This is no time for any of us to stay on the sidelines. Whether you're a woman of color finding your voice at a PWI or an aspiring ally, Morgan Jerkins makes a convincing case for your stake in bringing about racial and gender equity. And she's here to help you claim it. Count on Jerkins to inspire you to do more than stand by, torn between hoping for the best and fearing the worst. 

As both narrator and subject of the essays in her collections, This Will Be My Undoing - Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America, Jerkins will fortify you for your own truth-telling and prepare you to hold space for others'. She is starting much-needed conversations - about the stigma of therapy, her complex relationship with her own physical body, the pain of dating when men say they don't "see color," the paradox of black female sexuality, and disabled black women in the context of the "Black Girl Magic" movement - and inviting us to continue them. 

Roxane Gay calls Morgan Jerkins "a writer to be reckoned with." She is also an associate editor at Catapult whose work has been featured in The New Yorker, Vogue, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Elle, Rolling Stone, Lenny, and BuzzFeed, among many others. 

Book signing and reception to follow. 

Hosted by The Maxine Platzer Lynn Women's Center, and co-sponsored by the Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (EOCR); Carter G. Woodson Institute; Department of English; Department of Women, Gender & Sexuality; School of Nursing; and Virginia Center for the Book.