Come to our branch of the New York Public Library located in South Harlem for a book club discussion of this modern classic.

Relatively unknown during her life, the 20th century artist, filmmaker, and writer Kathleen Collins emerged on the literary scene in 2016 with the posthumous publication of the short-story collection Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? Said Zadie Smith, “To be this good and yet to be ignored is shameful, but her rediscovery is a great piece of luck for us.”

That rediscovery continues in Notes from a Black Woman’s Diary, which spans genres to reveal the breadth and depth of the late author’s talent. It includes striking short stories, many screenplays, and Collins’s raw and prescient diaries. In these works, her nascent ideas about race, gender, marriage, and motherhood first play out on the page.

By turns empowering, exuberant, sexy, and poignant, Notes from a Black Woman’s Diary is a brilliant compendium of the works of an inimitable talent, and a rich portrait of a writer hard at work.