A note about the short story “My Hairdresser is Dead” from Emelda Nyaradzai Gwitimah for the Michigan Quarterly Review’s Spring 2024 issue “African Writing: A Partial Cartography of Provocations”: It took me a full 12 months to be able to complete 'My Hairdresser is Dead'. I don't consider myself any type of non-fic writer but my grief needed an outlet and storytelling is cheaper than therapy, right? My hair is woven into my Black womanhood so intrinsically, that the piece was a way to grapple with all those meanings, deal with my new reality and changing hair condition in a cold climate, while paying homage to the woman who'd basically acted as my healer and therapist at some of the most important points in my life.