Black Country Music tells the story of how Black musicians have changed the country music landscape and brought light to Black creativity and innovation.After a century of racist whitewashing, country music is finally reckoning with its relationship to Black people. In this timely work—the first book on Black country music by a Black writer—Francesca Royster uncovers the Black performers and fans, including herself, who are exploring the pleasures and possibilities of the genre.

2023 Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame2024 Woody Guthrie Book Award, International Association for the Study of Popular Music-US Branch (IASPM-US)2023 Certificate of Merit, ARSC Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research, Association for Recorded Sound Collections2023 The Judy Tsou Critical Race Studies Award, American Musicological SocietyHow Black musicians have changed the country music land...

A brilliant literary memoir of chosen family and chosen heritage, told against the backdrop of Chicago’s North and South Sides.As a multiracial household in Chicago’s North Side community of Rogers Park, race is at the core of Francesca T. Royster and her family's world, influencing everyday acts of parenting and the conception of what family truly means. Like Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, this lyrical and affecting memoir focuses on a unit of three: the ...

Choosing Family: A Memoir of Queer Motherhood and Black Resistance is a brilliant literary memoir of chosen family and chosen heritage, told against the backdrop of Chicago’s North and South Sides.As a multiracial household in Chicago’s North Side community of Rogers Park, race is at the core of Francesca T. Royster and her family’s world, influencing everyday acts of parenting and the conception of what family truly means. Like Maggie Nel...