YA Virtual Book Group w/ Hannah V Sawyerr

Join us for a virtual conversation with Hannah V Sawyerr, author of Truth Is!

Reserve your tickets below, and keep an eye on your inbox for a Zoom link.

About the author:

Hannah V. Sawyerr was recognized as the Youth Poet Laureate of Baltimore in 2016. Her spoken word has been featured on the BBC’s World Have Your Say program as well as the National Education Association’s “Do You Hear Us?” campaign. Her written word has been included in gal-dem, Rookie, and xoNecole. She holds a BA in English from Morgan State University and an MFA in creative writing from the New School. Sawyerr is an English professor at Loyola Marymount University and lives in Los Angeles.

About the book:

This is an empowering and defiant novel in verse in which a teen poet grapples with an unplanned pregnancy and determines what happens to her body in a world that wants to take the choice away from her.

Seventeen-year-old Truth Bangura wants nothing more than to know a life beyond her hometown. Writing and performing is her only solace in a life overwhelmed by a drifting relationship with her best friend, an emotionally turbulent home environment, and the reality that her below average grades make her true dream—escaping her mother’s grasp after graduation—uncertain.

When Truth learns she’s pregnant by her ex-boyfriend, she makes one decision she’s finally sure about: an abortion.

Determined to move forward, Truth turns to the pages in her notebook with the support of her slam poetry team—including the poet with a voice smooth as summer jazz, who’s been catching her eye during practice.

Told through searing free-verse, journal entries, and interspersed fill-in-the-blank poetry prompts, Hannah V. Sawyerr’s Truth Is reminds us there is always a choice. There is always hope. And there is always a way forward.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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Host or Publisher Village Well Books & Coffee