Glory Edim

In 2017, Glory Edim watched her inaugural Well-Read Black Girl festival sell out in Brooklyn, months after raising $40,000 through Kickstarter to bring the event to life. That same year, the Los Angeles Times honored her with its Book Prize Innovator’s Award, cementing her status as one of American literature’s most inventive community builders.

Born and raised in Arlington, Virginia, to Nigerian immigrant parents who had survived the Biafra war, Edim spent part of her childhood in Nigeria before returning to the States, where her mother, formerly a historian, pursued a nursing degree. She studied journalism at Howard University, her father’s alma mater, after beginning her studies on a full scholarship at Trinity College.

The idea for Well-Read Black Girl took shape in 2015, after Edim moved to New York City. A nickname her boyfriend printed on a t-shirt sparked constant subway conversations about books, and she turned the moniker into an Instagram account pairing archival photos of African American women writers with their own quotations. The growing online community led to a Brooklyn-based book club, where invited authors like Naomi Jackson and LaShonda Katrice Barnett joined discussions, and later to an annual literary festival developed with writer Tayari Jones.

Her honors include the Hurston/Wright Merit Award from the Hurston/Wright Foundation and an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Literary Work in 2019.