I'm a critic and journalist who lives in Brooklyn, but I left my heart in the place I grew up: Down South in Birmingham, Alabama.
In 2006, my parents moved from Birmingham to Jackson, Mississippi, four hours further south and west. When I visited them, I always gravitated towards the bookstore, of course, and soon developed a fascination with Jackson's patron literary saint, Eudora Welty. I had read her books before, but being in the place that she wrote about and lived felt different to me. There was a connection between her home and her writing that was almost tangible in Jackson, particularly...
Jessica B. Harris
According to Heritage Radio Network, there's perhaps no greater expert on the food and foodways of the African Diaspora than Doctor Jessica B. Harris. She is the author of twelve critically acclaimed cookbooks documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora including Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa's Gifts to New World Cooking, Sky Juice and Flying Fish Traditional Caribbean Cooking, The Welcome Table: African American Heritage Cooking, The Africa Cookook: Tastes of a Continent, Beyond Gumbo: Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Rim. Harris also conceptualized and organized The Black Family...
Margaret Eby
I'm a critic and journalist who lives in Brooklyn, but I left my heart in the place I grew up: Down South in Birmingham, Alabama.
In 2006, my parents moved from Birmingham to Jackson, Mississippi, four hours further south and west. When I visited them, I always gravitated towards the bookstore, of course, and soon developed a fascination with Jackson's patron literary saint, Eudora Welty. I had read her books before, but being in the place that she wrote about and lived felt different to me. There was a connection between her home and her writing that was almost tangible in Jackson, particularly...
Jessica B. Harris
According to Heritage Radio Network, there's perhaps no greater expert on the food and foodways of the African Diaspora than Doctor Jessica B. Harris. She is the author of twelve critically acclaimed cookbooks documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora including Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa's Gifts to New World Cooking, Sky Juice and Flying Fish Traditional Caribbean Cooking, The Welcome Table: African American Heritage Cooking, The Africa Cookook: Tastes of a Continent, Beyond Gumbo: Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Rim. Harris also conceptualized and organized The Black Family...