An occasional series in which writers speak for themselves.

Dolen Perkins-Valdez, chair of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s board of directors and an associate professor at American University, is also author of the bestselling novels Wench and Balm. Her new work is Take My Hand, which the Washington Post calls “a jewel of a book…[the author’s] grasp of large historical themes is matched by her attention to her characters’ lives, their existence so meticulously rendered that you can smell the fetid air of the Williams’s country hovel and the scent of the girls freshly bathed and slathered with cocoa butter.” Perkins-Valdez discussed Take My Hand with WYPL’s Stephen Usery in May.
This podcast comes courtesy of WYPL Book Talk in Memphis. Listen to it here. (And click here to read the Independent’s review of Take My Hand.)