Justice for Jelani Day

For a young black man in central Illinois plains to just go missing from his university didn't even make sense and almost didn't make any national noise. His mother changed that.

The Smollett Verdict

#JussieSmollettTrial: Reflections from Chicago. How are we measuring "success"? What's worth it? What's not? For context on hate crimes, I read from #RichardWright's posthumous novel The Man Who Lived Underground. Be grateful for what you have or achieve, people.

Sisters Jennifer and Jordan Turpin Give Testimony to Life

It is my privilege to salute Jennifer and Jordan Turpin, two young women who escaped and started over after a lifetime of the unimaginable. David and Louise Turpin raised their 13 children in secret squalor and tortuous rules, until, to save her siblings, Jordan found the courage at age 17 to leap into the world she'd never known.

“I Came To Chicago To Work”

Dear Readers: Rachel León interviewed me for Chicago Review of Books on my latest novel SPEAKING OF SUMMER, the writing life and working in Chicago. I’d forgotten how much we covered: the novel composition process, support (or the lack thereof) for mental health, inequities in approaches to men and women’s meditative literature, unsafety for women. … Continue reading “I Came To Chicago To Work” →

Happy to share a Woman of Power, Develyn Biagas

Develyn Biagas: a longtime educator and youth advocate now working on her PhD, with a specialty focus area of African-American girls and the school to prison pipeline. She also works in young adult literature and plans to publish her first Young Adult novel soon. I am happy girls she works with now have someone like her to look up to.

“You are not gonna silence me.” -Senator Stephanie Flowers on racist Stand Your Ground “rights”

Emmett, Trayvon, Markeis, Kalief, Oscar, Tamir, Aiyana, Stephon, Botham, Sandra, Amadou, Eleanor, Terence, Philando, Alton, Walter, Sharmel, Miriam, Tony, Jordan, Rumain, Rekia, Laquan, Eric, Michael...