Coco & Elsie Jean: Your Auntie’s Fave Bookstore
A bookstore named after Black matriarchs stands as a vibrant celebration of the invaluable contributions Black women have made to literature and society. It serves as both a catalyst for fostering social change and a profound symbol of inclusivity, diversity, and empowerment. Featured Items
Mahogany l.
Browne
Founder
Mahogany L. Browne, selected as Kennedy Center's Next 50 and Wesleyan's 2022-23 Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, the Executive Director of JustMedia, Artistic Director of Urban Word, is a writer, playwright, organizer, & educator. Browne has received fellowships from All Arts, Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research, & Rauschenberg. She is the author of recent works: Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for Steppenwolf Theater), Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice, Woke Baby, & Black Girl Magic. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne is currently touring her latest poetry collection Chrome Valley received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was highlighted in the New York Times.
She is the first-ever poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Christa Bell
Guest CURator
Christa Bell is an award-winning spoken word poet, performance artist and feminist culture creator from Seattle,Washington. She is an MA candidate in Cultural Studies with a designation in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington Bothell, a member of the Women Who Rock and Fembot collectives and a founding member of Real Colored Girls. She is a National Poetry Slam Champion and her work includes the one-woman show CoochieMagik: A Spoken Word Musical Comedy, commissioned by the National Performance Network, 1001 Holy Names for Coochie, a 24-hour endurance mantra and performance art installation, which premiered at the Seattle Art Museum as part of the opening events for Elles: Women Artists From The Centre Pompidou; and SHEism: The Woman Worship Workshop, a performance- lecture and workshop that explores the spiritual politics of female bodies. Her work has been featured on National Public Radio, as a TEDx Talk, and on afterellen.com and she has performed, by invitation, at over 100 universities, colleges, festivals and performance venues internationally. Her performance work is primarily concerned with feminist imaginings of the divine as well as how women’s spiritual self-esteem impacts their participation in the political processes that govern their lives. Her research interests include black feminist theory and genealogies, feminist cultural production, performance studies and cultural intersections of race, gender, culture and theology.
Her past performance work been included in the Whitney Museum of American Art: 2014 Biennial as part of HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN, a global collective.
Her essay “Shall We Begin, Then?” a meditation on future/present ancestral bodies, was featured in the 2014 Biennial catalogue.
Hanif Abdurraqib
Guest CURator
Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. In 2021, he released the book A Little Devil In America with Random House, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the Gordon Burn Prize. Hanif is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.
Michela
Wariebi
Guest CURator
Training. Talent. Tenacity. These three traits are cornerstone of Michela Wariebi’s career as a beauty expert, educator and artist. Michela brings beauty to runways, editorial spreads, and commercial advertising with exciting looks that have been featured in leading titles such as Marie Claire and Harper’s Bazaar, Essence, Vogue Italia and on NBC’s flagship morning program, The Today Show.
In addition to her work as a brand ambassador, Michela’s vast experience also includes platform education, production work, and product development consultation for clients including Pat McGrath Labs, Mehron Makeup, Beauty Blender, Make Up For Ever, Black Opal, and Danessa Myricks Beauty.
Michela’s versatility centers on her expertise in skinwork for all skin tones and as a transformative bodypaint artist. Drawing inspiration from everything from Afrofuturistic concepts to geometric shapes, Michela’s serves both brands and private clientele with hand painted and airbrushed applications.
“Makeup is where art and science meet,” Michela says. With her fearless approach to beauty, Michela’s deep technical knowledge has made her a sought-after instructor among other artists, many of whom credit her in helping them elevate their artistry. As an educator, Michela is an ardent champion of diversity, teaching her students how to work with varying tonal spectrums, shade ranges, and complexions. Celebrities including Beyonce, Serena Williams, Tierra Whack, Kimbra, Yasmín Wijnaldum and Nicole Ari Parker have called on Michela for her creative and discerning eye.
Michela thrives in collaborative creative environments with a keen business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit. Her passion for beauty and working with others is palpable in her distinctive approach to makeup artistry and the remarkable work she creates.
Rachel Cargle
Guest CURator
Rachel Cargle is an Akron, Ohio born writer, entrepreneur and philanthropic innovation. Her work and upcoming book with Penguin Random House, centers the reimagining of womanhood, solidarity and self and how we are in relationship with ourselves and one another. In 2018 she founded The Loveland Foundation, Inc., a non-profit offering free therapy to Black women and girls.
Her umbrella company, The Loveland Group houses a collection of Rachel’s social ventures including The Great Unlearn, a self-paced, donation-based learning community, The Great Unlearn for Young Learners – an online learning space for young folks launching in 2022, and Elizabeth’s Bookshop & Writing Centre – an innovative literacy space designed to amplify, celebrate and honor the work of writers who are often excluded from traditional cultural, social and academic canons.
Rachel is a regular contributor to Cultured magazine, Atmos magazine and The Cut, and has been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Forbes, Harper’s Bazaar and The New Yorker. Rachel lives & loves in Brooklyn, New York.