skin & bones
Alum - Creative Writing at The New School
Little, Brown and Company, 2024
“A beautifully poetic meditation on race, history, and parenthood. Renee Watson is brilliantly unafraid, and the reward of that fearlessness is on these pages.”
– Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award winner
“A refreshing read, this lyrical story of love and loss is spiritually rejuvenating. Renee Watson’s writing is divine.”
– Kwame Alexander, author of WHY FATHERS CRY AT NIGHT
At 40, Lena Baker is at a steady and stable moment in life—between wine nights with her two best friends and her wedding just weeks away, she’s happy in love and in friendship until a confession on her wedding day shifts her world.
Unmoored and grieving a major loss, Lena finds herself trying to teach her daughter self-love while struggling to do so herself. Lena questions everything she’s learned about dating, friendship, and motherhood, and through it all, she works tirelessly to bring the oft-forgotten Black history of Oregon to the masses, sidestepping her well-meaning co-workers that don’t understand that their good intentions are often offensive and hurtful.
Through Watson’s poetic voice, skin & bones is a stirring exploration of who society makes space for and is ultimately a story of heartbreak and healing.