negression: Essays

by Kalisha Buckhanon

negression collects some of the best writing from novelist Kalisha Buckhanon’s online blog of the same name. It includes two recent essays in response to mass public efforts to free Cyntoia Brown, sentenced to life in prison as a teenager, and scant mass efforts to remember Maria Schneider, a forgotten victim in Hollywood's #MeToo uprising. The collection fuses compassionate personal analysis of the confounding endings to icons like Billie Holiday, Phyllis Hyman and Kitty Genovese with tender meditations on lesser-known women’s final days cut short by senseless violence. Raw emotion in negression compels remembrance of Hadiya Pendleton, Joyce Vincent, Aileen Wuornos, 6-month old Chicago shooting victim Jonylah Watkins and more. Readers will leave negression with renewed respect and sensitivity to the Negress and female experiences as they are reflected in Kalisha Buckhanon’s eyes.

139 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 20, 2018

About the author

Kalisha is the author of the novels UPSTATE, CONCEPTION, SOLEMN and SPEAKING OF SUMMER: a book pick of Essence, O Magazine, TIME, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, Cosmo, Buzzfeed, Lit Hub and more. Her stories and essays are published in Fiction, CrimeReads, Fiction International, Oxford American, Black Renaissance Noire, Michigan Quarterly Review, pluck! and more. She is also seen on ID, BET and TV-One true crime shows as an expert. Her work is honored by the American Library Association, National Book Foundation, Audie Awards, Hurston-Wright Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, Friends of American Writers and more. She has English degrees from University of Chicago and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The New School in New York City.