Black people, in general, are very wary of having this conversation because we talk about race amongst each other a lot because it's a central component of life, but when you meet a new White person, as I met Jo as a new friend, there is, I think, a built-in level of apprehension there about what is this person's background ? What is their family like ? You know, what, what are they hearing at the dinner table ? What did they hear about Black people growing up ? Who are their other friends ? What is their social circle ?

Christine Pride

Like so many others, I was completely captivated by Bana's tweets from Syria, which were harrowing and heartbreaking and put a human face to this terrible quagmire.

Christine Pride

Bana's experiences and message transcend the headlines and pierce through the political noise and debates to remind us of the human cost of war and displacement.

Christine Pride

We had to keep pushing through, to deliver this book so that other people could do the same, this end product and getting the story down on the page could help other readers and people do the same things we were doing, in a way our characters really became a proxy for us on the page, they are having trouble figuring out how to talk about race. And there's a lot of misunderstandings and apprehensions and fears and even blind spots. And those were, I mean, not identical because the circumstances were different between Jo and I in real life and our characters, but the overall dynamic was [ similar. ].

Christine Pride