romance novels can’t erase the past, and the present. Chapter by chapter, they do strive toward agency.
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Tamara Winfrey-Harris
The reality is that there is privilege even within social justice movements.
...more“Diversity Does Bring About Positive Change”
After public pressure came to a head, Saturday Night Live finally added a black woman to its cast: Sasheer Zamata, a comedian, actress, and veteran of improv group the Upright Citizens’ Brigade. Our essays editor Roxane Gay wrote an essay for Time about Zamata’s debut episode and what it means for diversity, representation, and the cultural perception […]
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