Whitney Peeling

A Searing Memoir of Black Womanhood, Across Generations

"Mother love & mother violence form an indivisible braid in Sasha Bonét’s deeply felt memoir...[O]bservant, thoughtful & poetic.... Her account of both her family history & the lives of her tributaries show off her gifts to the fullest." @aaknopf.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/b...

BOMB Magazine | Sasha Bonét by Tschabalala Self A Black mother’s memoir, from the Gulf to the Hudson, about transforming inherited pain into generational healing.

Artist Tschabalala Self calls Sasha Bonét's THE WATERBEARERS "a Black American classic." @bombmag.bsky.social "[It] is not just a book; it’s a living archive, a testimony, & a reckoning, one which Sasha so generously shares w/ us in equal parts tenderness & clarity." bombmagazine.org/articles/202...

'If She’s Beautiful, What Does That Make Me?' The Waterbearers author Sasha Bonét on the perceptions thrust upon a Black girl’s body.

Don't miss this beautiful excerpt of Sasha Bonét's THE WATERBEARERS in ELLE this week @aaknopf.bsky.social

www.elle.com/culture/book...

Black Grandmothers Are the Quiet Architects of Survival—Their Prayers and Wisdom Still Shape Generations Today "I can always tell when someone is raised by their grandmama," writes Sasha Bonét, "you’ll only notice if you know what you’re looking for."

Happy publication week to Sasha Bonét, whose gorgeous debut, THE WATERBEARERS: My Mother, My Grandmother, and the Women Who Carried Me, is now out in the world (and excerpted in Oprah Daily).
@aaknopf.bsky.social

www.oprahdaily.com/entertainmen...

"[A] dazzling, transformative work that reimagines Black womanhood, inviting us to reconsider how we understand ourselves as individuals, parents, communities and a nation."

Deep South on THE WATERBEARERS @sashabonet.bsky.social (out 9/16 from @aaknopf.bsky.social)

deepsouthmag.com/2025/09/09/f...

2025 National Book Awards Longlist for Nonfiction The ten contenders for the National Book Award for Nonfiction

Congratulations, @calebgayle.bsky.social!!! BLACK MOSES is a contender for the National Book Award in Nonfiction!!! @nationalbook.bsky.social @riverheadbooks.bsky.social

www.nationalbook.org/2025-nationa...

Thanks to @therootdotcom.bsky.social for including THE WATERBEARERS by Sasha Bonét in its September round-up! @aaknopf.bsky.social

www.theroot.com/books-by-bla...

These Back To School Novels Skewer Academia—Dark, Protein-Maxxing, and Otherwise New fiction by Jordan Castro and R.F. Kuang makes hay of campus politics and intellectual foibles, plus more recent favorites from the staff of Vanity Fair.

Included in the @vanityfair.com round-up of September staff favorites is Sasha Bonét's beautiful debut, THE WATERBEARERS ("a rich ode to Black matriarchy") @aaknopf.bsky.social

www.vanityfair.com/style/story/...

2025 Zora Awards Finalists Are Here — See the Full List (Exclusive) The Zora Awards have announced their 2025 finalists. Hosted by the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, the award honors Black writers across fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

Love seeing Aaron Robertson among the 2025 Zora Awards nonfiction finalists for THE BLACK UTOPIANS! @fsgbooks.bsky.social

people.com/2025-zora-aw...

The Quixotic Crusade to Create an All-Black State in Oklahoma

"Today, with the White House attempting to control discussion of African American history...BLACK MOSES is a useful reminder that for nearly a century after the Civil War, what was called democracy was indistinguishable from white power." @calebgayle.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/b...

This Visionary African American Politician Dreamed of Creating an All-Black State in Oklahoma Territory Edward P. McCabe petitioned Benjamin Harrison for an opportunity to show him that Black people "are men and women capable of self‑government." When the president was unmoved, McCabe and his followers ...

BLACK MOSES @calebgayle.bsky.social, excerpted this week in @smithsonianmag.bsky.social: "It is the story of trying, why we cannot stop trying, and why being able to try is worth remembering at all." @riverheadbooks.bsky.social

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/this...

How New England built the Plains - The Boston Globe When a fugitive slave was caught in Boston in 1854, many civic leaders were outraged — but they wouldn’t challenge slavery directly. So they found an outlet for their conscience on the frontier.

"[T]he moral decisions we must make [today] haven’t gotten easier. Who we detain, whose histories we erase, which freedoms we underfund.... The difference now is that there’s no Kansas to send our convictions to." @calebgayle.bsky.social @bostonglobe.com
www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/10/o...

Review: Meet the man who tried to establish a Black state within the U.S. Nonfiction: Caleb Gayle’s gorgeous “Black Moses” illuminates a forgotten figure from our racial past.

@hamiltoncain.bsky.social calls BLACK MOSES @calebgayle.bsky.social "eloquent" & "engrossing." "Gayle does more than just rescue a forgotten yet crucial figure; he places McCabe at the center of radical liberation." @riverheadbooks.bsky.social @startribune.com www.startribune.com/edward-mccab...

