Jamilah Lemieux Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Jamilah Lemieux is an African-American writer, cultural critic, columnist, and editor.

She was born on July 22, 1984. Jamilah first became known thanks to her blog, The Beautiful Struggler.

She was born in Chicago, where she grew up. Her father once belonged to the Black Panther Party and her mother was part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. She attended Howard University and belongs to the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. After graduating, she started writing by focusing on blogging and mainstream media. She has won a Black Weblog Award three times.

Eventually Jamilah would become the news and lifestyle editor for Ebony.com, becoming senior editor in 2014. She would become senior editor for the print magazine in 2015. She also worked on Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign in 2019 as a consultant.

She is based in New York City and focuses on issues of gender, race, and sexuality in her work. She is a social influencer, a leading feminist thinker, and a millennial ‘media darling’. Her work has been featured in a variety of publications that include The Nation, Playboy, Essence, the Los Angeles Times, The Cut, The Guardian, Wired, The Washington Post, Colorlines, Self, Refinery 29, and The New York Times.

The author was prominently featured in the ‘Surviving R. Kelly’ and ‘Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning’ docu-series on Lifetime. Jamilah has also appeared in ‘Secrets of Playboy’ on A&E. She wrote the forewords for anniversary editions of ‘Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman’ by Michele Wallace and ‘Miss Muriel and Other Stories’ by Ann Petry. Lemieux was featured in How We Fight White Supremacy, a 2019 anthology.

The author currently writes a weekly advice column for Slate in their ‘Care and Feeding’ parenting section. She co-hosts an accompanying podcast called ‘Mom & Dad Are Fighting’. She also was an Editor-in-Chief for Still Here, a single issue magazine centered around Black women and HIV/AIDS.

The author has served as a commentator on different news programs featured on ABC, CNN, CBS, Buzzfeed, BET, MTV2, and MSNBC. She has also been on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Desus and Mero, The Breakfast Club, and TMZ. Lemieux has been a producer and commentator for Time of Essence, a five part docu-series centering around the history of Essence magazine.

Jamilah was the VP of News and Men’s Programming for iOne Digital, where she helped lead the creation of the progressive digital lifestyle platform CASSIUS. Before doing that, she was at EBONY magazine as their Senior Editor, helping launch their website in 2012.

The author also is a public speaker and as such has taken on audiences at cultural events, conferences, and schools. She has had a variety of public speaking appearances that span everywhere from the University of Iowa to Howard University, Vassar College, Harvard University and many more.

Jamilah was featured on The Root 100 list of the most influential African Americans in the nation. She has been honored by the New York State Senate, the New York City Council, Planned Parenthood, Black Women’s Blueprint, Walker’s Legacy, and the Delta Rho Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

She has worked in public relations, communications, and crisis management services tailored to organizations and high profile people. She has worked on Cynthia Nixon’s NY governor campaign and for Girls for Gender Equality. Lemieux has also worked for Cassius Magazine, Ebony, and Radio One.

She is a parent of her daughter Naima and they live together in Los Angeles.

Black. Single. Mother.: Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging is a 2026 memoir by Jamilah Lemieux. This is a meditation on, a tribute, and an examination of Black single motherhood as told through essays and interviews by a cultural critic that readers can trust.

As Brittney Cooper writes, ‘Jamilah Lemieux is one of the most important feminist writers of the twenty-first century’. If you’ve been looking for a new book to read that is interesting, unique, and something that you’re not going to find in another work, this might be the one for you.

The author is candid, humorous, and at times biting in this collection of personal essays where she does not suffer fools gladly. She also goes into the scars of her own journey and experience with parenting as well as her journey to find self-acceptance in a world that doesn’t really like baby mamas all that much.

The tone is relatable and has an energy to it as Lemieux dives into this book and takes on the reality of being a Black single mother, which can be at times uncertain and also demands that women find their inner fierceness. It’s a voice that has skillfully honed over the years that the author spent among some of the biggest voices of Black Twitter.

Jamilah gives readers some of her most interesting essays that are full of wonderful cultural and historical analysis and gives first person viewpoints from 21 individuals and a variety of women who identify as being Black single mothers.

The American matriarch known as the single Black mother has often been maligned, but this book aims to balance things out and spark a new conversation in the community and the culture about this figure– and how single Black mothers everywhere deserve respect, support, and love. A fascinating read that you won’t want to put down, check out Black. Single. Mother. from Jamilah Lemieux and follow along with every word.