Mikki Kendall Books In Order

Publication Order of Graphic Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Mikki Kendall is a blogger, speaker, and author whose work has been featured in publications such as “Essence,” “The Washington Post,” “Ebony,” “The Boston Globe,” “Salon,” “The Guardian,” and “TIME” among many other places. Her name came into the public domain when she published “Hood Feminism” even though she had made her debut with the graphic novel “Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists.” As one of the most sought-after speakers in the United States, she speaks on issues such as social media, race, pop culture, feminism, and violence in Chicago. She has made appearances on “Huffington Post Live,” “Tell Me More” on NPR, “BBC Women’s Hour,” and “The Listening Post” on Al Jazeera in addition to tours across universities all over the US. In 2017, she got the Association of Food Journalists Best Food Award for her essay “Beyoncé, Jim Crow, and hot sauce.” She is part of the editorial team at “Fireside Magazine” that was nominated for a Hugo and also a coeditor for the “Hidden Youth,” a Locus nominated anthology. Mikki currently lives with her family in Chicago.

Kendall is a native of Chicago and was raised in Chicago’s Hyde Park suburb. As a teenager, she went to the University of Illinois and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history in 2005. She also went to DePaul University from where she got her MFA in creative writing. After graduating from college, she decided to join the United States Army and worked in different departments until she retired from the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2013. Mikki was always thinking of becoming a writer and in 2013 she knew that she had to do something about it or else she would never achieve her dream. She is now a cultural critic and essayist whose works have been featured in all manner of prestigious publications. She is one of Black Twitter’s most recognizable voices especially when she created #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, a hashtag that went viral in criticizing the feminist movement; #FastTailedGirls, a hashtag that references how Black girls are usually hypersexualized. She also criticized how commercial interests result in the marginalization of traditional foods via the hashtag #FoodGentrification.

As for how she started writing, Mikki Kendall has asserted that she was brought up reading comics. She was not the type of person that decided she wanted to become an author at a certain age. She would always head to the comic section of the grocery store to get Archie comic books and never once realized that most people believed a girl should not be reading comics. She believed everyone was supposed to read comics as she just thought of it as a cool genre that everyone should love. Everything changed when she met Gail Simone who she asked her if she was a writer. Of course, she said yes she was a writer since Gail was her fairy comic godmother. “Hood Feminism” her most popular work came about when she started thinking about how the experiences of women of color are not captured in the feminist movement. She asserts the need for feminism to talk about basic needs rather than focus on advancement in a career which is what modern feminism tends to have devolved to. Kendall says that medical care, food insecurity, a living wage, safe neighborhoods, and access to quality education should be at the forefront of the feminist movement.

The quest for the novel “Hood Feminism” came to Mikki about 2017 when the self-proclaimed occasional feminist, diversity consultant, and author found that calling oneself a feminist was seen as a negative. The lean-in wing of feminism had poisoned the movement and brought in myopic ideas about career advancement and equity in pay that only bolstered privilege. It seemed to Kendall that feminism catered to everyone and particularly to women of color. Feminism was failing to address gun violence, food stamps, education, and a living wage which she believed were just as important. She thus created #solidarityisforwhitewomen that was the seed that gave birth to “Hood Feminism” that she published in 2020. The work is a manifesto that intends to push feminists toward community-based activism and less towards the academic. In precise and personal language, she writes a furious and clear indictment of how modern feminism does not cater to the basic needs of working-class women. Even though she got a lot of pushback in the initial weeks of her book tour, things turned around when she went on “The Daily Show” and the book got a lot of buzz and became a bestseller.

“Hood Feminism” by Mikki Kendall gives insights into how the contemporary feminist movement has a very obvious blind spot and the absurd thing is that it is women. Mainstream leaders of the feminist movement have refused to talk about issues such as medical care, food insecurity, a living wage, access to quality education, and the safety of neighborhoods. Oftentimes, the focus is on improving the privilege for a few for whom basic survival is a thing of the past. The modern feminist thus exacerbates the issues of internecine discord and women who do not think that they deserve to carry the title. Furthermore, leading feminists are myopic when it comes to things such as the intersection of gender with sexual orientation, race, and class. For Kendall, it is almost impossible to stand in solidarity as women, when there could be other women oppressing others. Kendall is an intelligent, brilliant, passionate, and eloquent writer that manages to give great insights into why traditional feminism is insufficient in the modern age. She tells of how it has been effective in fighting for the needs of upper and middle-class straight cisgender white women while leaving all other women out of the conversation.

“Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists” by Mikki Kendall is a graphic historical novel that tells of the fight for women’s rights. The constant struggle for equal rights has been a fixture of human history and has been present in nearly all cultures across the world. Women have always been fighting for the right to exercise bodily autonomy, vote, own property get an education, and work among many other things. It is a fascinating and fun graphic novel that covers the key events and figures of the women’s rights movements right from antiquity to the contemporary age. Moreover, the novel shines a light on the experiences of notable women in history from freedom fighters to queens, spies to warriors. It is a deep look into the many progressive movements for reproductive rights, abolition, LGBTQ liberation, suffrage, civil rights, and labor that have been led by women that shaped history. Kendall examines where we are going, where we are, and where we have been making this novel a critical resource for people looking forward to a liberated future.