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Writer’s Voice: compelling conversations with authors who challenge, inspire, and inform.
Episode Summary
In this episode of Writer’s Voice, we speak with two authors who excavate buried truths and challenge dominant cultural narratives.
Dolen Perkins-Valdez discusses her historical novel Happy Land, inspired by a real African American community founded after the Civil War in North and South Carolina—an intentional kingdom that embodied Black sovereignty, only to be undermined by systemic land theft.
“Even though we have them in the history books as a monarchy, there must have also been a kind of shared power, a kind of egalitarianism that they participated in.” — Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Then, Nancy Reddy talks about The Good Mother Myth, her nonfiction book/memoir dismantling the unrealistic expectations placed on mothers, tracing them to flawed psychological theories and cultural constructions that ignore caregiving as a collective act.
“The good mother isn’t really a person—she is a subject of capitalism.” — Nancy Reddy
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Key Words: Nancy Reddy, The Good Mother Myth, motherhood, parenting, attachment theory, communal parenting, book about motherhood, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Happy Land, African American history, Black land loss,
You Might Also Like: Dolen Perkins-Valdez, TAKE MY HAND, Aaron Robertson, THE BLACK UTOPIANS
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