A recent visit to Chicago for BookExpo America transported me back to 2005, when I visited the offices of historic black newspaper The Chicago Defender. At the time, I was a grad student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, visiting to interview then-editor Roland Martin about his plans for reviving the paper at its 100th anniversary.

Martin peered over a sleek silver laptop, surrounded by books and papers, and opined in an authoritative staccato about newspaper lifecycles and the coming convergence of print, radio, television and web media.

With his signature mix of substance and swagger, Martin recast the 18,000-circulation daily — known at that point for delivering yesterday’s news tomorrow — as a formidable American brand on the cusp of ascent.

Continue reading “The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America”

Hello, it’s Maya, and I’m back with another five-star read. The year’s half over, but I still would like to spend today talking about Shonda Rhimes’s “The Year of Yes.” This is a fantastic book that’s not really just about saying yes to everything that comes your way. It’s really a book about pushing through discomfort to do some of the things that are really worthwhile for your personal and professional development.

The kinds of yeses Shonda is giving are unlike anything most of us are experiencing. She’s saying yes to [appearing on] Jimmy Kimmel, yes to giving a commencement speech at Dartmouth in front of 10,000 people. Those aren’t the sorts of yeses most of us can say, but I still think there’s a benefit to reading her story, and learning to push past the things that scare us, whatever they may be.

Continue reading “Year of Yes”

I read picture books to my daughter for nearly five years before I gained a deep appreciation for the form. Sure, I read them daily and with enthusiasm (mostly). But I read them the same way I would read a chapter book or an illustrated dictionary. That is, I read them as if the pictures were servant to the text, secondary and utilitarian.

If I referenced a picture at all, it was to capture Zora’s attention with quick questions like: What color is her shirt? or How many ducks do you see?

Then I attended one of Carmen Oliver’s picture book seminars offered through The Writing Barn in Austin. Oliver, author of Bears Make the Best Reading Buddies, teaches the art of picture book writing, but her seminar was just as valuable as a picture book appreciation primer.

Continue reading “Watch What Happens When You Give Picture Books a Fresh Look”

Grace Bonney’s In the Company of Women offers inspiration and advice from 100 women who are makers, artists, and entrepreneurs. Rather than telling long, drawn out life stories of the women, it really cuts to the heart of their stories by asking some specific questions about what inspires them, what obstacles they’ve overcome.

The candid responses she received are really inspiring to readers, and also the fact that there are so many different women offering these insights into pivotal moments in their lives. I think that the compilation of their voices is something really special.

In addition to the words on the page, the photography adds a whole other dimension to the book. We’re able to see the women in their spaces. We’re able see their personal style, how they dress, how they wear their hair, but also the objects that are valuable and inspiring to them. All of these elements work together beautifully, and I think that’s a testament to Bonney’s experience developing Design*Sponge.

In the Company of Women is just what its title promises. It is a community of sorts on the page. It’s women sharing their stories in the hopes of inspiring other women. It’s women reading those stories and taking away something from it, and connecting with the women around them.

I really enjoyed this read, and I hope that you can find some inspiration within its pages as well.

If this review resonates with you, I bet you’ll enjoy my newsletter. I regularly send bookish news and notes out to more than 1,000 readers. Sign up here.

Hi, it’s Maya, and I’m back with another 5-Star Read. I’m so excited to share Patricia Bell-Scott’s, The Firebrand and the First Lady,” with you.

This book is wonderful for so many reasons. In particular, I really loved that it’s a portrait of a friendship. The two people in the friendship are these extraordinarily influential historical figures. On one hand we have Eleanor Roosevelt. Then, on the other hand we have Pauli Murray.

Continue reading “The Firebrand and the First Lady”

I interviewed bestselling author Zadie Smith live before a sold out crowd at Central Presbyterian Church in Austin on January 12th at 7 p.m.  It was an honor to chat with Smith about her writing process and latest product–Swing Time.  

Continue reading “In Conversation with Zadie Smith”

Necessary and audacious, Mychal Denzel Smith’s assured debut, Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, fuses memoir and cultural criticism to ponder an often-neglected question: How did you learn to be a black man?

