This is Karen Hunter and welcome to this woman. Why? Because several years ago one of my my

buddies Tracy Chirad was like, hmm, what's up girl? I was like, hey, I got a book that you need to read.

And I was like, what is it? And she gave me this book, Winch. And I was like,

ah, not another book about enslavement or somebody in bondage, this slave trauma porn enough already and

then I'm reading it and I couldn't put it down. I think I read it in one day and it messed me up.

It was all of the things and I was like I got to get this

woman on the show at some point well she's here today author of when she also

did the remix or the redo of 12 years of slave and she's got a new book

called Take My Hand. Let me welcome the great Dolan Perkins Valdez.

Hi.

Hi there.

Welcome. Thank you. All right before we get into this book and and

Tracy and winch and all of this where are you you from? Originally. Memphis, Tennessee.

Okay. So growing up in Memphis, Tennessee with the name Dolan, Perkis, Valdez, is that your given

name? Did you always have that hyphenators Mr Valdez or there Valdez

somebody talk to me now there's is the husband okay okay okay okay okay okay

okay all right now growing up in the South at the time that you grew up to

envision yourself as an author, who was who was that inspiration? Was it Tony? Was

it Zora? it Alice who who was it somebody else well you know growing up I didn't know anything about a Tony Morrison right I didn't know anything about Alice Walker. They didn't teach those writers in school. There was no, now a lot of high schools have African American history. My high school didn't have anything like that. My parents were not literary people so they didn't know

anything about a Tony Morrison. I didn't encounter those women until college. So when I was

growing up I read read, you know, things that books you could find in the supermarket.

So my mother and I would go to the grocery store, and while she shot for groceries, I'd go over and look in the book.

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