One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan’s Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves “The Sisterhood,” the group—which also came to include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Margo Jefferson, and others—would get together once a month over the next two years, creating a vital space for Black women to discuss literature and liberation.

Courtney Thorsson’s The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture (Columbia University Press, 2023) tells the story of how this remarkable community transformed American writing and cultural institutions. Thorsson will give a book talk for OHC’s Wine Chat series on Thursday, January 25, 2024 at 5:30 p.m. at Capitello Wines, 540 Charnelton St. Faith Barter, assistant professsor of English, will follow up as discussant.

Drawing on original interviews with Sisterhood members as well as correspondence, meeting minutes, and readings of their works, Thorsson explores the group’s everyday collaboration and profound legacy. The Sisterhood advocated for Black women writers at trade publishers and magazines such as Random House, Ms., and Essence, and eventually in academic departments as well—often in the face of sexist, racist, and homophobic backlash. Thorsson traces the personal, professional, and political ties that brought the group together as well as the reasons for its dissolution. She considers the popular and critical success of Sisterhood members in the 1980s, the uneasy absorption of Black feminism into the academy, and how younger writers built on the foundations the group laid. Highlighting the organizing, networking, and community building that nurtured Black women’s writing, this book demonstrates that The Sisterhood offers an enduring model for Black feminist collaboration.

Courtney Thorsson is an associate professor of English at the UO, where she teaches, studies, and writes about African American literature from its beginnings to the present using Black feminist methods. Her first book was Women’s Work: Nationalism and Contemporary African American Women’s Novels (University of Virginia Press, 2013) and her writing has appeared in the volume Foodscapes: Food, Space, and Place in a Global Society. She is the recipient of a Public Scholars Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of the research and writing of The Sisterhood.

During the OHC Wine Chat on January 25th, books will be available for sale by J.Michaels Books. Beverages are available for purchase and there is a food cart on the premises of Capitello Wines. There is ample parking at Banner Bank across the street. This event is free and open to the public.