Yellow Arrow Publishing is thrilled to introduce Yellow Arrow author shantell hinton hill and the cover of her soon-to-be-released chapbook, Black girl magic & other elixirs. Reserve your copy today (wholesale copies are also available for a discount)—Black girl magic & other elixirs will be released July 11, 2023.
According to shantell, “It was really important to me that the cover be representative of the nostalgia and nuances of Black girlhood in the ‘90s. The roller skates, cassette tape, and perfume all communicate a certain essence of “being” that one can feel, smell, and hear. Likewise, the pictures of my younger self and my present-day self represent much of my journey of becoming and self-possession—signifying the power in reclaiming the little girls that live inside of us while empowering the women we have fought tooth and nail to belong to ourselves.”
Black girl magic & other elixirs is an important poetry collection about the embodied experiences of a ‘90s Black girl growing up in the American South and how those experiences shaped her becoming a Black woman. Within, shantell recalls moments of playing hide and seek as a means of survival, trauma attached to bologna, the essence of her mother embodied in a fragrance, and even a favorite moment with her first and forever homegirl, her grandma. She weaves together stories from her childhood with current events, juxtaposing the cultural term ‘Black girl magic’ with her personal struggles to show how she became the ultimate Renaissance woman who embraces both the magic and the mundane of her surroundings.
An engineer turned pastor, shantell, a native of Conway, Arkansas, situates her work at the intersections of social justice, public theology, and Black feminism/womanism. shantell builds upon and pays homage to the revolutionary work of Black women authors, poets, leaders, and culture bearers. This collection bears witness to the often unspoken truths about the survival, wit, and skill Black girls and Black women develop in a world dominated by a myriad of interlocking oppressions. For shantell and Black girls everywhere, Black girl magic & other elixirs illustrates how justice, storytelling, ethics, and Black women’s spirituality weave together on the page to show how we can find ourselves “truly in love with who we’d become.”
You can learn more about shantell in a recent conversation between her and Yellow Arrow interviewer Melissa Nunez by visiting yellowarrowpublishing.com/news/shantell-hinton-hill-black-girl-magic-and-other-elixirs. You can find more about shantell and her work for radical good at shantelhhill.com.
Preorder your copy of Black girl magic & other elixirs from Yellow Arrow today.