August 2025 Books By Black Authors We Can't Wait to Read | The Root The summer may be almost over, but great books by Black authors are still coming in hot.

Tx to @therootdotcom.bsky.social for featuring BLACK MOSES @calebgayle.bsky.social in its August Books round-up! @riverheadbooks.bsky.social @thegernertco.bsky.social

www.theroot.com/august-2025-...

If you don’t understand Oklahoma, you can’t understand America A Black man like me is not supposed to love Oklahoma. But in studying my home state’s history of violence, theft and wild ambitions, I learned to reckon with its legacy

"If we are serious about holding this country together, we have to reckon w/ the real American inheritance, where ambition & betrayal, dreaming & dispossession, are not opposite. They are co-tenants." @calebgayle.bsky.social BLACK MOSES (8/12) @us.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Among the many reasons I cherish Sasha Bonét's THE WATERBEARERS (Knopf, Sept 16): its incomparably authentic, mold-shattering depiction of womanhood & single motherhood. Ty @publisherswkly.bsky.social for giving your cover to this life-changing new work. Get ready, world.

22 Books Coming in August

Love seeing Caleb Gayle's superb BLACK MOSES (Riverhead, Aug 12) on this list!

@nytimes.com @calebgayle.bsky.social @riverheadbooks.bsky.social @thegernertco.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/b...

At the top of my reading list: @calebgayle.bsky.social's forthcoming BLACK MOSES, about a 19th-century Black visionary who dreamed of a state governed by and for Black people. It's my favorite kind of story--a buried history of resistance and possibility.

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717975...

10 emerging writers win Whiting Awards The awards, which come with a $50K purse, have helped launch the writing careers of many now well-known authors, including Colson Whitehead, Ocean Vuong, Alice McDermott and Jia Tolentino.

Congratulations to the stupendous new cohort of Whiting Award winners!!!

@npr.org @mtaeckens.bsky.social
@whitingfoundation.bsky.social

www.npr.org/2025/04/09/n...

Well thank you, you kind soul, you

Bubbles of Interest: An Interview with Independent Publicist Whitney Peeling On the vexed question of "Should I hire a freelance publicist for my book?" plus further proof that it pays to be kind.

Just call me Bubbles

@aliahanna.bsky.social @broadside-pr.bsky.social
aliahabib.substack.com/p/bubbles-of...

Andrew Garfield, Percival Everett and Attica Locke among L.A. Times Book Prize finalists Andrew Garfield, Percival Everett and Attica Locke are among the finalists for the 45th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.

THE BLACK UTOPIANS + THE LIGHT EATERS are @latimes.com Bk Prize finalists! 👏 👏👏 to @zoeschlanger.bsky.social @sarahjgrimm.bsky.social Aaron Robertson (+ to @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social, rep'd by @broadside-pr.bsky.social's @mtaeckens.bsky.social, for ABSOLUTION)!

www.latimes.com/entertainmen...

KB you are too kind. I do love this book, though!!

YES to this (and thanks also to Victor Luckerson, whose book, BUILT FROM THE FIRE, was frequently referenced in the report).

The 75 best books of 2024 - The Boston Globe Boston Globe book critics give us their favorites from a year of great titles.

Ty @bostonglobe.com @katekilla.bsky.social for including THE BLACK UTOPIANS/Aaron Robertson, THE LIGHT EATERS/@zoeschlanger.bsky.social, + more @broadside-pr.bsky.social projects here! @fsgbooks.bsky.social @harpercollins.bsky.social @sarahjgrimm.bsky.social

www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/13/a...

Remember the names of these new Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grantees - their projects will start to roll out in the next year or so and each one is truly more spectacular than the next!

Love this list - thank you, Bethanne!

Best Books of 2024: Top 10 Picks | The New York Public Library Noteworthy new books for readers of all ages recommended by NYPL's expert librarians and staff.

More Thanksgiving-timed good news for Aaron Robertson and THE BLACK UTOPIANS: The New York Public Library has named the book a 2024 Top Ten Best Book for Adults! @fsgbooks.bsky.social

www.nypl.org/blog/2024/11...

100 Notable Books of 2024 Here are the year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, chosen by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

Hooray! Hooray! Aaron Robertson’s beautiful debut, THE BLACK UTOPIANS (a “sensitive, often deeply personal exploration of utopianism in Black American thought and life”) is a @nytimes.com Notable Book! @fsgbooks.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

RIFFS ON A TEXT: adapting and digesting the work of Koltés - Pig Iron SEPTEMBER + OCTOBER 2024 - While David has incorporated mindfulness practices into his choreography and composition for decades, this workshop represents a kind of beta-test of a new framing of this m...

Performers, creators, writers: only 2 spots left for this workshop (beginning 12/4) with Pulitzer (and Whiting)-winning playwright James Ijames and Pig Iron Theatre Co’s Dan Rothenberg. Deadline this Wed!

pigiron.org/school/works...