Yrsa Daley-Ward’s The Catch (2025), recently released in paperback, has a bizarre and intriguing premise: twin sisters who were separated at a young age, adopted into different families after their mother’s death, diverge in their reactions when one of them spots a woman who looks exactly like their mother on the streets of London, seemingly not aged at all and living as she might have had they never been born.
Upon the book’s initial release last year, Danez Smith wrote for The New York Times, “Daley-Ward has penned a metaphysical experiment on grief, trauma, family and longing that holds all the excitement of a big summer read.” The Catch is the first novel from Daley-Ward, who has also published poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, including PEN Ackerley Prize winner The Terrible: A Storyteller’s Memoir, and co-written Black Is King, Beyoncé’s 2020 musical film.
The Catch is also the first title in the Well-Read Black Girl Books series under W.W. Norton’s Liveright imprint.
The series came about as a collaboration between Liveright and Glory Edim, founder of the Well-Read Black Girl community, which began in 2015 as an online platform and book club and has since grown into a nonprofit organization and recognized name in the literary world. WRBG’s stated goal is “to introduce a cohort of diverse writers to future generations—contemporary authors who are non-binary, queer, trans, and disabled. To address inequalities and improve communities through reading and reflecting on the works of Black women.”
Edim said of the collaboration with Liveright, “Our new literary series is determined to introduce narratives that are innovative and beguilingly genuine. Daley-Ward’s writing fits the bill; the voices in her manuscript hovered over my head for days.” More recently, the series has seen the hardcover publication of I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For (2026) by Bsrat Mezghebe, set in Washington, DC’s Eritrean community as Eritrea is on the cusp of independence from Ethiopian rule in 1991.
The WRBG/Liveright project is one of many organized efforts in recent years to highlight and uplift underrepresented authors, during a time when book bans, which disproportionately affect queer, trans, and racially marginalized authors, have been on the rise.
A similar initiative is Tiny Reparations, founded in 2020 by comedian, writer, producer, and actor Phoebe Robinson in partnership with Penguin Random House’s Plume. Tiny Reparations has brought us LaToya Watkins’ family drama Perish (2022) and short story collection Holler, Child (2023), longlisted for the National Book Award; Vanessa Angélica Villarreal’s essay collection Magical/Realism (2024), longlisted for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award; and the novel Fundamentally (2025) by Nussaibah Younis, an international bestseller shortlisted for the Women’s Prize—among other titles.
Projects like this are an opportunity to shape the publishing landscape according to a particular vision. They are also an opportunity for publishers to grow and diversify their catalogs. As Robinson put it while launching her imprint, “We all know there is a lack of diversity in publishing. Tiny Reparations Books recognizes that the publishing landscape isn’t going to change until the actual work starts behind the scenes. I am thrilled to partner with Plume to help take this important step. And I look forward to bringing a wide range of voices to Plume and helping to push the boundaries of publishing.”
While the WRBG series and Tiny Reparations are newer developments, they are preceded by others with similar missions who have laid major groundwork in American publishing, such as HarperCollins’ 40-year-old Amistad imprint, “devoted to honoring the legacy of Black literature, amplifying the bold and unapologetic voices of today’s storytellers, and paving the way for inspiring Black-centered stories of the diaspora.” Amistad is the current publisher of Zora Neale Hurston’s classic Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), which fell out of print before becoming the household name it is today, and is also responsible for Pulitzer winner The Known World (2003) by Edward P. Jones and National Book Award finalist Another Brooklyn (2016) by Jacqueline Woodson.
Many readers of these and other well-known books may be unaware of the careful curation and intentional work that have made them possible or kept them in print. Seeing how imprints and smaller publishing projects operate within the larger publishing scene can foster appreciation for those who help titles reach their audiences, and following diversity-focused initiatives is a meaningful way to structure personal reading and book club discussions, all while supporting authors and staff.
Readers and book groups interested in keeping up with Well-Read Black Girl Books and related projects can follow Glory Edim’s newsletter. Amistad offers their own newsletter, and Tiny Reparations advertises new and upcoming titles on the PRH website. Other examples of publishing spaces that prioritize underrepresented writers are Random House’s One World, Hachette Book Group’s Legacy Lit, and Roxane Gay’s imprint at Grove Atlantic.
