We are a two-pronged affair: on the literary front we are publishing the first of a series of books on the topic: Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narrative (Chicago Review Press 2022): https://shuffle.do/projects/trauma-tresses-truth-untangling-our-hair-through-personal-narrative/showcase. On the artistic and cultural worker front we produce a multi-day virtual conference, the inaugural event of which occurred in August 2021: https://trauma-tresses-truth-untangling-our-hair-thro.heysummit.com. Understanding that natural hair conferences are popular occurrences in states like FL, MD, NJ, OH, TX, and cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, London, and New York—but not in northern California—our goal is to make this an annual conference featuring essayists, poets, visual artists, professors, and social justice speakers. The conference includes a variety of panels, readings, webinars, and workshops.

Our first public presentation occurred in October 2019 during San Francisco’s Litquake festival at the Artillery AG gallery in the Mission District. Since then we have fielded panels and readings at Shuffle Literary Collective’s Weekend of Words and AWP San Antonio (both 2020), a joint event with San Francisco Public Library’s African American Center and the Museum of the African Diaspora, the American & Popular Culture Association (all 2021), AWP Philadelphia (upcoming March 2022), California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Conference (upcoming April 2022), and a reading and panel at the Association for the Study of African American Life & History (upcoming September 2022). With our book launch due this Fall, we will have a heavy slate of appearances between August and December of this year.