Brianna Holt at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes BRIANNA HOLT—author, writer, and reporter who has been published in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Cut, The Atlantic and more—for a discussion of her new book In Our Shoes: On Being a Young Black Woman in Not-So "Post-Racial" America. She will be joined in conversation by PARIS ALSTON—co-host of Morning Edition and The Wake Up podcast at GBH News.

A Return to In-Person Events

Harvard Book Store is excited to be back to in-person programming. To ensure the safety and comfort of everyone in attendance, the following Covid-19 safety protocols will be in place at all of our Harvard Book Store events until further notice:

• Face coverings are required of all staff and attendees when inside the store. Masks must snugly cover nose and mouth

About In Our Shoes

In Our Shoes: On Being a Young Black Woman in Not-So "Post-Racial" America is a memoir in essays about young Black women and the stereotypes and preconceived notions they are expected to live up to, examined through the lens of Brianna Holt’s lived experience and pop culture to help readers unlearn their biases and expand their worldviews.

Part memoir, part cultural critique, In Our Shoes will walk readers through the common stereotypes and issues young Black women have to overcome in modern America, in order to dismantle myths about Black womanhood and explore the roles Black millennial women take on simply to survive.

In nine thoughtful chapters laced with searing commentary, reportage, personal anecdotes from Brianna's own life, as well as interviews conducted with "everyday" Black women, In Our Shoes hopes to illuminate readers on the complexities of existence for Black women and create a digestible, thought-provoking book that will help readers to learn, empathize, reflect, and act.

A personal history, a work of criticism, a piece of reporting, and a call to action, In Our Shoes is a timely exploration of race and womanhood that aims to entertain and inform.

Praise for In Our Shoes

"Holt offers particularly potent critiques of unconscious bias in the workplace and the many flaws inherent in white feminism. A commendable, colloquial perspective on a continually fraught topic.” —Kirkus

"Brianna Holt astutely observes that 'some people feel a great discomfort when Black women advocate for their well-being, share the harm others have caused them, or even express their joy.' In Our Shoes is a gorgeous, bold refutation of our white supremacist overculture’s insistence that Black women are a homogenous lot. Her book is also a tender love letter to Black womanhood itself.”—Sara Benincasa, actress and author of Real Artists Have Day Jobs