Amy DuBois Barnett’s attendance at this year’s ESSENCE Festival of Culture was a heartwarming homecoming for the top editor turned popular novelist. Barnett worked at ESSENCE early in her career before becoming the first Black woman to be editor-in-chief at a major mainstream magazine, Teen People. She later served as editor in chief of Honey and Ebony magazines, as well as held down top spots at Harper’s Bazaar, BET and The Grio. When asked about supporting other women along the way in her journey, Barnett quickly replies, “We’re all we got.”
We couldn’t agree more. As a featured panelist at this year’s ESSENCE Festival of Culture, Barnett participated in a lively exchange about her new novel, If I Ruled the World, living and learning as an ambitious Black woman in a fast-paced New York City circa the late-1990s and her novel being adapted to the small screen via Hulu. We also had the proud Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. member (Yes, she definitely shouted out her Sorors while on stage!) open up about her favorite book of all time, why she doesn’t do bookmarks and the surprising way reading about gritty cowboys delights her.
My Favorite Book of All-Time: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I first read it as a young woman and was captivated by Janie’s determination to build a life that belonged to her and nobody else. An honorary mention goes to W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk. Namesake loyalty aside, it’s one of the most brilliant works of American nonfiction ever written.
The Last Book I Read: I just finished Tia Williams’s smart, funny, emotionally resonant latest novel, The Missed Connection.
The Book I’m Looking Forward to Reading Next: Next up is Robinne Lee’s second novel, Crash Into Me. I’ve been waiting for that book to come out for years and am beyond excited to finally get my hands on it.
Her Favorite Genre of Books: Literary fiction has always had my heart. If I hadn’t loved writing so much, I think I might have pursued a PhD in literature instead of an MFA in creative writing.
The First Book I Read As A Child That Resonated with Me: Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Apparently, I’ve spent my entire life gravitating toward smart, plucky, ambitious heroines. Anne made me feel seen long before I had the language for why.
Book I Felt Most Seen In As A Black Woman: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. What resonated with me wasn’t any one character so much as the emotional landscape of the book: ambitious Black people trying to build meaningful lives, careers, marriages, and identities while carrying the weight of expectations both from inside and outside our community. I saw pieces of my own experiences and the experiences of so many Black professionals I know and love in its pages.
Audio Books or Traditional Print Books: For most of my life I was firmly Team Print. But over the last few years I’ve become an audiobook convert. Now I usually have two books going at all times: one in print and one on audio. I’ve discovered that I especially love fantasy on audio—dragons, witches, elves, all of it—while I tend to reserve my print reading for literary fiction.
Book I Didn’t Expect To Enjoy Nearly As Much As I Did: All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. I wasn’t exactly rushing to pick up a novel about gritty cowboys in the American West, but it completely won me over. His prose is so elegant and restrained and beautiful that it became one of my favorite books almost by surprise.
Last Words On My Books (For Now): I love smart women on the page, complicated women on the page, and ambitious women on the page. My favorite books tend to sit at the intersection of literary and commercial fiction: novels that make me think deeply while also making me miss my subway stop because I can’t stop turning the pages.
Bookmark Or Dog-Ear The Last Page Read? I’m a dog-ear girl and always will be. Books are meant to be lived in.
