In this episode of Library Talks, writer, activist, and speaker Raquel Willis joins Library Talks to discuss her memoir The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation. She’s joined by fellow writer Mecca Jamilah Sullivan.

In The Risk It Takes to Bloom, Raquel Willis recounts with passion and candor her experiences straddling the Obama and Trump eras, the possibility of transformation after the tragedy, and how complex moments can push us all to take necessary risks and bloom toward collective liberation. This recording was part of the Schomburg Centennial Festival.

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In this episode of Library Talks, Writer and director Malcolm D. Lee Joins Library Talks to discuss his debut novel The Best Man: Unfinished Business. He’s joined by his coauthor Jayne Allen in a discussion moderated by radio and television host Bevy Smith.

The beloved characters from Malcom D Lee’s The Best Man movies and hit television series reunite in the first in the trilogy, The Best Man: Unfinished Business. The novel follows Harper, Jordan, and Robyn as they try to establish lives away from the hurts of the past and come to realize that some love is impossible to break.

In this episode of Library Talks, Novelist and features editor at The Verge Kevin Nguyen joins Library Talks to discuss his second novel Mỹ Documents

Mỹ Documents follows four Vietnamese cousins whose lives are upended after a terrorist attack incites a government crackdown that targets their community through mass internment of Vietnamese-American citizens. Nguyen relies on the history of Japanese internment, the Vietnam War, and more recent immigrant detention to imagine a not-entirely-implausible near American future.