My Monticello | A conversation with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson and Dr. Akilah Cadet

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​About the Book

Winner of the Weatherford Award in Fiction A winner of 2022 Lillian Smith Book Awards  A young woman descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings driven from her neighborhood by a white militia. A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America.

Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, “My Monticello,” tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.

About the Author

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is the author of My Monticello, a fiction debut that was called "a masterly feat" by the New York Times, which  placed third on Time Magazine's 10 best books of the year. My Monticello  won the Weatherford Award, the Lillian Smith Prize, and was finalist for many others, including a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Pen/Faulkner Award, and an LA Times Book Award. Johnson has been a fellow at TinHouse, Hedgebrook, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her writing appears in Guernica, The Guardian and elsewhere. Her short story “Control Negro” was anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2018, guest edited by Roxane Gay and read live by LeVar Burton. A veteran public school art teacher, Johnson lives and writes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

About the Conversation Partner

Dr. Akilah Cadet is the Founder and CEO of Change Cadet, a change management and organizational development consulting firm that offers a broad array of services that support embedding anti-racism, diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging into overall organizational identity & strategy. Dr. Cadet has 15+ years in management and building successful projects, teams, and leaders in the public and private sectors. She is a 2021 Forbes Next 1000 Honoree and honored as one of Staffing Industry Analysts’ (SIA) 2021 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Influencers. Forbes and the Wall Street Journal Diversity and Business Newsletter have featured her work. She has spent an extensive part of her career designing training, coaching executives, and informing systematic change to improve the workforce experience for large organizations. She lives in Oakland, CA, literally has all the degrees, celebrates her disability, has an incredible shoe game, and is a proud Beyoncé advocate.