Black Market Reads

In this powerful hometown conversation, journalist Justin Ellis returns to Minneapolis to discuss his debut book, The Cruelty of Nice Folks: Why Minneapolis Is the Story of America . Joined by host Lissa Jones , Ellis unpacks the contradiction at the heart of Minnesota's reputation: how a place celebrated for progressivism, politeness, and quality of life can also produce some of the nation's deep...

To mark the 100th Anniversary of Carter G. Woodson's Black History Month (previously known as Negro History Week) and the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence the community came together to join The Givens Foundation for African American Literature and The Givens Collection of Literature and Life in celebration.  In this episode Lissa welcomes esteemed guests, and leads a tour with...

Welcome to a very special edition of Black Market Reads, brought to you by the Givens Foundation for African American Literature, in proud partnership with the Minnesota Humanities Center. In 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson introduced Negro History Week to build a durable, year-round engagement with Black history and cultural memory. One hundred years later, we are honoring that exact vision by activa...

Recorded live at Franconia Sculpture Park, this episode of Black Market Reads brings listeners into a powerful, place-based conversation about the life, work, and legacy of artist Michael Richards. Host Lissa Jones is joined by curator Esther Callahan and book editors Alex Fialho and Melissa Levin to explore Are You Down? , Richards' monumental sculpture created during his 2000 residency at Franco...

In this powerful episode of Black Market Reads , host Lissa Jones sits down with award-winning poet Michael Kleber-Diggs to explore the depth and intention behind his collection Worldly Things . Their conversation moves fluidly between poetry, fatherhood, community, and the responsibility of bearing witness, as Diggs reflects on writing as an act of care—rooted in intimacy, empathy, and presence....

In this episode, recorded during Women's History Month, Lissa talks with author Vanessa Riley about her latest historical novel. Riley—whose works have received high praise from New York Times , NPR,  Washington Post , and Entertainment Weekly, among others—pushes historical fiction into bold new territory. She reveals the often-erased stories of Black, Indigenous, and women pirates, weaving in di...

Antonio Michael Downing is an author, speaker, and musical artist. His memoir  Saga Boy  was called "singularly dazzling" by Kiese Laymon and "the triumph of Blackness everywhere" by Scotiabank Giller Prize–winner Ian Williams. He is also the author of the children's picture book  Stars in My Crown  and his debut novel,  Black Cherokee . He writes and performs music as John Orpheus. In this Episod...

The Remarkable Life of Reed Peggram by Ethelene Whitmire  tells the true story of Reed Peggram, a brilliant Black, queer Harvard scholar who went to Paris in 1937 and stayed through World War II for love, eventually escaping Nazi-occupied Italy with his partner, Arne Gerdahn Hauptmann, with the help of an all-Black American regiment .  This episode was recorded before a live audience at Magers & Q...

Kicking off Season 11 and Black History Month- This conversation could not be more timely. Part social thriller, part modern love story,  Who Knows You by Heart by CJ Farley is a sly, witty, and endlessly discussable tale of Big Tech, new money, relationships, race, and discovering what's real in an age of artificial intelligence. C.J. (Christopher John) Farley is a  Jamaican-born author, journali...

Hosted by Lissa Jones , the 100th episode is an expansive, deeply moving celebration that honors the elders, the artists, the activists, and the community that built—and continues to fuel—the Black literary tradition. Highlights include: • A newly released archival segment featuring J. California Cooper Recorded before the podcast officially launched, this rare conversation hosted by elder storyte...

In Episode #99 Lissa talks with Author Debra J Stone  about her new middle grade novel,   The House on Rondo   (University of Minnesota Press). Rooted in the lived histories of Minnesota's Black communities, The House on Rondo offers a deeply personal window into the destruction of a thriving neighborhood through the eyes of a young Black girl coming of age during an era of national civil rights p...

Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother's home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, who weighs an abortion in the heart of the South; and the rest...

Looking forward to an intriguing summer read, Lissa talks with author Valerie Burns about her latest work. Packed with a delicious mix of cake, chaos, and crime,  Icing on the Murder is a page-turner that's sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats and leave them craving more! In this fourth installment of the  Baker Street Mystery  series, influencer-turned-bakery-owner Maddy Montgomery is...

