Prose to the People: Katie Mitchell in conversation with Brea Baker

Lauded in Essence, Elle, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Prose to the People is making its debut at The Georgia Center for the Book.

Join the Georgia Center for the Book and 44th & 3rd Bookseller to celebrate the book launch of Katie Mitchell’s Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores, a stunning visual homage to Black bookstores, featuring a selection of shops around the country alongside essays that celebrate the history, community, activism, and culture these spaces embody. Katie will be in conversation with Brea Baker, the author of Rooted, and they will be joined by some special guests. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested.

44th & 3rd will be our bookseller for the evening. You may preorder the book from them here. Books will be available for purchase at the event, and a signing line with our guests will follow.

This event will take place in the Decatur Library Auditorium, on the Ground Floor of Decatur Library. Please park on the lower level of the parking garage and enter through those doors. You may also enter through the main level of the library and take the elevators to "G." Doors and elevators will be unlocked at 6:30.

About the Book:

“At a time when our stories are being challenged, banned and erased, Prose to the People isn’t just a love letter to Black bookstores—it’s a reminder of why they matter now more than ever. These spaces aren’t just about books; they’re about resistance, remembrance and making sure our voices are heard, no matter who tries to silence them.”

—Essence

“Through vivid photography, interviews, and essays, this work—part-travelogue and part-manifesto—helps us fall in love with the places that have centered Black literature as a form of resistance.”

—Elle

“Presented in a visually dynamic, scrapbook-style format, the coffee table book supplements Mitchell’s experiential narratives and Q&As with booksellers with new and vintage photos, old documents, advertisements and flyers, plus poems and essays from other contributors.”

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Black literature is perhaps the most powerful, polarizing force in the modern American zeitgeist. Today—as Black novels draw authoritarian ire, as Black memoirs shape public debates, as Black polemics inspire protest petitions—it’s more important than ever to highlight the places that center these stories: Black bookstores.

Traversing teeming metropolises and tiny towns, Prose to the People explores a these spaces, chronicling these Black bookstore’s past and present lives. Combining narrative prose, eye-catching photography, one-on-one interviews, original essays, and specially curated poetry, Prose to the People is a reader’s road trip companion to the world of Black books.

Thoughtfully curated by writer and Black bookstore owner Katie Mitchell, Prose to the People is a must-have addition to the shelves of anyone who loves book culture and Black history. Though not a definitive guide, this dynamic book centers profiles of over fifty Black bookstores from the Northeast to the mid-Atlantic, the South, and the West Coast, complete with stunning original and archival photography.

Interspersed throughout are essays, poems, and interviews by New York Times bestsellers Kiese Laymon, Rio Cortez, Pearl Cleage, and many more journalists, activists, authors, academics, and poets that offer deeper perspectives on these bookstores’ role throughout the diaspora. Complete with a foreword by world-renowned poet and activist Nikki Giovanni, Prose to the People is a beautiful tribute to these vital pillars of the Black community.

About the Author:

KATIE MITCHELL is a storyteller and bookseller. Katie lives, works, and writes in Atlanta, Georgia. Her online and pop-up Black bookstore, Good Books, has been featured in The New York Times, NBC, NPR, PBS, and many other outlets. Katie is a Dorothy Porter Wesley fellow. Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores is her debut.

About the Conversation Partner:

Brea Baker is a writer and activist whose book, Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft & The Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership, was published with PRH/One World Books. Rooted details her family’s experiences across the South and has been celebrated in The New Yorker, The Guardian, Apple Books, the New York Times, iHeart Radio’s The Breakfast Club, Harper’s BAZAAR, Ms. Magazine, and more. Brea also regularly contributes reported op-eds and personal essays to ELLE and Refinery 29 Unbothered. With a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University, Brea believes deeply in political imagination and the need for nuanced storytelling.

About the Special Guests:

W.J. Lofton, a Chicago-born poet and Alabama raised multimodal artist, is the author of A Garden for Black Boys Between the Stages of Soil and Stardust and his newest collection of poems, boy maybe (Beacon Press, Spring 2025). A recipient of Ava DuVernay’s LEAP Grant and an artist-in-residency at 100West, Lofton has earned fellowships from Cave Canem and Emory University. His work has been featured or forthcoming in TIME, wildness, Obsidian, Scalawag, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, American Poets Magazine, No Justice, No Peace: From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter, and elsewhere. Lofton’s constant concern is liberation and its lived manifestations; the personal, political, and collective. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia where he co-curates Rebellion: A Writing Salon, a space devoted to cultivating diasporic voices.

Maya Marshall is a poet, essayist, editor, and professor. Winner of the 2024 Holmes National Poetry Prize awarded by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University, Marshall is the author of the poetry collection All the Blood Involved in Love (2022) and the chapbook Secondhand (2016). Marshall co-founded underbelly, the journal on the practical magic of poetic revision. Marshall serves as the Poetry Director and as an acquiring editor for Haymarket Books. She is a program consultant for the Writing Freedom Fellowship, a literary fellowship for writers impacted by carceral systems.