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.
"I think that you'll have taught our history as our armor, that Black people are more than the sum of our traumas or tragedies. That Black history is the way, and a path to look back. I think that we will remember how to be good to each other and how to speak well of …
Continue reading "Charlayne Hunter-Gault, My People – Five Decades of Writing About Black Lives"
Celebrating Black History Month, Lissa was invited by Books & Books in Miami to interview Dr. Clarence Lusane about his recent work, Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy, (City Lights 2023). Join us for this in depth conversation linking past to present. https://givensbmr.libsyn.com/bonus-episode-dr-clarence-lusane-returns Link to purchase the …
Continue reading "BONUS Episode: Dr. Clarence Lusane returns"
"We are just a stepping stone away from being back in 1964, if you think that the overturning of Roe v. Wade was gonna be it and it was gonna stop there, I would bet you a mortgage payment, you're wrong. The gist of the book is if you don't vote, then you're part of …
Continue reading "Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run – a novel"
Left: Cover of Resmaa's NYT Bestselling book My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies; Right: Lissa and Resmaa in the studio. On this episode, Lissa sits down with Resmaa Menakem, the New York Times bestselling author of My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our …
Continue reading "Resmaa Menakem on Racialized Trauma and Somatic Abolitionism"
“How can I be unarmed when it is my blackness you fear," writes Carol Anderson in her latest work, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). This episode was recorded as part of a live event in anticipation of the release of Carol Anderson’s latest Book The Second: hosted by …
“I don’t know this woman, I don’t like this woman, but I understand this woman,” says author Morgan Jerkins of what she wants her readers to takeaway from reading the complex, challenging women who make up her debut novel l Caul Baby (Harper 2021). In this episode, essayist, memoirist, and, now, novelist Morgan Jerkins sits …
Continue reading "Morgan Jerkins on her debut novel, Caul Baby"
"For me, the title of the book is about testifying on behalf of myself, my family, my children and adding to the conversation about the beauty of our people," says Carolyn Holbrook about her newly released collection of essays, Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify (University of Minnesota Press, 2020). In this episode, …
Continue reading "Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify: Author Carolyn Holbrook on her new book"
On February 7, Black Market Reads was honored to participate in a profound and uplifting celebration of Black identity, art, and music at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA). https://oembed.libsyn.com/embed?item_id=13070933 In part one of this episode, which was recorded in the galleries of the MIA, Lissa speaks with Esther Callahan (Curatorial Affairs Fellow - contemporary …
In this episode of Black Market Reads, Lissa speaks with historian and educator Dr. William D. Green to discuss his works on the history of race and civil rights in Minnesota. Dr. Green is a professor of history at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, and serves as Vice President of the Minnesota Historical society. He is …
In October, we partnered with Rain Taxi Review of Books to record a special live episode of Black Market Reads at the 2019 Twin Cities Book Festival. In this episode, Lissa speaks with authors about the life and work of the author Toni Morrison who passed away earlier this year. http://givensbmr.libsyn.com/twin-cities-book-festival-2019 Toni Morrison is a …
Continue reading "Remembering Toni Morrison at the 2019 Twin Cities Book Festival"