MahoganyBooks is thrilled to kick off the new year with a dope VIRTUAL event with poet and New York Times bestselling author Cole Arthur Riley. Join us from the comfort of your own home.  Grab a good meal and pull up to your computer (only the speakers will be visible, so get comfy).

You may already be familiar with Cole's NYT's bestseller book, This Here Flesh, (and if you're not, let us put you on!) We're excited to discuss Cole's latest book, Black Liturgies, a collection of prayer, poetry, and spiritual practice centering the Black interior world with one of our favorite authors and activist leaders, Tricia Hersey aka, The Nap Bishop. 

Link to event with be sent an hour before event start.

Limited number of books are pre-signed and will begin shipping after the event

On social media, please tag us and use #mahoganybooks

For years, Cole Arthur Riley was desperate for a spirituality she could trust. Amid ongoing national racial violence, the isolation of the pandemic, and a surge of anti-Black rhetoric in many Christian spaces, she began dreaming of a more human, more liberating expression of faith. She went on to create Black Liturgies, a digital project that connects spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black memory, and the Black body.

In this book, she brings together hundreds of new prayers, along with letters, poems, meditation questions, breath practices, scriptures, and the writings of Black literary ancestors to offer forty-three liturgies that can be practiced individually or as a community. Inviting readers to reflect on their shared experiences of wonder, rest, rage, and repair, and creating rituals for holidays like Lent and Juneteenth, Arthur Riley writes with a poet's touch and a sensitivity that has made her one of the most important spiritual voices at work today.

Black Liturgies is a work of healing and empowerment, and a vision for what might be.

About the Author: Cole Arthur Riley is a writer, poet, and author of the New York Times bestseller, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us. Her writing has been featured in The Atlantic, Guernica, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. She is the creator of Black Liturgies, a space that integrates spiritual practice with Black emotion, Black literature, and the Black body; and a project of The Center for Dignity and Contemplation, where she serves as Curator.

About Our Conversation Host: Tricia Hersey is an artist, poet, theologian and community organizer. She is the founder of The Nap Ministry, an organization that examines rest as a form of resistance by curating sacred spaces for the community to rest via Collective Napping Experiences, immersive workshops, performance art installations, and social media. Tricia is a global pioneer and originator of the movement to understand the liberatory power of rest. She is the creator of the Rest is Resistance and Rest as Reparations frameworks. Her research interests include Black liberation theology, womanism, somatics, and cultural trauma. Tricia is a Chicago native and currently lives in South Georgia.

Please email us at at least 7 days in advance at events@mahoganybooks.com should you need any accommodations to attend this event.

Cole Arthur Riley Discusses Black Liturgies w/Tricia Hersey