Our top 25 countdown continues.

Coming in at number 17, the incredible writer and thinker, Prisca Dorcas Mogica Rodriguez.

We had this conversation after the release of Prisca's book for brown girls with sharp edges and tender hearts, a love letter to women of color.

And what has stuck with me is everything Prisca needed to leave behind in pursuit of personal freedom.

Prisca, I want to start by asking you to tell me about your sharp edges, your tender heart,

and how you arrived at the title of this book.

So I have a book where the quote comes from.

So let me pull it because I don't want to butcher it. Yeah, yeah. at the title of this book. So I have a book where the quote comes from.

So let me pull it because I don't want to butcher it.

Yeah, yeah.

So this is Gloria Naylor, and it's Women on Brewster Street.

And before she starts the book to describe the women she's about to talk about,

she says, they were hard-edged, soft-centered,

brutally demanding, and easily pleased these women of Brewster Street.

And I read this in 2012, and I was obsessed.

So because the rest of you cannot see it, that page has more highlighting and scribbling on it than it does printed words from a publisher.

Yeah, and I just like have always connected with that.

When I write about even myself, like usually when I'm not still hiding from COVID,

my nails are long and I wear acrylics. I wear heels. I'm not still hiding from COVID, my nails are long and I wear acrylics.

I wear heels.

I'm not a casual sneakers girl.

I am very high femme and I show up high femme in all places.

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