About us
Black Girls Read Book Club (also known as Black Girls Read Chicago) is a monthly Chicago-based book club that celebrates Black women writers. This is a book club for Black women interested in reading and discussing books written by Black women from the United States and around the world. We read fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and our book discussions take place at various locations in the city. By collectively elevating and celebrating the work of Black women writers, we affirm that our stories matter.
Upcoming events
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#112: Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
Chicago Bee Library, 3647 S State St, Chicago, IL, USOur February book selection is Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde!
About the book: In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. These landmark writings are, in Lorde's own words, a call to “never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is . . . ”
Support Black Girls Read Chicago by purchasing Sister Outsider on Bookshop (affiliate link).
60 attendees
Code Noir Book Club
Women & Children First, 5233 North Clark Street, Chicago, IL, USJoin the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, Black Girls Read Chicago, and Women & Children First for a Code Noir book club meeting!
Author Canisia Lubrin will join online and the event will be moderated by Cynthia Okechukwu of Black Girls Read Chicago, who will be in person at Women & Children First in Chicago.
Purchase Code Noir from Women & Children First.
All are welcome! Join us online or in person. Please register if you plan to attend either in-person or virtually, as the Zoom Webinar link will be sent to attendees prior to the event.
___________Code Noir (Soft Skull / Knopf Canada) is a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure, deceptively simple, is based on the infamous Code Noir, a set of real historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine linked fictions—vivid, unforgettable, multilayered fragments filled with globe-wise characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past.
Canisia Lubrin’s work has been recognized with the Griffin Poetry Prize, OCM Bocas Prize, and others. In 2021, Lubrin received a Windham-Campbell prize for poetry, and The Globe and Mail named her Poet of the Year. Code Noir, her debut fiction, won the 2025 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Other books include Voodoo Hypothesis, The Dyzgraphxst, and The World After Rain. Born in St. Lucia, Lubrin lives in Ontario, Canada and coordinates the Creative Writing MFA at the University of Guelph.
Cynthia Okechukwu is a lawyer by day, and in her free time she is an avid reader who enjoys amplifying books written by Black women through her in-person book club and online platform Black Girls Read Book Club. Born in Nigeria and raised mostly in Metro Detroit, she has proudly called Chicago home for thirteen years.
The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction is the largest literary prize in the world for women and non-binary fiction writers. It celebrates authors from the United States and Canada. Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin was the 2025 Winner. Named after beloved Canadian-American author Carol Shields, the Prize is managed by the Carol Shields Prize Foundation. The Foundation provides scholarships, bursaries, and other forms of financial assistance to women and non-binary writers, and offers mentoring programs, salons, and residencies for the benefit of these writers and the general public.
Black Girls Read Book Club, also known as Black Girls Read Chicago, is a Chicago-based book club that celebrates Black women writers. Since 2016, the members of Black Girls Read Chicago have met monthly to discuss books written by Black women from the United States and around the world. By collectively elevating and celebrating the work of Black women writers, we affirm that our stories matter.
Women & Children First believes in the transformative power of literature. As intersectional trans-inclusive feminists, we believe books are tools for liberation. Since 1979, we have celebrated and amplified underrepresented voices. In order for feminism to remain relevant, it must be forever evolving.
Accessibility: This event will be live online and will be hosted in person at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are strongly encouraged. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. We have dimmable, non-fluorescent lights. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com by no later than 14 days before the event. For other questions or access needs, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com.
13 attendees
#113: The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams
Zora's Place, 2223 Washington Street, Evanston, IL, USOur March book selection is The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Chicago native Nikesha Elise Williams! We will meet at Zora's Place, Evanston's only Black woman-owned bookshop.
About the book: It’s 1995, and fourteen-year-old Tati is determined to uncover the identity of her father. But her mother, Nadia, keeps her secrets close, while her grandmother Gladys remains silent about the family’s past, including why she left Land’s End, Alabama, in 1953. As Tati digs deeper, she uncovers a legacy of family secrets, where every generation of Dupree women has posed more questions than answers.
From Jubi in 1917, whose attempt to pass for white ends when she gives birth to Ruby; to Ruby’s fiery lust for Sampson in 1934 that leads to a baby of her own; to the night in 1980 that changed Nadia’s future forever, the Dupree women carry the weight of their heritage. Bound by a mysterious malediction that means they will only give birth to daughters, the Dupree women confront a legacy of pain, resilience, and survival that began with an enslaved ancestor who risked everything for freedom.
The Seven Daughters of Dupree masterfully weaves together themes of generational trauma, Black women’s resilience, and unbreakable familial bonds. Nikesha Elise Williams delivers a feminist literary fiction that explores the ripple effects of actions, secrets, and love through seven generations of Black women.
The Seven Daughters of Dupree will be released in January 2026 and is available for pre-order now. Support Zora's Place by purchasing your book at their brick-and-mortar storefront or their online storefront on Bookshop.
41 attendees
Past events
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