Victoria Christopher Murray, HARLEM RHAPSODY

Totally Booked with Zibby

Zibby Owens

Connection, Inspiration, Moms, Entertainment, Arts, Reading, Books, Parenting, Literary

4.4 • 602 Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Zibby is joined by New York Times bestselling author Victoria Christopher Murray to discuss HARLEM RHAPSODY, a powerful, stunning novel that resurrects the memory of Jessie Redmond Fauset, the strong-willed literary editor who ignited the Harlem Renaissance. Victoria shares how Fauset discovered and mentored literary greats like Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen yet was largely forgotten by history. She describes Fauset’s career, struggles in publishing, and secret love affair with WEB Du Bois—and the extensive research that helped bring her story to life.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive
0:24.0	look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't
0:29.3	have to.
0:30.3	Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day.
0:36.2	For more information, go to zibbimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens.
0:44.8	Victoria Christopher Murray is the author of Harlem Rhapsody.
0:48.9	She is a New York Times best-selling author of more than 30 novels, including the personal librarian,
0:54.0	which, by the way,
0:54.7	I had her and her co-author, Marie Benedict, on to discuss, so you can go back and listen to that.
0:59.9	It was a Good Morning America book club pick. And The First Ladies, which was Target's
1:04.7	2023 book of the year, both of which she co-authored with Marie Benedict, as I said.
1:09.4	She is an NAACP Image Award winner for outstanding literary work for her novel, Stand Your Ground,
1:15.2	which was also a library journal Best Book of the Year.
1:17.8	She holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.
1:21.5	Welcome, Victoria.
1:22.7	I'm so glad you're coming back on my show to now talk about Harlem Rhapsody. Congratulations. So awesome. Thanks for
1:30.6	introducing us to Jesse and this whole time period and the many other authors that she's
1:38.3	created and inspired. And what a story that you found and told so well. So thank you. Oh, thank you for having me back.
1:46.4	Isn't she amazing? Amazing. Jesse Redmond's Fawcett was just so amazing. And you mentioned to be the
1:53.0	number of authors that we know them and she discovered them, but we don't know her. And the fact that at the end, she couldn't even get a job in publishing after that.
2:03.9	I mean, I could not believe it.
2:05.9	Yeah.
	...

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