adrienne maree brown

I got a ride from adrienne maree brown (name drop!) back in 2008. Although I don't remember much of our conversation from the two and a half hour drive, I do remember how comfortable I felt around them and how easy it was to have a conversation. It's twelve years later and I've read every book she's published; like our conversation, I appreciate the way she tackles tough topics using language that just about anyone can understand. Many other folks have spent hundreds of pages trying to get across what amb accomplishes in under a hundred.… (meer)

brown has been on the periphery of my reading life for a little while now. I keep seeing her books and writing recommended by folks I know, but I hadn't gotten around to reading her until Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements. Hers was one of my favorite stories there, so I set out to read more of her work soon.

This book certainly did not disappoint. The Grief itself reminds me of Octavia Cade's The Impossible Resurrection of Grief, but goes in a whole different direction with it. Cade's book is concerned mostly with the lost of species, habitat, and nature, while brown is concerned with people, justice, and community -- the Black community of Detroit specifically.

Both are about how to move forward when you've lost so much. This is about activism -- showing up for your community, filling in gaps, honoring and recording the losses. So devastating and so beautiful at the same time.… (meer)