Bridgett M. Davis - "Love, Rita" - Dawn Turner

Bridgett M. Davis will discuss Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy. She will be joined in conversation by Dawn Turner. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. 

At the Co-op.

RSVP Here (Please note your RSVP is requested but not required)

About the Book

A searing tribute of sisterhood and family, profound love and loss from the acclaimed author of The World According to Fannie Davis.

In Love, Rita, Bridgett M. Davis tells the story of her beloved older sister, a vivacious woman who in leaving home to attend Fisk University and then becoming a car test driver, an amateur belly dancer, an MBA, and later a popular special ed teacher, modeled for her younger sister Bridgett how to live boldly before her own life was tragically cut short by lupus. A brave and beautiful homage that both celebrates the special, complex bond of sisterhood yet also reveals what it is to live, and die, as a Black woman in America.

 This moving memoir, full of joy and heartbreak, family history and American history, uses Rita’s life as a lens to examine the persistent effects of racism in the lives of Black women—and the men they love; it is essential reading for fans of Jesmyn Ward, Kiese Laymon, James McBride, Linda Villarosa, and Tressie McMillan Cottom.

About the Author

Bridgett M. Davis (pronounced Brih-jet) is the author of the memoir, Love, Rita, published by Harper Books in spring 2025. She is also author of the memoir, The World According To Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life In The Detroit Numbers, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, named a Best Book of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews, and featured as a clue on Jeopardy! She is author of two novels, Into the Go-Slow, and Shifting Through Neutral. Davis is also writer/director of the 1996 award-winning film Naked Acts, newly restored and released to critical acclaim, and now available on DVD Blu-Ray and select streaming services. Davis is Professor Emerita at Baruch College (CUNY) and the Graduate Center, where she taught creative, narrative and film writing. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, the LA Times and The Washington Post, among other publications. A graduate of Spelman College and Columbia Journalism School, she lives in Brooklyn with her family. Visit her website at www.bridgettdavis.com.\

About the Interlocutor

Dawn Turner is an award-winning author and journalist. Her most recent book, Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood, was named a Notable book of 2021 by The New York Times Book Review. Dawn has held fellowships at Harvard and the University of Chicago.  In 2018, she established the Dawn M. Turner and Kim D. Turner Endowed Scholarship in Media at her alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.