The way he scrutinizes the origin of his beliefs about black identity and masculinity is revelatory–and instructive. He mines his personal history as an Obama-era black millennial in the service of a larger vision: social transformation through personal awakening.

As he traces his own education, through family, books, music, comedians and college, he illuminates a way forward for anyone willing to grapple with their own cultural inheritance.  He models a process for questioning convention and envisioning a new self and a new world freed from past constraints.

He credits truth-tellers including Malcolm X, Mos Def and Aaron McGruder with raising his black radical awareness. But, just as importantly, interrogating those influences spurred his black liberation imaginings. When you critique your culture, appraise your morals and shatter your worldview, you have a shot at growing up whole, he posits. You have a chance to create something other than the self-hatred, violence and mental illness all around us.

The journey can feel isolating. He learned that most people, even fellow students at the historically black college he attended, don’t share his enthusiasm for fighting black oppression head on. “I expected to engage thousands of other young black budding intellectuals about the politics of racism, and how we might unite and organize to bring down the system, with our struggle-weary professors guiding and cheering us along,” he writes. “Instead I found thousands of mini-Obamas and an administration happy to indulge in their delusions.”

Yet he also found books and people on campus who nudged him forward. A professor suggested that he move beyond the “SAY IT LOUD, I’M BLACK AND I’M PROUD” literature to consider how gender affects power and politics in ways black men often don’t consider. Thus, “And what of ‘the black woman’?” gets added to Smith’s question list and Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez and Toni Morrison eventually join his intellectual universe.

Of this transformed perspective he writes:

These black men were my guides through the minefield of identity when faced with racism.  I was attracted to the bravado, to the reclamation of black excellence. I wanted to absorb their performance of black arrogance as a corrective to self-loathing. But what I hadn’t considered was how that ego was gendered. I spent my childhood passively absorbing white supremacist ideas of my invisibility, then unconsciously shrinking myself from the world. Everything I read, listened to, and learned validated my right to existence as a black man in America. But that wasn’t the whole equation. Everything I read, listened to, and learned validated my right to existence as a black man in America, but only within the confines of a patriarchal definition of masculine identity. What went unquestioned were the ways my newfound sense of black manhood contributed to the ongoing marginalization of my mother, her twin sister, my grandmother, my high school guidance counselor, and more than half the student population on Hampton University’s campus. I began to see myself, but only by refusing to see black women.

Smith’s emphasis on questions over answers may frustrate readers seeking a specific cure-all for The Race Problem. But his depth and candor in exploring the making and remaking of his own identity illustrate an important first step: To fight a system of oppression you must understand how pervasive it is and how you are complicit in it.

This review is an excerpt from an interview that can be read in full here.

If this review resonates with you, I bet you’ll enjoy my newsletter. I regularly send bookish news and notes out to more than 1,000 readers. Sign up here.

A particularly moving scene in the film Hidden Figures takes place not at NASA but in the public library of Hampton, Virginia. Mathematician Dorothy Vaughn steers clear of vocal civil rights protests on her way into the library. Yet her visit is cut short when a white librarian warns her: “We don’t want any trouble in here,” as she considers a computer programming text on a shelf. Vaughn’s only seeking knowledge — a book that can’t be found in the colored section — yet she and her young sons are brusquely escorted out by a guard.

The scene distills so many dimensions of the enduring obstacles to equality in America, from restricted access to career-propelling information to the threat of rebuke for daring to challenge the social order. It got me thinking about the incredible barriers to adult education and career advancement that continue to persist, helped by complex systems of discrimination and segregation.

Continue reading “Today’s Hidden Figures”
September 24, 2013 marked a big milestone in my personal productivity journey. It was the first jam-packed day of meetings that I navigated without adding anything to my (already full) to-do list. I had two face-to-face meetings and a conference call before noon and managed to escape them all task-free.

 

Wow! For once, I was free to actually follow up on my previously committed commitments. (Well, until the next round of meetings.)

