Kimberly J Brown Knihy

It is 1928 and Cora James, a 35-year-old Black librarian who works at the 135th Street library in Harlem, writes Langston Hughes a letter after identifying with one of his poems. She even reveals her secret desire to write. Langston responds, encouraging Cora to enter a writing contest sponsored by the National Urban League, and ignites her dream of being a writer. Cora is frustrated with the writing process, and her willingness to help her cousin Agnes keep her job after she is brutally beaten by her husband lands Cora in a white woman's kitchen working as a cook. In the Fitzgerald home, Cora discovers she has time to write and brings her notebook to work. When she comforts Mrs. Fitzgerald after an argument with Mr. Fitzgerald, a friendship forms. Mrs. Fitzgerald insists Cora call her Eleanor and gives her The Awakening by Kate Chopin to read. Cora is inspired by the conversation to write a story and sends it to Langston. Eventually she begins to question her life and marriage and starts to write another story about a woman's sense of self. Through a series of letters, and startling developments in her dealings with the white family, Cora's journey to becoming a writer takes her to the brink of losing everything, including her life.

Practical teachings to take care of yourself and others in uncertain and unsettling times. Steady, Calm, and Brave offers simple and accessible ways to help readers during a pandemic and beyond. With short, stand-alone readings designed to help you through difficult circumstances, it offers the tools, understanding, and encouragement necessary to meet the extraordinary challenges we face today. In this accessible and down-to-earth guide, meditation teacher Kimberly Brown shares honest and sometimes humorous stories from her life, family, and community to help us navigate difficulties--including social isolation, working from home, societal divisiveness, and worry for the future--with patience, clarity, and mindfulness. Incorporating practical techniques that provide on-the-spot support, Steady, Calm, and Brave will help you access and develop your calm, courageous, and loving heart to make skillful decisions and take compassionate actions for yourself and the world.

NAVIGATING GRIEF AND LOSS is designed to support all of us through difficult and upsetting times. It's a relatable and useful guide with practical applications to help navigate the profound experience of loss, be it an elderly parent, succumbing to a lingering illness, the shock of an accidental death, a small business shuttered, a divorce after years of conflict, or euthanasia of a beloved pet. Each short chapter honestly describes a personal experience dealing with death or grief--staying at a hospice facility at my mother's bedside, feeling frustrated by the options for a terminally ill friend, navigating changed relationships after someone dies, the shock and shame of an unwanted divorce, managing the overwhelming pain of bereavement--and is followed by a brief practice--a meditation, exercise, or contemplation that readers can use to discover insights and truths and find some solace for their own struggles and sorrow.

Kimberly Juanita Brown explores the literary and visual representations of how black women bear the marks of slavery, centers black women in narratives of slavery, and uncovers and critiques the refusal to see the violence done to black women's bodies.

In The I-35W Bridge Collapse, Kimberly J. Brown combines memoir and expose to provide a full account of the Minneapolis I-35W bridge collapse of August 1, 2007, and its aftermath.