Ink, Identity, and Imagination: Literature as a Catalyst for Black Determination was the plenary discussion for From Resistance to Resilience: The Evolution of African American Reading, The Givens Foundation's Annual Conference held June 3, 2025 at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Moderator: Gevonee Ford, founder of the Network for the Development of Children o...

Duchess Harris, professor and author, was a presenter at From Resistance to Resilience: The Evolution of African American Reading ,  The Givens Foundation for African American Literature's annual conference,  held on June 3, 2025 at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. In this engaging workshop, Dr. Harris addresses The Unwritten Curriculum: How Erasure in Literatu...

Dr. Luke Woods was the Keynote speaker at the Givens Foundation's annual conference conference,  Dr. Luke Wood returned to his alma mater, Sacramento State to become its ninth president on July 16th, 2023. A nationally renowned scholar on racial equity with a specific focus on early childhood education and community colleges. Dr. Wood has authored or co-authored 16 books and published nearly 200 a...

In this episode Lissa talks with author Rickey Fayne about deep philosophical questions inspired by his latest novel The Devil Three Times (Hachette Book Group, May 2025). Rickey Fayne  is a fiction writer from rural West Tennessee whose work has appeared in  American Short Fiction, Guernica, The Sewanee Review , and  The Kenyon Review , among other magazines. He holds an MA in English from Northw...

In this episode, Lissa Jones welcomes playright Pearl Cleage  back to Black Market Reads as they talk about her play The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First 100 Years, playing at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis April 19-May 29, 2025. SYNOPSIS Grande dames Grace Dunbar and Catherine Green prepare for the Nacirema Society's 1964 centennial cotillio...

In this episode Lissa talks with Dr. Gail C. Christopher —a nationally recognized leader in health equity, a pioneer in integrative medicine, and the visionary architect behind the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation initiative (TRHT). Dr. Christopher has spent decades designing and leading national programs that advance racial healing, community well-being, and policy change—including her r...

Join Lissa and Lisa as they delve into subjects psycological and literary. Lisa Williamson Rosenberg is the author of  Embers on the Wind and Mirror Me (Little A Publishing 2024) . She is a former ballet dancer and psychotherapist specializing in depression, developmental trauma, and multiracial identity. Her essays have appeared in  Literary Hub, Longreads, Narratively, Mamalode,  and  The Common...

In 2021, 83.2 percent of editors in the U. S. were White and less than 5 percent of editors were Black. According to the career website, Zibia, this coincides with only 5.9 percent of published authors being Black. Today, Lissa talks with three prominent publishers in the Twin Cities who believe that Black authors deserve to collaborate with editors who understand and appreciate their work.  Our g...

Sarah LaBrie  was in her early thirties when her mother was found on a highway outside Houston, screaming at passing cars and paranoid that she would be murdered by invisible assailants. She was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia—and in an instant, the entirety of LaBrie's childhood came into sharp focus. In   her   harrowing, clear-sighted, and painfully honest debut memoir,  NO ONE GETS TO...

In this episode of Black Market Reads: On Health Lissa and Bukata talk with poet Danez Smith about his latest work, BLUFF. Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicenter of protest following the murder of George Floyd,  Bluff  is Danez Smith's powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility...

In this episode Lissa and Bukata talk with author Taiyon J. Coleman author of Traveling Without Moving: Essays from a Black Woman Trying to Survive in America ( University of Minnesota Press). In  Traveling without Moving , Coleman shares intimate essays from her life: her childhood in Chicago—growing up in poverty with four siblings and a single mother. She writes about being the only Black stude...

In this episode of Black Market Reads: On Health Lissa and Bukata talk with author Sarai Johnson about her debut novel, Grown Women (Harper Collins 2024). Join us in this lively and thoughtful conversation about what it means to move on—or not move on—from trauma. What it means to ask for forgiveness, what true forgiveness means, how anger can manipulate our relationships, and what happens after t...