My work lives at the intersection of personal history and literary scholarship. In a very conscious way, who I am informs the stories I tell about Black literature and how I tell them. Early in the research for Half in Shadow,

while I was working at an elite liberal arts college in Iowa, I asked myself: “How did there come to be a

place for me, a Black woman teaching African American literature, in the American academy?”

I quickly learned that in narrating McKay’s life, I was also telling a bigger story about

Black women in the professoriate. In my interviews, appearances,

and published work, I inspire others

to find power in the lesson Half in Shadow taught me:

 

tell the story that only you can.