Featuring Unruly by Antoinette Cooper
This month, continuing with our theme of Beginnings, Renewal, and Voice, we explore renewal and how sometimes we need to break out of the boxes society (and other people) have put us in.
Renewal rarely happens by accident. It often requires a twist in our story, a decision to stop living the old version and begin again. This necessary pivot can be uncomfortable, even disruptive, a defiant renewal to claim who we are.
Sometimes renewal doesn’t spring from one dramatic moment, but from a quiet, growing realization that something no longer fits. For a while, we may accept the way things are and have always been, but eventually, the pressure builds to something we can no longer ignore.
This ultimately undeniable renewal is at the heart of Unruly by Antoinette Cooper. Weaving poetry, memoir, and documentary evidence, Antoinette reflects on reclaiming her identity and breaking out of the confines built by centuries of abuse and inequities. For her, this renewal meant reclaiming her physical body and refusing to be silenced.
While Antoinette’s story is uniquely her own, the questions she raises are universal. Our lives are shaped by history, family, and society, sometimes subtly, and sometimes in ways that demand confrontation. And at certain points, becoming who we are meant to be requires us to step outside expectations, to challenge what we’ve been given, and perhaps even be a little “unruly.”
You can learn more about Antoinette and Unruly here: https://legacybookpress.com/unruly/