Reading lists.

Favorite Book on Race I Read This Month:

Courageous Discomfort: How to Have Important, Brave, Life—Changing Conversations about Race and Racism.

Books like White Fragility and How To Be An Antiracist discuss how to have uncomfortable conversations with white people. But there is something unique about Courageous Discomfort, a book on race and racism written by a Black woman and a white woman. Written by authors (and best friends) Shanterra McBride, who is Black, and Rosalind Wiseman, who is white, the book answers 20 common, uncomfortable-but-critical questions about racism.

Favorite Short Fiction:

Sentiment, Dorothy Parker

Favorite Flash Fiction:

All Your Fragile History

Favorite Nonfiction Narrative Essay:

Journey to a Promised Land. A mesmerizing true story published on Narratively, my favorite site on the internet where first-person untold stories are published. Take one hell of a ride with an Ethiopian Jew, from a mountainous village of northern Ethiopia to Sudan. From Sudan to Israel. From Israel to New York.

A Beautiful and Poetic essay on Blackness and Breath:

No Words, Kevin Adonis Browne

Useful Nonfiction Book on Writing:

Craft and Conscience: How to Write about Social Issues, Kavita Das. Loved this sentence from the book. “You cannot write about social issues responsibly unless your work is grounded in ethics.” So true. And so necessary for every writer who writes about social issues.

A Book I Gifted to Friends:

Courageous Discomfort: How to Have Important, Brave, Life—Changing Conversations about Race and Racism

A Book I’m Currently Reading:

A HARP in the STARS: An Anthology of Lyric Essays

A Paragraph I Loved Reading This Week:

“One time I was out walking in the snow. The flakes were floating down. The clouds start flickering pale blue. Thunder washed over snow. That’s planet earth. It will not be tamed. It will not be killed. If we’re not kinder, it will get rid of us.” Jessica Wildfire, The Poor Person’s Guide to Saving The Planet

A Quote From Tracee Ellis Ross, whose father is Jewish, whose mother is African-American:

“I need to see my own beauty and to continue to be reminded that I am enough, that I am worthy of love without effort, that I am beautiful, that the texture of my hair and that the shape of my curves, the size of my lips, the color of my skin, and the feelings that I have are all worthy and okay.”

Did You Know?

In Ethiopia, a year lasts 13 months. The first 12 months have 30 days each and the 13th month, Pagume, has 5 days, except a leap year where Pagume has 6 days.