What do you learn, when you revisit long-held assumptions about your past? When Dawn Downey examines essays she wrote in 2014, she gains insights into the workings of her mind. Her old resentments shapeshift into empathy. She recognizes a relationship with the natural world that she’d kept hidden from herself. She transcends the artificial binaries of death vs life and you vs me. Downey invites us to linger over our own memories and marvel as they take on new meaning under our gentle attention.
The 10th Anniversary Edition is updated with an Introduction, Author’s Notes, Afterword, Glossary, and Playlist.
Dawn Downey writes essays about her journey through everyday life. The question she strives to answer: How does a sensitive elder woman of color thrive in an insensitive, white-centered, male dominated, youth-oriented culture? The author of six books, she also writes “Dawn Downey’s Teachable Moments,” a Substack newsletter. Blindsided: Essays from the Only Black Woman in the Room earned Book of the Year Finalist honors from the Independent Author Network. Downey lives with her husband in Kansas City, Missouri.