In our Season Two premiere, co-hosts Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton talk with the beloved ZZ Packer, author of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, a collection first published in 2003 that went on to inspire countless writers. Packer talks about how she found her voice, style, and authenticity as a young, Black, female writer who hadn’t even planned on becoming a writer. She addresses ideas of navigating both physical and figurative spaces and learning how to find a place in the literary world.
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (ZZ Packer)
Zora Neale Hurston
Toni Morrison
Flannery O’Connor
James Alan McPherson (Elbow Room and Hue and Cry)
Lorrie Moore
Stuart Dybek
Percival Everett
James Baldwin
Anton Chekhov
Edward P. Jones (Lost in the City and The Known World)
Alice Munro
Imani Perry
Bryan Stevenson (Just Mercy)
Edwidge Danticat
Read more from Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev (Dawnie Walton)
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