About We Reads
We Reads is, first and foremost, about highlighting BIPOC voices in literature. It is also deeply personal, and joyfully so: we read as our whole selves, bringing our identities and experiences with us when we enter the world of a story or poem. The works collected here have resonated with, shaped, and nourished us, changing us in ways we might not yet understand and living inside us as we once chose to live inside them.
Who We Are
Project Founder
nicholae cline (they/them) is a mixed race Indigenous (Coharie), queer, nonbinary/gendervoid, disabled librarian living on land that was, is, and always will be home to the Myaamiaki (Miami), Lenape (Delaware), Saawanwa (Shawnee), and Neshnabé/Bodwéwadmik (Potawatomi) peoples.
We Here Admins
Jen Brown (she/her) is a Black, cis, bisexual librarian & writer living on territory of Huichin, ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo Ohlone, successors of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County. This land was, and still is, their home & of great importance to the Ohlone people.
Crystal Chen (she/her) is a Chinese/Asian American living on Lenapehoking that was and is home to the Canarsee people.
Charlotte Roh (she/her) is a 1st generation Korean American who has lived all over the country but now resides on the Kumeyayy land that is colonially known as San Diego.
What We Do
We Reads is an ongoing, collaborative effort between We Here members to feature literature by, for, or heavily featuring Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. In short, books by BIPOC people for BIPOC people.
Each curated list isn’t meant to provide exhaustive coverage of all recent titles; rather, it’s meant to be a reflection of what project members have read and identified with this year. Spanning genres, these lists are meant to support and nurture the needs of folks, within and outside of information professions, who seek new reading material for their personal or library collections. We hope to grow future lists accordingly, as the team’s bandwidth and individual reading habits permit.
Our process includes providing rich metadata that pushes beyond traditional subject tags. Positioning established categories, like “genre,” alongside nuanced ones--such as the identit(ies) of characters and, where data permits, authors/artists/creators--in order to facilitate more engaged discoverability is a core goal of our work. Where possible, character and author identit(ies) have been sourced from in-text, or from the author’s personal description of themselves as found on public-facing websites. Otherwise, general tags (such as “BIPOC”) are applied (or left out entirely, if we’re unable to substantiate).
Our hope is that this project helps bring you closer to fantastic, meaningful content, and introduces you to recently published works by new and established voices alike.
Accountability
We do our best to highlight books that are worthwhile, meaningful, and that also align with our values as individuals. Thus, we try to read in a way that centers not only imagination and pleasure, but also with an eye to issues of representation, the white/colonial gaze, or other ways in which a book might be problematic and even harmful.
If you feel like we've uplifted a work that doesn't quite live up to these standards, please let us know. Literature isn't perfect and neither are we. We recognize that our perspectives are limited; we may make mistakes along the way and may overlook things we haven't yet learned to see, but we hope you will be patient and compassionate, yet firm with us when we do. We will do what we can to acknowledge and learn, then do our best to make it right.
Contact
If you have suggestions for our TBR piles or future lists, please complete our suggestions form.
For all other feedback or inquiries, including sharing information about author’s identities/tags we should include, updates to the website, or general input, hit us up at: weherereads@gmail.com
Bookshop Disclosure
We are an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through the “Buy It” link on the collection list(s) and make a purchase, or if you shop on the site using our storefront. This revenue funds scholarships in support of purchasing materials for Community Study participants. To learn more, check out their About page.
Why are we a Bookshop.org affiliate? Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. Online marketplaces have shown a severe lack of empathy for humanity, particularly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and small, local business are particularly vulnerable during this time. We know major online marketplaces can get you what you need very quickly (which sometimes puts workers in danger), but we’re hoping you’ll consider investing in your community by purchasing locally or from BIPOC-owned businesses.
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FRI JAN 15 2021