Best Books of 2022,
Library Journal
Big Indie Book of Fall,
Publishers Weekly
2023 Georgia Author of the Year Award Winner
for specialty book
Foreword INDIES
silver winner
for anthology
“
Valerie Boyd’s
Bigger Than Bravery
isn’t just an anthology; it is a survival guide.”
—Courtney B. Vance, Tony- and Emmy-winning actor
An anthology of Black resilience and reclamation, with contributions by Pearl Cleage, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Tayari Jones, Kiese Laymon, Imani Perry, Deesha Philyaw, Khadijah Queen, Jason Reynolds, Alice Walker, and more
Born of a desire to bring together the voices of those most harshly affected by the intersecting pandemics of Covid-19 and systemic racism,
explores comfort and compromise, challenge and resilience, throughout the Great Pause that became the Great Call. Award-winning author and scholar of the Black archive
Valerie Boyd
curates this anthology of original essays and poems, alongside some of the most influential nonfiction published on the subject, inviting readers into a conversation of restorative joy and enduring wisdom.
captures what Boyd calls the “first draft of history,” with poems serving as deep breaths between narrative essays to form a loose chronology of this unprecedented time.
Karen Good Marable
cranks “Whip My Hair” from the car windows during quarantine joyrides with her daughter.
Deesha Philyaw
ponders loneliness as she sorts Zoom meetings into those that require a bra and those that don’t. Writing in the moment though not of it,
Pearl Cleage
reflects on what has and hasn’t changed since the AIDS epidemic.
Jason Reynolds
harnesses heat and flavor to carry on his father’s legacy.
Sorrow and outrage have their say, but the stories in these pages are bright with family, music, food, and home, teaching us how to nourish ourselves and our communities. Looking ahead as much as it looks back,
offers a window into a hopeful, complex present, establishing an essential record of how Black people in America insist on joy as an act of resistance.