THE SAVING GRACE OF BOOKS & MUSIC – MEMOIR

ALICE RANDALL is a New York Times bestselling novelist, award-winning songwriter, and educator. She is widely recognized as one of the most significant voices in modern Black fiction and has emerged as an innovative food activist committed to reforms that support healthy bodies and communities. Randall lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she writes country songs and is a professor of African American and diaspora studies, writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University.

GLORY EDIM is a literary tastemaker, entrepreneur, and advocate for diverse voices in literature. In 2015, she founded Well-Read Black Girl (WRBG), an online platform and book club dedicated to celebrating the works of Black women authors and creating a supportive online community for readers. Under Edim’s leadership, WRBG has grown into a nonprofit organization, hosting events, book festivals, and author conversations that highlight the richness and diversity of Black literature. Her efforts have earned her such accolades as the 2017 Innovator’s Award from the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes and the Madam C.J. Walker Award from the Hurston/Wright Foundation. As an author herself, Edim has contributed to the literary landscape with her bestselling anthologies Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves (Ballantine Books), and On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library (Liveright).