"We sit in the dark around the campfire and we listen to someone tell us the stories of our tribe, and we've been doing that as humans forever... And you can call it theater, call it film, call it whatever. We have to, there's no other way to know what's important, what's beautiful, what's courageous, …
BONUS Episode: Dr. Clarence Lusane returns
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 …
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Wanda M. Morris, Anywhere You Run – a novel
"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 …
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BONUS OPPORTUNITY: Signifyin’ and Testifyin’ Black Storytellers Alliance presents the 32nd Annual Black Master Storytellers Festival
Three amazing events, 3 venues, family friendly. Different stories every night. Visit Black Storytellers Alliance https://livestream.com/accounts/3288636/events/10598262/player?width=640&height=360&enableInfoAndActivity=true&defaultDrawer=&autoPlay=true&mute=false Livestream provided in partnership with iDream.tv http://www.iDream.tv - A Multimedia Production Company
Author Kristin Henning: The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth
“I will never forget the day that I walked into that courthouse and I encountered a group of young boys in the hallway chained together at their arms and legs. I had no idea that we shackled children in contemporary America." The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth, by Kristin Henning (Pantheon) In The …
Tananarive Due, award-winning author and scholar of Black Horror on The Between
In our 60th episode, Lissa speaks with Queen of Black Horror Tananarive Due on the re-release of her 1995 debut novel The Between (Harper Perennial, 2021). Due is a leading voice in Black speculative fiction, and teaches about Black horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA where she developed a course called “The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival …
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LaTanya McQueen on her debut novel When the Reckoning Comes
On this episode, we hear from LaTanya McQueen about her debut novel, When the Reckoning Comes (Harper Perennial, 2021). The novel follows Mira, a young woman who travels back to the southern town where she grew up to attend the wedding of a childhood friend -- a wedding being held at a former plantation-turned-event venue. …
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Resmaa Menakem on Racialized Trauma and Somatic Abolitionism
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 …
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Author Carol Anderson on her new book The Second: Race and Guns in A Fatally Unequal America
“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 …
Morgan Jerkins on her debut novel, Caul Baby
“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 …
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