My new memoir, just published May 2022:
Travel North Black Girl: A 3,000-mile Journey in Search of Love, Peace, and Home.
Now a winner of three awards: 2022 Best Book Award Finalist, 2023 Thorpe Menn Award Finalist, and Missouri Writers Guild Award 1st place winner
Travel North Black Girl is a story about a young woman's journey from growing up in the inner city of Kansas City to arriving in a remote indigenous village in Alaska during the early eighties. The cultural impact of a foreign place and being a newlywed in an interracial marriage challenges her and who she will become.
This book looks at the fears of growing into oneself and the triumphs of finding your own power. It addresses the complexity of race, gender, trauma, child abuse, and the powerful healing that the wilds of Alaska provide.
Through humor, adventure, and painful reckoning this memoir speaks to us all.
This memoir has been a five-year adventure, having never written a memoir, with multiple editors, many words of encouragement, beta-readers, and late-night sessions with my family. But now I am excited to be taking this labor of love to the next step. Special shoutout to my cadre of incredible editors: Signe Jorgenson, Miles Sandler, Diane Swanson, and Jennifer Studebaker.
Travel North Black Girl: A 3,000-mile Journey in Search of Love, Peace, and Home.
Now a winner of three awards: 2022 Best Book Award Finalist, 2023 Thorpe Menn Award Finalist, and Missouri Writers Guild Award 1st place winner
Travel North Black Girl is a story about a young woman's journey from growing up in the inner city of Kansas City to arriving in a remote indigenous village in Alaska during the early eighties. The cultural impact of a foreign place and being a newlywed in an interracial marriage challenges her and who she will become.
This book looks at the fears of growing into oneself and the triumphs of finding your own power. It addresses the complexity of race, gender, trauma, child abuse, and the powerful healing that the wilds of Alaska provide.
Through humor, adventure, and painful reckoning this memoir speaks to us all.
This memoir has been a five-year adventure, having never written a memoir, with multiple editors, many words of encouragement, beta-readers, and late-night sessions with my family. But now I am excited to be taking this labor of love to the next step. Special shoutout to my cadre of incredible editors: Signe Jorgenson, Miles Sandler, Diane Swanson, and Jennifer Studebaker.
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Praise for Travel North Black Girl:
"Travel North Black Girl opened up my understanding of what it might take to break out of [the confines of] limitations." Dr. Gene Chavez, Historian in Residence, Kansas City Museum “With startlingly clear and beautifully descriptive writing, Hill’s Travel North Black Girl joins the ranks of Zora Neale Hurston’s Dust Tracks on a Road and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as a welcome addition to canon of American literature.” Glenn North, Poet, Arts Educator and Author of City of Song “Hill’s long journey from Kansas City to the Indigenous village of Tatitlek in rural Alaska is not only inspirational, but it's also a healing and urgent intervention for these divided times. Dr. Ian Hartman, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History, University of Alaska-Fairbanks "The hallmark of literacy accomplishment is to leave the reader reflecting on their own life and Travel North Black Girl certainly does that." Joni Wickham, Wickham James Strategies & Solutions, author of The Thin Line Between Cupcake and Bitch "Her writing soars beyond the physicality of her surroundings, enveloping the reader in her internal experiences, letting us feel her anger, dread, anticipation, and heartache." Kael Knight, freelance journalist and Alaska native “The story is heartbreaking and heartwarming sincerity. This author is one to watch” Rachelle Law, Author, My Whisper from God |
Supporting the publishing journey
The community has spoken! Our winter fundraiser exceeded our goal of $5,000 with the support of so many. As the book continues to grow momentum, we are excited to have the support of so many wonderful supporters. And this funding allowed for incredible artist, like Klara Maisch was able to design the cover. Learn more about Klara below. And see the cover art here, a combination of Klara's painting in the background and my pen and ink drawing of the crow:
Meet the artist
Klara Maisch
Klara is a visual artist living and working in Alaska. Mountains, glaciers, and geologic forms are common features in her landscape-based oil paintings. Klara specializes in painting outside in remote areas for extended periods. Her artwork has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout Alaska, as well as Washington, California, and Hawaii. Klara is interested in transdisciplinary thinking that involves art, science, and the natural world. She is currently working on a series of paintings about wildfires and landscape change for an arts, humanities, and sciences program called "In a Time of Change" and preparing work for a solo exhibition at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, Alaska in 2022. She seasonally instructs for Inspiring Girls Expeditions and guides for Arctic Wild.
Klara Maisch
Klara is a visual artist living and working in Alaska. Mountains, glaciers, and geologic forms are common features in her landscape-based oil paintings. Klara specializes in painting outside in remote areas for extended periods. Her artwork has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout Alaska, as well as Washington, California, and Hawaii. Klara is interested in transdisciplinary thinking that involves art, science, and the natural world. She is currently working on a series of paintings about wildfires and landscape change for an arts, humanities, and sciences program called "In a Time of Change" and preparing work for a solo exhibition at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, Alaska in 2022. She seasonally instructs for Inspiring Girls Expeditions and guides for Arctic Wild.