Throughout the meetings, I didn’t volunteer to be the scribe or fill in folks who missed the meeting. I didn’t raise my hand to tie up any loose ends the group discussions created. I didn’t lean in to assume a new leadership role or fill a void or save the day.

Rather, I stayed in my lane—the slow one that I’ve been trying (with difficulty) to glide into since high school, when I first became the queen of over-commitment, juggling sports, band, student council and every other organization under the sun, on top of a fully loaded academic schedule.

Continue reading “What it Looks Like to Commit Without Overcommitting”

September 24, 2013 marked a big milestone in my personal productivity journey. It was the first jam-packed day of meetings that I navigated without adding anything to my (already full) to-do list. I had two face-to-face meetings and a conference call before noon and managed to escape them all task-free.

 

Wow! For once, I was free to actually follow up on my previously committed commitments. (Well, until the next round of meetings.)

Throughout the meetings, I didn’t volunteer to be the scribe or fill in folks who missed the meeting. I didn’t raise my hand to tie up any loose ends the group discussions created. I didn’t lean in to assume a new leadership role or fill a void or save the day.

Rather, I stayed in my lane—the slow one that I’ve been trying (with difficulty) to glide into since high school, when I first became the queen of over-commitment, juggling sports, band, student council and every other organization under the sun, on top of a fully loaded academic schedule.

Continue reading “What it Looks Like to Commit Without Overcommitting”

I knew I had a problem when, in a meeting with a couple of block-print Moleskin types, I pulled out a crumpled piece of bright yellow legal pad paper and began jotting down some notes. They watched my pen like a movie trailer.

 

Now, granted, part of this reaction was due to my red lacquer pen with a dragon pattern etched in gold. But these super-organized colleagues were mostly staring at the notes themselves—loopy non sequitur scrawls on unmoored paper. I vowed that when we met again, I’d have my note act together. For appearance’s sake, yes, but more importantly for my own productivity and sanity.

It didn’t take much… this time. A stroll through the office supply store and one simple tool aided a transformation that went much deeper than just appearing to be a neat note taker. In fact, it helped me bolster attentiveness during meetings, improve my follow-through on promised tasks, and make strides in my ongoing quest to commit without overcommitting. The answer? A preprinted spiral-bound notebook specifically designed for meeting notes.

When it comes to meeting notes, I’ve tried it all, from punching them into electronic devices to scribbling longhand on meeting agendas; from color-coded, project-specific binders (arranged reverse-chronologically) to scraps of paper scattered about (rarely to be seen again). Ultimately, they’ve all failed me in one or another way. Usually, by being too elaborate or too isolated.

Continue reading “The Secret to Successful Meeting-hopping (Hint: It’s All in the Notes)”

I knew I had a problem when, in a meeting with a couple of block-print Moleskin types, I pulled out a crumpled piece of bright yellow legal pad paper and began jotting down some notes. They watched my pen like a movie trailer.

 

Now, granted, part of this reaction was due to my red lacquer pen with a dragon pattern etched in gold. But these super-organized colleagues were mostly staring at the notes themselves—loopy non sequitur scrawls on unmoored paper. I vowed that when we met again, I’d have my note act together. For appearance’s sake, yes, but more importantly for my own productivity and sanity.

It didn’t take much… this time. A stroll through the office supply store and one simple tool aided a transformation that went much deeper than just appearing to be a neat note taker. In fact, it helped me bolster attentiveness during meetings, improve my follow-through on promised tasks, and make strides in my ongoing quest to commit without overcommitting. The answer? A preprinted spiral-bound notebook specifically designed for meeting notes.

When it comes to meeting notes, I’ve tried it all, from punching them into electronic devices to scribbling longhand on meeting agendas; from color-coded, project-specific binders (arranged reverse-chronologically) to scraps of paper scattered about (rarely to be seen again). Ultimately, they’ve all failed me in one or another way. Usually, by being too elaborate or too isolated.

Continue reading “The Secret to Successful Meeting-hopping (Hint: It’s All in the Notes)”