Letters to a Writer of Color, edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro, is a wonderful collection of essays (letters) that go far beyond just offering advice and insight to writers.

These essays are largely memoirish in nature, using personal experience (both directly related to writing and not) to illustrate the points each writer is emphasizing. While these certainly benefit writers who may experience any form of marginalization it is also great insight for any reader who read actively. To the extent any text is co-created (I hesitate to say co-written) by the author and each individual reader, these essays help readers better understand the lives of their collaborators, as well as better understand how to relate to, and gain more from, any work they are reading.

What makes this a book I can confidently recommend to most readers is just how enjoyable it is to read. There is hardship, there is some humor, and of course there is writing (creative) advice that runs from the pragmatic to the theoretical. Yet there is primarily a sense of the human being who is writing each essay, there is an invitation to join them and understand how they have arrived at where they are. For writers I know I recommend this even more enthusiastically.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )