Welcome home cojourners. I'm so glad you're here for another episode of the Homecoming

podcast. I'm Dr. Tema, licensed psychologist, ordained minister and sacred artists, here to help

facilitate your journey back home to yourself. And I am so excited for our special guests on today. We are being

joined by Glory Edom. Welcome, Glory. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Oh, wonderful.

Well, I want to tell our cojourners some more about you. So Glory Edom is a writer, literary advocate, and the founder of well-read

Black Girl, a nationally recognized community and literary imprint dedicated to celebrating and publishing the voices of black women writers.

Founded in 2015, you all have been going for a while,

WRBG has grown from a book club into a cultural platform that amplifies diverse narratives and fosters dialogue

at the intersection of literature, identity, and social change.

Adam is the editor of the well-read Black Girl Anthology and the author of

the memoir, Gather Me, and you all know how we do. You can go ahead and press pause and go and

get a copy of Gather Me and then come back and listen to the rest. A reflective exploration of

self-discovery and the transformative power of books.

Through her writing and editorial work, Adam continues to champion literacy, representation, and black literary traditions.

So welcome, Glory. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, and congratulations on the book.

I'm so excited about you writing your memoir and the ways in which it has such healing themes in it, really healing, growth and transformation.

And so I wanted to ask if you would start us off by reading an excerpt from your new book.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

So I'm going to read from the beginning.

As you said, the book is entitled, Gather Me, a Memoir in Praise of the Books that Saved Me.

At the lowest points in my life, the most isolated and difficult times, when I was sad, when I was confused or frozen or drifting or desperate, I reached for a book.

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