I witnessed so many writers share their first book when the book club began, and now some of them have two, three books, and their success is continuing to grow. It has been amazing also to watch the progression of their careers. I wanted to reflect that on the podcast, where we could talk to writers and get more in-depth about their process and look at how they became the people they are. In the book club, we talk about the books and their characters, but we also discuss work, relationships, and our lives in general. I knew in my gut that I wanted to be having more conversations with authors. I was getting so many incredible inquiries from members about what’s next. It was the next step in the Well-Read Black Girl community. “I wanted to take that transformation and share it in the podcast.” I wanted to find a collection of stories that really meditated on joy and happiness and were intergenerational, showing the variety of our experiences. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of coming-of-age stories for young Black girls, and the ones published tend to be really sad. After the first book, I really wanted to meditate and think about what my own girlhood meant to me and the stories I read that really helped shape my identity. I love short stories because of the brevity and the skill required. On Girlhood was a beautiful project for me. I finished it right before my son was born, and it launched in October last year. I don’t even know how I was even able to complete On Girlhood. Glory Edim: I’ve been learning a lot, and I’ve just been trying to slow down, to rest and be gentle with myself. How do you have time, and can you talk about your latest book? Oprah Daily: You have had a successful book club and two books: Well-Read Black Girl and On Girlhood. This interview has been edited for clarity. We talked to Edim about her new podcast and what lies ahead for the inspiring curator who seems to be able to do it all. On it she plans to feature authors and other creatives. Now Edim has a new podcast from Pushkin Industries, Well-Read Black Girl with Glory Edim, which began airing-fittingly-on the first day of Black History Month. “WRBG x Liveright,” is launching in 2023 and will feature women and non-binary authors, with a focus on people of color and traditionally underrepresented voices.
BEST BOOKS TO READ 2017 FOR BLACK WOMEN SERIES
Norton & Company, to publish a series of debut fiction titles. This growth has aligned with the book club’s mission: “Our aim is to amplify the voices of Black writers and celebrate their achievements in the literary world.”Įdim has teamed up with Liveright Publishing Corporation, a subsidiary of W.W. President Barack Obama joined the online book club in 2021 to discuss A Promised Land. What started as a group of about 10 people has now blossomed to over 400,000 on Instagram and partner book clubs nationwide. She has a memoir titled Gather Me, which will be published on November 1, 2022. Her second book, published in 2021, On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library, is an anthology divided into four themes-Innocence, Belonging, Love, and Self-Discovery-with short stories from Jamaica Kincaid, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison, among others. In 2018 she published Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves, a collection of essays from Black writers. In 2017 Edim established the annual Well-Read Black Girl Festival. She became the face of the Well-Read Black Girl Book Club in Brooklyn, a community for Black women to come together around beloved classics and newly discovered reads. In 2015, Edim’s partner gifted her a T-shirt printed with the words Well-Read Black Girl, which have since inspired a movement. There she picked up Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and Toni Morrison, seeing herself on the page and finding comfort in their words. What started as a pastime became essential to understanding her place in the world while attending college at Howard University. Edim never dreamed of having the kind of literary influence she now wields when she was growing up in Arlington, Virginia, where a love of books was nurtured by her mother. But to know Edim is to realize that she is a formidable entrepreneur, a voracious reader, and a legacy builder. She speaks easily about her love of books and lists authors, dead and alive, who have shaped her life. When you first meet Glory Edim, several words spring to mind: Bubbly and warm are just a few.