Read my essay “A Family Vacation” in A Darker Wilderness (Milkweed 2023), a vibrant collection of personal and lyric essays in conversation with archival objects of Black history and memory.
More on A Darker Wilderness here.
Praise for A Darker Wilderness:
"The most important anthology of this decade."—Keise Laymon, author of Heavy
“This beautiful collection of essays offers thoroughgoing contemplations of the vexing, heartbreaking, miraculous, and wonderful questions of Black people and the land, Black people and the earth, which, as far as I’m concerned, are among the most important questions there are. I’m so glad, so grateful, to have A Darker Wilderness as guide and friend; I’m so glad we get to ask those questions together.”—Ross Gay, author of The Book of Delights
“A response to the absence of Black literature about attachment to the American landscape, A Darker Wilderness is a multigenerational dwelling place that is both internal and external. An abundance of relevant themes emerge: home as refuge, seeking freedom amid social oppression, gardens as healers, and the complex history of Black landownership . . . A well-curated assemblage of Black voices that draws profound connections among family, nature, aspiration, and loss." —Kirkus Reviews