Women of Color Authors You Need to Read

I read this recently for Noname Book Club and while reading it I felt so much anger that I had not been introduced to this text when I was younger. Audre Lorde has powerful words and thoughts on seeing each other’s differences as strengths and ensuring these differences are kept in mind when thinking of equality for all. A must-read!

This collection of essays detailing Bassey Ikpi’s experiences living and coping with mental illness that ultimately led to a diagnosis of bipolar II and anxiety is not only riveting, but it’s also essential. It challenges the notion of what mental illness looks like and how possible it is to seem like you’ve got it all together yet inside your brain is pulling you into a whirlwind of doom no one else is able to witness.

I listened to “Redefining Realness” on Scribd and I did not want to pause the audio. Janet Mock narrates this audiobook and listening to her tell her own story fills me all the joy and empowerment to celebrate womanhood.

In “Dominicana,” Ana (the main character), for me personally, brought to life all the stories the women in my family have told me about living in America. All the funny stories they love to tell about how they navigated life here initially without knowing the language. How triumphant they felt finally learning the language and succeeding in it. “Dominicana” is an ode to them.

This book is classified as a memoir, however I am certain — and I know many others have said this too — it defies what a traditional memoir should look like because it is the first of its kind: The first to intimately confront queer loving and living into normalcy in order to make room for queer thriving.