Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.

Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand.

Marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time.

From startups to scaleups, online, in person, and on the go. Shopify is made for

entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.

Hello everyone and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell laughing in the face of

motherhood. This is Margaret.

And today I am talking to Jamila Lemieux. She is a cultural critic, writer, and editor known for her sharp

takes on race, gender, and parenting. She pens, slates, care, and feeding column, and is the author of

the new book, Black Single Mother, a powerful collection of essays and

stories about Black Single Motherhood. Welcome, Jamila. Thank you for having me.

So the subtitle of this book, Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging. So let's start with

the origins of this book and what made you start this project. And

obviously, you've been writing and you've been a voice for a long time. Why was this the book?

So I've been talking about writing a book for a very long time. Actually, on my old website,

it said like in 2010, she's working on her

first book. This is something that I've wanted to do basically my whole career. And I worked with

my literary agent, Tanya McKinnon, for about five years before we landed on this concept.

And we'd come up with something. I'd be into it. I'd work on the proposal. And I'd be like, you know, this isn't really the book I want to write. I don't think I can write this. I don't believe in this. Or I don't feel like I'm the right person for this. And there were a few times that Tanya told me to write about single motherhood or said, you should do something about single

motherhood. And I didn't want to because I was afraid that if I wrote a book about single

motherhood, I would be a single mother forever, that I was writing my faith. That's where it would

end for me. Finally, it came up and I gave it some thought and I said, you know, I could have really

...