Caroline Randall Williams

Caroline Randall Williams (born August 24, 1987[1]) is an American author, poet and academic best known for the 2015 cookbook Soul Food Love,[2] co-written with her mother, author Alice Randall, and published by Random House. In February, 2016, Soul Food Love received the NAACP Image Award in Literature (Instructional).[3]

Caroline Randall Williams
Williams in December 2013
Born (1987-08-24) August 24, 1987
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.
EducationSt. Paul's School
Harvard University
University of Mississippi (MFA)
Known forSoul Food Love
AwardsNAACP Image Award

In 2015, her book of poetry, Lucy Negro, Redux was published by Ampersand Books.[4] Lucy Negro, Redux was adapted as a ballet by the Nashville Ballet.[5]

Biography

Williams is a native of Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated from St. Paul's School in 2006 and from Harvard University in 2010. After graduation, she spent two years as an instructor in the Teach for America program. She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Mississippi in 2015.[6] She is the daughter of Alice Randall and Avon Williams III.

She is the great-granddaughter of Arna Bontemps,[7] the African-American poet, novelist and noted member of the Harlem Renaissance,[8] and the granddaughter of Avon Williams, the Nashville lawyer and key leader of the city's civil rights movement. One of her great-great-grandfathers was Edmund Pettus, a white US senator of Alabama, senior officer of the Confederate States Army and grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Pettus and his enslaved black servant were the parents of her great-grandfather Will. She has stated, "The black people I come from were owned and raped by the white people I come from."[9][10]

In January 2015, she was named by Southern Living magazine as one of the "50 People Changing the South in 2015."[11] In 2015, she joined the faculty of West Virginia University as an assistant professor.[12] In 2016 she was appointed Writer-In-Residence at Fisk University.[13] In the Fall of 2019, she joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University.[14] as the Writer-In-Residence of Medicine, Health, and Society.

Books

Soul Food Love

Published by Random House in 2015, Soul Food Love: Healthy Recipes Inspired by One Hundred Years of Cooking in a Black Family is co-authored by Williams and her mother, the novelist Alice Randall. According to the publisher, the book relates the authors’ family history (which mirrors that of much of black America in the 20th century), explores the often fraught relationship African-American women have had with food, and forges a powerful new way forward that honors their cultural and culinary heritage.[15]

Lucy Negro, Redux

Williams' debut book of poetry was published in 2015 by Ampersand Books. The collection explores William Shakespeare's love life, theorizing that the Dark Lady in his sonnets was a woman of African descent.[16] In a review for the Nashville Scene, Erica Wright stated that the collection "does so with such grit, music and honesty that readers will find themselves rooting for the poet's theory — that Shakespeare once had a black lover and immortalized her in verse — to be true."[17] Lucy Negro, Redux was adapted as a ballet by Nashville Ballet.

Attitude: Lucy Negro Redux

Lucy Negro, Redux has been adapted as a ballet titled Attitude: Lucy Negro Redux, choreographed by Paul Vasterling.[18] It was premiered by the Nashville Ballet at the Polk Theater of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center on February 8, 2019.[19] Kayla Rowser danced the role of Lucy and Rhiannon Giddens scored and performed the music.[18]

The Diary of B. B. Bright, Possible Princess

Co-written by Williams and Randall, the book was published by Turner Publishing Company in 2012. According to the publisher, the middle-grade fantasy book is the tale of one young woman's adventure to pass her Official Princess Test, discover a means of escape from her island, and reveal her true destiny.[20]

The book received the following accolades: The NAACP Image Award for Youth Literature, 2013 (nomination),[21] Cybils Award in Middle Grade Fantasy, 2012 (nomination)[22] and the Harlem Book Fair's Phillis Wheatley Award for Young Adult Readers, 2013 (winner).[23]

Essays

New York Times opinion piece

In 2020, amidst the national discussions around removing statues of Confederate generals and renaming of U.S. military bases, Williams wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times, titled "You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is A Confederate Monument." She argued for the removal of Confederate monuments, using her existence and family history to make her point. In that essay, she stated, "modern DNA testing has allowed me to confirm, I am the descendant of black women who were domestic servants and white men who raped their help."[24] She opened the piece by writing: "I have rape-colored skin. My light-brown-blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South."[25]

References
  1. "Interview: Alice Randall, Caroline Randall Williams, Shadra Strickland". Archived from the original on 2016-03-15. Retrieved 2015-01-20.
  2. "Soul Food Love by Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams". Penguin Random House. Retrieved 2015-01-20.
  3. "NAACP Image Awards - Inside the Show". Archived from the original on 2016-08-28. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  4. Lucy Negro, Redux Archived 2015-09-10 at the Wayback Machine (ISBN 978-09861370-1-3), Ampersand Books.
  5. "Nashville Ballet's Paul Vasterling Selected for The Center for Ballet and the Arts 2017-2018 Fellows Program". Retrieved 2017-08-23.
  6. "Caroline Randall Williams". LinkedIn profile. Retrieved 2015-06-29.
  7. "Caroline Williams and Alberta Bontemps". AliceRandall,com. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  8. "Day 12: Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams". The Brown Bookshelf. Retrieved 2015-01-20.
  9. Caroline Randall Williams (2020-06-26). "Opinion: You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
  10. "Bodies and Monuments: Why BLM! | Taos Friction".
  11. "Caroline Randall Williams, Writer - 50 People Who Are Changing the South in 2015". Southern Living. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  12. "Nashville Moment: Caroline Randall Williams - Nashville Lifestyles". Archived from the original on 2017-08-24. Retrieved 2017-08-23.
  13. "Poet Caroline Randall Williams returns to Nashville to take a new post at Fisk". Retrieved 2017-08-23.
    "Word of Mouth: Nashville Conversations—Caroline Randall Williams, Author/ Poet/ Teacher - Word Of Mouth Conversations". 18 July 2016. Retrieved 2017-08-23.
  14. "Caroline Randall Williams". Medicine, Health and Society. Retrieved 2020-07-02.
  15. "- Soul Food Love -". Retrieved 2016-02-07.
  16. Maisey, Jeff. "Lucy Negro Redux: A Groundbreaking Ballet | VEER Magazine :: Hampton Roads arts, culture, entertainment, beer, wine, travel, dining". Retrieved 2022-11-12.
  17. Wright, Erica (October 8, 2015). "Black as Hell, Dark as Night". Nashville Scene.
  18. Havighurst, Craig (8 February 2019). "New Ballet Explores The 'Dark Lady' Of Shakespeare's Sonnets". WMOT. Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
  19. Mzezewa, Tariro (February 5, 2019). "What if Shakespeare's Dark Lady Told Their Love Story? What if It Were a Ballet?". New York Times.
  20. "Adventure Fiction, Children's Books, Fiction, The Diary of B. B. Bright, Possible Princess". Archived from the original on 2014-09-19. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  21. "2013 Image Awards Nominations". NAACP. Archived from the original on 2015-01-28. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  22. "2012 Nominations: Fantasy/Science Fiction". Cybils Awards. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  23. "2013 Wheatley Book Award Winners". AALBC. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  24. Williams, Caroline Randall (2020-06-26). "Opinion | You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-07-02.
  25. Ciccarone, Eroca (June 29, 2020). "Caroline Randall Williams to Read Her Brilliant 'New York Times' Op-Ed Live: 'I am a black, Southern woman, and of my immediate white male ancestors, all of them were rapists'". Nashville Scene. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
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