Common Read

Common Reading Initiative at Penn State Altoona for First-Year Students

Sponsored by the Division of Arts and Humanities

2010-20 Common Read Book

And It Begins Like This by LaTanya McQueen

This collection of essays weaves together historical and genealogical research, folklore, Biblical passages, literary theory and criticism, and personal memory to examine the legacy of slavery and its relationship to Black female identity in contemporary America.

About LaTanya McQueen

McQueen received her MFA from Emerson College, her PhD from the University of Missouri, and was the 2017-2018 Robert P. Dana Emerging Writer Fellow at Cornell College. Currently, she is a visiting assistant professor of English and creative writing and African American studies at Coe College.

While at the University of Missouri, she wrote two dissertations: When the Evening Comes, a novel, and And It Begins Like This, that was listed by Electric Literature as one of the 46 books by women of color to read in 2018.

She writes both fiction and nonfiction that has been widely published and highly acclaimed, for instance by Best American Essays, the Disquiet Literary Prize, and the Walker Percy Prize in Fiction.