Harriet's Bookshop is excited to celebrate the publication of Erica N. Cardwell's debut memoir, Wrong Is Not My Name: Notes on (Black) Art. Erica will be joined in conversation by Athena Dixon, author of The Loneliness Files (Tin House, 2023) and The Incredible Shrinking Woman (Split/Lip Press, 2020). This in-person gathering on East Girard Avenue, Philadelphia, PA will feature a reading and conversation between the two essayists, as well as conversation with the audience.

About the book:

At the age of twenty-one, Erica Cardwell finds herself in New York City, reeling from the loss of her mother and numb to the world around her. She turns inward instead, reading books and composing poetry, eventually falling into the work of artists such as Blondell Cummings, Lorna Simpson, Lorraine O’Grady, and Kara Walker. Through them, she communes with her mother’s spirit and legacy, and finds new ways to interrogate her writing and identity.

Wrong Is Not My Name weaves together autobiography, criticism, and theory, and considers how Black women create alternative, queer, and “hysterical” lives through visual culture and performance. In poetic, interdisciplinary essays—combining analytical and lyrical stream-of-consciousness—Cardwell examines archetypes such as the lascivious Jezebel, the caretaking Mammy, and the elusive Sapphire to formulate new and inventive ways to write about art.

Pioneering and inquisitive, Wrong Is Not My Name celebrates Black womanhood, and illuminates the ways in which art and storytelling reside at the core of being human.