"Black Writers? African, Bluesy, Classical, Disrespectful, Erudite, Fiery, Groovy, Haunting, Inspiring, Jazzy, Knowing, Liberating, Militant, Nervy, Optimistic, Pugnacious, Quixotic, Rambunctious, Seductive, Truculent, Urgent, Vivacious, Wicked, X-ray sharp, Yearning, Zesty. And so, they matter!" —George Elliott Clarke

An anthology of African-Canadian writing, Black Writers Matter offers a cross-section of established writers and newcomers to the literary world who tackle contemporary and pressing issues with beautiful, sometimes raw, prose. As editor Whitney French says in her introduction, Black Writers Matter “injects new meaning into the word diversity [and] harbours a sacredness and an everydayness that offers Black people dignity. ” An “invitation to read, share, and tell stories of Black narratives that are close to the bone,” this collection feels particular to the Black Canadian experience.

The founder and co-editor of From the Root Zine, Whitney French has been published in Descant Magazine, anthologized in The Great Black North: Contemporary African Canadian Poetry, and is the host and facilitator of the Writing While Black creative writing studio. Whitney lives in Toronto.

Whitney French's profile page

Dr. Afua Cooper is an award-winning historian, author, and poet. She is professor of Black studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Dalhousie University where she holds a Killam Research Chair. Afua has mobilized Black studies in Canada through her scholarly work, and artistic endeavours—this within the academy and beyond. She established the Black Studies program at Dalhousie, first as a minor, and later as part of the leadership team that launched the Bachelor of Arts in Black and African Diaspora Studies. This is the first such program in Canada. Dr. Cooper also founded the Black Canadian Studies Association. She was awarded the Royal Society of Canada’s J.B. Tyrrell Historical medal for her outstanding contribution to Canadian history. Afua is the Principal Investigator for A Black People’s History of Canada project.

Afua Cooper's profile page

“Reading these stories gave me both joy and grief.” —Afua Cooper

“Black Writers Matter is an extraordinary achievement, a bold and loving gathering of Black writing in its sublimity; its stylistic and thematic complexity; its regional, cultural, generational, and experiential differences; its fiercely constellated energy. Whitney French and the talented contributors to this book offer us vital new writings within a two-hundred-year legacy of yearning and truth-telling. Please read this book.” —David Chariandy, author of Soucouyant and Brother

"This book is as pretty as a present you can't bring yourself to open. And it is just as beautiful on the inside. Marvellous and life-changing for many people, I'm sure.” —Donna Bailey Nurse, columnist for CBC Radio's The Next Chapter

"Collected in these pages are voices that need to be urgently heard, engaged and reckoned with. Black life, Black Canadian life, Black Canadian diasporic life in full colour and full of desire is on offer in Black Writers Matter. " —Rinaldo Walcott, professor at University of Toronto and author of Queer Returns: Essays on Multiculturalism, Diaspora and Black Studies