What are you reading on the subway or in the waiting room today?
I am reading Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Toni Cade Bambara‘s The Salt Eaters. Bambara’s work is such a magnificently successful exp
What book popped for you in 2015?
I was late to the party, but Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was so breathtakingly and loving 
told. It was just a love letter to the diaspora.
Whose words do you return to regularly?
bell hooks who is right so often it makes me mad. I think a lot about Alice Walker, especially her poem “Each One Pull One.”
Is there an author you can’t wait to read next?
I made a pledge to flesh out my Octavia Butler gaps, so I’m anxiously trying to get to her!
What are you working on now? What can VIDA fans look forward to from you next?
I’m writing a lot of nonfiction lately, just enjoying the places my muse is taking me. But do pick up my book *chop: a collection of kwansabas for fannie lou hammer* at Argus House Press.
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TREASURE SHIELDS REDMOND is a St. Louis metro-area based writer, speaker, diversity and inclusion coach, and social justice educator. Her book, CHOP (www.argushousepress.com) focuses on the life of civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer. Over a twenty year educational career, Treasure has facilitated dialogues about diversity, inclusion, & Justice. The Non-Profit Services Center, The United Way, and the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission have all been venues where Treasure has presented/facilitated in this arena. Combining her gifts (writing, coaching, and presenting) with her passion (diversity and inclusion) Treasure is able to lead strategic plan writing and facilitate beginning dialogues about race, class, gender, and ability. Presently, Treasure divides her time between being an assistant professor of English at Southwestern Illinois College, and doctoral studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Treasure writes about issues of social justice on her blog at www.femininepronoun.wordpress.com.