If, by chance, you’re looking for something good to read this summer, you can start with a book written by our own “NewsHour” staff.
Three of our colleagues are out now with a memoir, a novel and a non-fiction book, all in very different styles.
Jeffrey Brown spoke with them about our art and culture series, Canvas.
The title is irresistible, “You Cannot Resist Me When My Hair Is in Braids,” a book of short essays, prose poems and sketches, in which Frances Kai-Hwa Wang writes about raising multiracial children after a divorce and navigating in the current cultural and cultural background. political climate, especially as an Asian American woman. Wang is based in the greater Detroit area, as part of the “NewsHour” Community Initiative, a reporting project to bring undertold stories out of the country.
Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Author, “You Can’t Resist Me When My Hair Is in Braids”: It’s a collection of stories inspired by the wisdom of my multiracial children, the pride of my Asian bossy aunts, and humor. of unreliable suitors. .
And it’s all in the background of a kind of uncertain political landscape that we’ve had for the last few years.
“Boys Come First” is also a story of twists in relation to a lot of humor.
But Aaron Foley wrote a novel, his first, about three black queer friends in Detroit, where Foley himself grew up. He is now the senior digital editor for the “NewsHour” Community Initiative.
Aaron Foley, Author, “Boys Come First”: This is something that is a dream for life that comes true only to tell a story about my hometown, tell a story about black identity, queer identity which I hope resonates with people living at the intersection. of these two things.
It’s a story of three gay black men in Detroit who are all at a different crossroads in their lives, being in their mid-30s, where in – sometimes in black communities, that’s when a certain amount of pressure begins to build. catch.
And so these three characters are struggling to get to those places with good relationships, putting their careers on track, but also the city of Detroit is changing around them.
In “We Go High,” Nicole Ellis tells true stories of others. She profiles about 30 influential women of color who have overcome barriers in her life or career, activists, scientists, cultural affairs and political figures.
Nicole is the digital anchor of “NewsHour” and a correspondent.
Nicole Ellis, Author, “We Go High: How 30 Women of Color Achieved Greatness Against All Odds”: The overall premise of the book focuses not only on the achievements of different women in the world of color, but how they they have come here, through the lens of the different kinds of challenges and adversities they have had to navigate.
It’s meant to be the kind of book that validates the challenging experiences we’ve all experienced, and also gives you a few tools to understand how to move forward.
