“Change comes one at a time” – author Claudia Rankine on her latest work, Just Us: An American Conversation

Launching the sixth season of BMR, Lissa sits down with poet and essayist Claudia Rankine to dive into her latest work Just Us: An American Conversation (Graywolf Press, 2020). Rankine describes the book as the result of a challenge she set to herself to talk to white men - a group she rarely talks to …

‘I found God in myself and I loved her. I loved her fiercely’ – Remembering the great Ntozake Shange; with Sarah Bellamy, Artistic Director of Penumbra Theatre

When asked by the author Alexs Pate in a 2009 interview whether she was conscious of a through-line in her body of work, Ntozake Shange said no. But she went on to say that her goal in all her work was to make African-American women the centers of the universe. In this episode, we look …

Bonus Episode: Live from Rain Taxi’s Twin Cities Book Festival 2018

On October 13th authors, publishers, book sellers, and book lovers came together at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds for the annual Twin Cities Book Festival, organized by the Rain Taxi Review of Books. This meeting of the literary minds gave the Black Market Reads team the opportunity to ask some pressing questions of these creators …