black history month book list and a chat with kayla starr simmons

I chat with the founder of Black Girl Book Fest, Kayla Starr Simmons, about celebrating Black authors and building community around books.

Feb 04, 2024

Hello, Tamia Talks readers, happy Sunday! This week, I have the pleasure of delivering you a lovely conversation I shared with Kayla Starr Simmons, founder of Black Girl Book Fest and the popular Instagram account BlackGirlBookAdventures.

Over the past three years, Simmons has accumulated over 10,000 followers sharing her love and appreciation for books, moonlighting as a bookfluencer between her shifts as a production coordinator for ABC News. Since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has shared her book reviews, cross-country adventures visiting book stores and libraries and efforts to establish the inaugural Black Girl Book Fest in 2023 with her devoted audience of fellow readers.

Read a segment of my conversation with Kayla below or listen to the first episode of Tamia Talks on Spotify, Apple Music or any of your preferred podcast listening platforms. Below, you can read our conversation and find a full breakdown of books that Kayla and I will be reading or recommend picking up this month. Happy BHM and happy reading!

[This conversation has been edited and condensed.]

TF: I know that the Black Girl Book Fest was intended to branch off of the community that you had built from your Instagram platform, and it was a way to kind of bring more people into the conversation about black authors and expose people to books that they might not otherwise encounter. I would love to hear a little bit more about what kind of books you look for to share and kind of what have been your favorite stories to engage with your audience about?

KS: I love that question. So, I love books from underrepresented authors and people who I feel, you know, might not pick up that book. Right now, social media is such a strong tool. I mean, we all know it, we all use it. And it has been, you know, incredible for the publishing industry and for authors to be able to put their work out there, especially when you think about BookTok. Right? It's huge. These creators have a massive platform.

There are still some authors who aren't getting that recognition, so I like to highlight them and particularly Black women, which was the brainchild behind Black Girl Book Fest, because I wanted a space to celebrate Black women writers and authors and storytellers. There's a place for us to celebrate them and all the work that they've contributed to literacy. And so that's how I got the idea. These are the writers that I'm particularly drawn to, not only as a black woman, but because I know the struggle that comes behind wanting to do something but also feeling like you're underrepresented and you're not getting the platform that you deserve.

TF: Definitely, I'm wondering for you, what some of the most standout moments have been since you establish the account. I mean, I would love to hear kind of what the beginning felt like because I know that creating social presence is such an intimidating thing to do. What made you feel comfortable? What were the scariest parts of doing that? I just would love to hear a little bit more of that journey.

KS: And so yes, so I created my Bookstagram in 2020. It was during the pandemic, and I was just at home reading a lot. And honestly, I felt like I growing up, like I was a huge reader. Like, if I had a good day at school, or a good report card, my parents would bring me to the local end, independently on bookstore to get a book as a prize, or as a treat.

I feel like over the years, like, I had stopped reading so much. I was reading here and there but not as much. So, during the pandemic, it afforded me the opportunity to have the time to sit, be still in read. I reconnected with my love for reading, so I created the Bookstagram, and it has been a ride ever since. When I tell you like I've made really good friends online, just by loving books. That has been one of the most rewarding things about it is the connection and the people that I've gotten to meet and connect with just over our love for reading.

Photos of Kayla Starr Simmons at the National Book Awards, Good Morning America and more.

TF: I think that's something that's so interesting about you having this account at this time, is that you do kind of take part in this broader conversation that's happening nationally, about literacy and access to books and the way that a lot of young people might not have the opportunity to engage with books in the way that we did when we were growing up. And the shift comes amid, you know, an amplified effort to remove books from libraries, which has been highlighted by associations, like the American Library Association, and PEN America, but also at the same time, we're kind of watching this public adoption of a push for diversity and publishing. I'm curious, what it's felt like for you to be a part of that conversation for pushing people to engage with more diverse authors during this time.

KS: You know, I'm glad you brought that up. Because what we're seeing right now is a nationwide ban on a lot of these diverse stories. And you're seeing it, you know, a lot in Florida, where you're trying, you have the governor there that is trying to ban these stories that should not be erased from history. And so to me, it's nauseating thinking about the fact that people children won't have access to these reading materials.

I like to talk about this because people don't realize that having access to printed material reading material can be looked at as a luxury, because there are certain places in this country where… you know, how we have food deserts? There are book deserts where people have limited access to these printed materials. And so I don't think people really grasp that understanding that not everyone has access to books, like not everyone is able to just go to a bookstore.

I was just in Florida, where one of my Bookstagram friends just opened up a books, a bookstore, and she opened it and she and I were talking, she opened it because there's, there's no bookstore in that area at all. And so she was like, “Where are people getting their books?” She looked up the nearest bookstore, and I think it was like an hour away. It's just really sad to think about, it's something that really gets me emotional, and something that I try to talk about often because I really want to advocate for these systems to stay in place, and also for writers to have the freedom to write their stories and for their stories to be shared with the world.

TF: Absolutely. For you kind of looking at the future of Black Girl Book Fest, in a dream scenario, where do you hope to build it? Or, what will you hope that people gain from the experience of engaging with you online?

KS: Oh, my goodness. So Black Girl book fest, my dream is that we get to hit every city that we have, that we have on the map. So I right now. So we did Brooklyn, and I knew Brooklyn was gonna be first because not only because I live in Brooklyn, but it was like I told, you know, my, my business partner, and she's my project manager, Trey, I told her, I said, this is like my love letter to Brooklyn. And so it has to be in Brooklyn first.

My goal future goal is I want it to be something where people are like, “oh, Black Girl Book Fest,” and immediately know what it is, and you know, pull up, come out and support. I'd also like to bring it internationally, I think that that would be cool to have it, you know, overseas and bring it other places. Because these stories should be everywhere…to bring those authors to the festival, international authors. Yeah, I just really want it to grow. And, you know, I would love to do multiple a year if I ever have the bandwidth to do so that would be a dream.