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In her first book, So You Want to Talk About Race, Seattlelite Oluo guides the reader through the explosive terrain of 21st-century race relations, providing clear explanations of the many ways American society is structured to empower white people, particularly men. Arguing that a person can be complicit in a racist society without being an explicitly bad or racist person, Oluo takes some of the sting out of a conversation that rightly places the onus on white citizens to take the lead in confronting racial discrimination and violence. It’s a tricky balance — not placing blame but demanding recognition and reparation — and Oluo manages it with grace and care. We expect that her forthcoming book, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America (December 2020), which expands on how white male power has brought us to a current political moment that is toxic to women, immigrants, people of color, and all of America’s many disenfranchised citizens, will be just as erudite and instructive.

Suckers for pretty much anything that melds physics with the literary, we weren’t let down by Portland poet and Reed College creative writing professor Bashir’s award-winning 2017 collection, Field Theories. Using the language of thermodynamics, Bashir crafts challenging, visually inventive poems that combine scientific vernacular (radiation, probability, blackbody, curves, coronagraphy) with folklore (John Henry) and contemporary issues to examine the ways the Black body is and has been interpreted by American society, and to subvert dominant interpretations. Field Theories is an extraordinary work, whose formal and linguistic complexity invite endless re-readings.

In both his novel The Residue Years and lyrical memoir Survival Math, Portland-raised Mitchell S. Jackson takes a riveting and often gutting look at growing up in Portland, OR. In his novel, Jackson explores the impact of crack cocaine on the Black community through the story of Champ and his mom, Grace, both of whom find securing financial stability difficult without resorting to the drug trade, although in different ways. Survival Math is equally gritty but even better, showcasing Jackson’s unique ability to draw on a hybrid lexicon of literary, religious, and slang terms and techniques that stress the relevancy of history while working simultaneously to heighten the memoir’s prose portions and ground them in the realities Survival Math elucidates. Jackson’s skill in blending biblical exegesis, American history, personal experience, and Western and popular culture arrests the reader’s attention, signaling that what they’re reading is more than a memoir, history book, or sociological treatise; instead, Survival Math is a superb and unsparing demonstration of how everyday life is an amalgam of how all of those forces — law, precedent, context, choice, and faith — work in concert to make us and our communities who we are.

Like Jackson, Heidi Durrow came of age in Portland, OR. Her autobiographical debut follows Rachel, a biracial teen who is sent to live with her paternal grandmother in Portland after a family tragedy. This is the first time Rachel has lived in a predominantly Black neighborhood, and her sudden immersion in Black culture and growing comprehension of how people see her own racial difference is the main focus of this incisive and emotionally gripping coming-of-age novel. Durrow’s prose is lovely, and while her depiction of 1980s Portland rings true, it’s sobering how many of the race- and culture-based obstacles and stereotypes Rachel encounters have carried through into 2020.

This Powell’s staff favorite by British Columbia resident Edugyan is a bildungsroman that follows a young slave, Wash, on a remarkable journey with Titch, the white brother of his master (whom both escape). Throughout the many stops on their journey from Barbados to the Arctic, and later in Canada, England, and Morocco, Wash must contend with the unexpected ways people respond to his appearance and unusual gifts in illustration and science, as well as with abandonment and the threat of recapture. In Washington Black, Edugyan spins a fantastical and continually surprising tale that upends traditional notions of the runaway slave narrative while keeping that history at the forefront of the reader’s mind. This buoyant and thoughtful novel has us waiting eagerly for whatever Edugyan writes next.

We’ve already mentioned how much we love former Portlander Renée Watson, but it’s for good reason: her writing at the intersection of race and childhood manages to be both relevant and timeless, every time. In Piecing Me Together, Watson tells the story of Jade, a teenaged Portlander struggling with prejudice at her mostly white private high school. Jade is frustrated by how her school labels her as at-risk, working to “save” her without getting to know her, and with the unfairness of having to navigate racial profiling and racist policing at school and in her neighborhood. In Jason Reynolds's words, “Watson, with rhythm and style, somehow gets at the toxicity of sympathy, the unquenchable thirst of fear, and the life-changing power of voice and opportunity, all wrapped up in Jade — the coolest young lady in the world.” With themes of identity and racism that many readers of color may relate to, and an attendant focus on the power of art to help establish your own voice, Piecing Me Together is a fabulous read for kids and adults alike.

Local writer Nastashia Minto’s debut, Naked: The Rhythm and Groove of It. The Depth and Length to It., uses poetry and memoir to explore the ways her identity emerges from a confluence of queerness, sexuality, trauma, love, race, faith, and family history. Minto is as good as her word, crafting pieces that bare both her life’s triumphs and moments of terrible fear with candor and a heart-thumping rhythm, at times veering into the cadence and excitement of slam poetry. Bookseller Dianah observes, “Minto flays open her wound for the whole world to see in this stark and searing work that examines every feeling for nuance and meaning. First, there's pain, but with love, healing and redemption can catch fire and explode. Beautiful.”

Wahingtonian Nisi Shawl is a veteran speculative fiction writer and multi-award winner and nominee for her short fiction. Her work and teaching career have long focused on diversifying the speculative fiction community and canon, and on the ways sci-fi and fantasy writing can be used to address colonialism, globalization, sexism, and racial inequality. New Suns, a new anthology of short fiction by writers of color, continues with these themes, focusing on the experience of otherness and marginalization from Indigenous, African, and Latinx perspectives, among others. A satisfying mix of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy by some of today’s best speculative fiction writers, veteran and up-and-coming, New Suns offers many immersive and striking stories. While New Suns is Shawl’s most recent project, it’s also worth checking out her steampunk-utopia-by-way-of-the-Congo novel, Everfair, which explores her career-long interests in multiculturalism and equality through a beautiful reimagining of African colonial history.

An older work, the 1990 National Book Award-winning Middle Passage by University of Washington professor emeritus Charles Johnson tells the story of free man Rutherford Calhoun, who unknowingly stows away on the final illegal slave ship to Africa in order to escape his creditor and the school teacher who wants to marry him. Despite his background, Calhoun is a bit of a scoundrel who initially doesn’t have much sympathy for the ship’s slave cargo, the Allmuseri tribe. The story is both richly metaphorical and madcap — there’s a mutiny, slave revolt, and a possible stolen god — giving it a meaningful adventure vibe that feels a little akin to Colson Whitehead’s and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s more recent imaginative takes on the slave narrative. If you’re unfamiliar with Johnson’s work, which includes PEN/Faulkner finalist Sorceror’s Apprentice and numerous short story awards, Middle Passage is an excellent place to start.

Another University of Washington professor, poet Colleen McElroy’s Queen of the Ebony Isles won the 1985 American Book Award. While Queen is perhaps her most widely known work, McElroy has authored several poetry collections (including her award-winning 2007 collection, Sleeping With the Moon, and the sadly out-of-print What Madness Brought Me Here), as well as plays, short stories, and memoirs. McElroy is celebrated for the clarity of her verse, which often circles back to themes of autobiography, longing, otherness, and desire, and views its subjects with empathy and tiny, luminous threads of humor.