For the smart and free-thinking, Black Market Reads is a podcast featuring conversations with today's most exciting Black literary voices. We are a podcast for any one who loves to read, write, and engage. Black Market Reads is a project of The Givens Foundation for African American Literature.
Author Jayne Allen: Black Girls Must Die Exhausted
“In a gorgeously complex life full of challenges, it is tempting to think that struggle somehow makes us unworthy, rather than qualifying us for something greater.”
In Black Girls Must Die Exhausted, author Jayne Allen shares relatable, real-life experiences of the lead character Tabitha Walker, a young professional who knows what she wants with a plan in place to have it all. The book centers around the narrative and perspective of a black female protagonist navigating contemporary fertility issues, family, race, relationships, and inequality, to ultimately discover what matters most wasn’t what she initially thought. This book is about receiving a wake-up call and opportunity to define life on your terms rather than accepting how the world imposes its definitions.
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted Like the lead character featured in her new novel Black Girls Must Die Exhausted, our guest today knows all about living life as a successful African American woman and self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur.” This Harvard Law grad is a popular speaker, thought leader, seasoned business executive, and noted author who writes fiction under her chosen nom de plume, Jayne Allen.
Episode transcript follows…
Go Deeper: Additional Resources
What is Ms Allen reading?:
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? – by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn
Jayne Allen is the pen name of Jaunique Sealey, a graduate of Duke University and Harvard Law School. An avid traveler, she speaks three languages and has visited five continents. Drawing from her unique experiences as an attorney and entrepreneur, she crafts transcultural stories that touch upon contemporary women’s issues such as workplace and career dynamics, race, fertility, modern relationships and mental health awareness.
Lissa and her guest discuss the role that hair plays in this story and in a Black woman’s life, referencing work by Pearl Cleage
Pearl Cleage – on hair
Authenticity and imposter syndrome are themes in the conversation with a reference to We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar
