Womanish ― A Grown Black Woman Speaks on Love and Life

Womanish. (Opp. of “girlish,” i.e. frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A black feminist or feminist of color. From the black folk expression of mothers to female children, “you acting womanish,” i.e., like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior… Acting grown up. Being grown up… —From Alice Walker’s Definition of a “Womanist” from In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose

Born in 1964, the last year of the Boomers or the first year of Generation X, depending upon who's counting, Kim McLarin came of age as part of the first real "Brown vs. Board" generation, and that experience, of America first embracing and then rejecting a real and meaningful beloved racial community, has shaped everything in her life.

In Womanish, McLarin explores how being both black and female—not to mention middle-aged—complicates everything from dating to parenting to mental health to race relations, and how one woman responds to those challenges. Powerful and timely, McLarin’s essays draw upon a lifetime of experiences to paint a personal and societal portrait of what it means to be black and female in contemporary America.

Kim McLarin is a novelist, essayist and former journalist. She is the author of the novels Taming It Down, Meeting of the Waters and Jump at the Sun, all published by William Morrow and of the memoir Divorce Dog: Men, Motherhood and Midlife. Her work has been honored by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, the Barnes & Noble Discover Program, the Hurston/Wright Foundation and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, among other organizations. She is co-author of Growing Up X by Ilyasah Shabazz with Kim McLarin.McLarin's nonfiction writing has appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, The Washington Post, Slate, The Root, the Morning News, Calaloo and other publications. She is a former staff writer for The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Associated Press.She is an associate professor in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College in Boston and the proud mother of two.