Today we're talking with Crystal Wilkinson to discuss her latest book, Perfect Black. We discuss Black girlhood, being country, food, the rural South, and our ancestors.

Crystal Wilkinson, Kentucky’s Poet Laureate, is the award-winning author of Perfect Black, The Birds of Opulence , Water Street and Blackberries, Blackberries. She is the recipient of a 2021 O. Henry Prize, a 2020 USA Artists Fellowship, and a 2016 Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence. Nominated for the John Dos Passos Award, the Orange Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, she has received recognition from the Yaddo Foundation, Hedgebrook, The Vermont Studio Center for the Arts, Hedgebrook, and others. Her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including most recently in The Kenyon Review, STORY, Agni Literary Journal, Emergence, Oxford American and Southern Cultures.  Her fourth book Perfect Black was released from University Press of Kentucky in August 2021. She currently teaches at the University of Kentucky where she is Associate Professor of English in the MFA in Creative Writing Program.

This episode is sponsored by Moyo Mysteries. Moyo Mysteries offers spiritual consultations, pelvic steam plans, and full-spectrum birthwork services, from fertility and birth & labor to loss & bereavement and abortion work. Moyo Mysteries also offers a variety of educational projects and upcoming trainings. To learn more, you can visit www.moyomysteries.org. 

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This podcast was created, hosted, and produced by Dani & Leah.

Our music was created by Tasha, and our artwork was designed by Bianca.