Khadijah Queen talks with us about endurance and discipline, the multiple lives of women, and the dynamic between equity and violence.

Since the publication of your award winning collection Black Peculiar, how have you come to understand the word “peculiar”?  I think my understanding is the same as it was when I began writing the book, which is twofold. irstly, it’s personal, related to how I felt (and heard from other people) that I was being seen in the world in terms of gender, race, religion, marital status and physical (dis)ability, as a person existing outside of and not really aspiring toward typical norms. And in a wider historical context, it’s related to the “peculiar institution” of slavery, the legacy of which informs the present treatment of African-American people in this country.  To read the rest of the interview, go here.