Emily Bernard, author of “Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time, and Mine”

Part of the VLA Conference. Register here! Emily will read passages from her work, followed by a discussion centered around her writing. VLA President Kevin Unrath will moderate. Questions can be submitted in advance to kunrath@shelburnevt.org

“Black is the Body” was named one of the best books of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews and National Public Radio. It won the 2020 Los Angeles TimesChristopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose. Emily’s previous works include: “Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten,” a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; and “Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendship,” which was chosen by the New York Public Library as a Book for the Teen Age; and, with Deborah Willis, “Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs,” which received a 2010 NAACP Image Award.

Emily is the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont.  She lives in South Burlington, with her husband and twin daughters.