In-Person: WHAT IT TAKES TO HEAL by Prentis Hemphill

We are thrilled to welcome Prentis Hemphill to celebrate the release of What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World. For this event, Prentis will be joined in conversation by Charlene Carruthers.

Please note: This event is free to attend, but registration is required! By registering for this event, you agree to wear a face mask throughout the event, per W&CF's Covid-19 policies.

From one of the most prominent voices in the trauma conversation comes a groundbreaking new way to heal on a personal and a collective level.

"In a time when so many of us are being trained in cynicism, this book stands in necessary defiance."--Cole Arthur Riley, author of Black Liturgies and This Here Flesh

As we emerge from the past few years of collective upheaval, are we ready to face the complexities of our time with joy, authenticity, and connection? Now more than ever, we must learn to heal ourselves, connect with one another, and embody our values. In this revolutionary book, Prentis Hemphill shows us how.

What It Takes to Heal asserts that the principles of embodiment--the recognition of our body's sensations and habits, and the beliefs that inform them--are critical to lasting healing and change. Hemphill, an expert embodiment practitioner, therapist, and activist who has partnered with Brené Brown, Tarana Burke, and Esther Perel, among others, shows us that we don't have to carry our emotional burdens alone. Hemphill demonstrates a future in which healing is done in community, weaving together stories from their own experience as a trauma survivor with clinical accounts and lessons learned from their time as a social movement architect. They ask, "What would it do to movements, to our society and culture, to have the principles of healing at the very center? And what does it do to have healing at the center of every structure and everything we create?"

In this life-affirming framework for the way forward, Hemphill shows us how to heal our bodies, minds, and souls--to develop the interpersonal skills necessary to break down the doors of disconnection and take the necessary risks to reshape our world toward justice.

Prentis Hemphill is a writer, embodiment facilitator, political organizer, and therapist. They are the founder and director of the Embodiment Institute and the Black Embodiment Initiative, and the host of the acclaimed podcast Finding Our Way. Their work and writing have appeared in The New York Times, HuffPost, You Are Your Best Thing (edited by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown) and Holding Change (by adrienne maree brown).

Charlene A. Carruthers (she/her) is a writer, filmmaker, community organizer, and Black Studies PhD Candidate at Northwestern University. A practitioner of telling more complete stories, her work interrogates historical conjunctures of Black freedom-making post-emancipation and decolonial revolution, Black/Native/Indigenous relationalities, Black governance, and Black feminist abolitionist geographies. She is a 2020 Marguerite Casey Presidential Freedom Scholar and Mellon Interdisciplinary Cluster Fellow in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Charlene wrote and directed The Funnel, a short film, which received the Queer Black Voices Award at the 35th Annual aGLIFF Prism Film Festival. She is author of the bestselling book, Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements.

Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are required. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com by no later than 14 days before the event. For other questions or access needs, please email events@womenandchildrenfirst.com.