IN PERSON - Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton - BLACK CHAMELEON

Brazos Bookstore will host Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton in person on Friday, March 10 at 6:30pm.

Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton will be in conversation with Rozella Haydée White.

In the literary tradition of Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped, this debut memoir confronts both the challenges and joys of growing up Black and making your own truth.

Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah Mouton felt alienated from the stories she learned in class. She yearned for stories she felt connected to—true ones of course—but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. What she encountered was almost always written by white writers who prospered in a time when human beings were treated as chattel, such as the Greek and Roman myths, which felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins. When she sought myths written by Black authors, they were rooted too far in the past, a continent away.

Mouton writes, “The phrases of my mother and grandmother began to seem less colloquial and more tied to stories that had been lost along the way. . . . Mythmaking isn’t a lie. It is our moment to take the privilege of our own creativity to fill in the gaps that colonization has stolen from us. It is us choosing to write the tales that our children pull strength from. It is hijacking history for the ignorance in its closets. This, a truth that must start with the women.”

Mouton’s memoir Black Chameleon is a song of praise and an elegy for Black womanhood. With a poet’s gift for lyricism and poignancy, Mouton reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother, living in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger, and finally learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America. Of the moment yet timeless, playful but incendiary, Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form.

Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is an internationally-known, writer, director, performer, critic and the first Black Poet Laureate of Houston, TX. She is the author of the 2019 poetry collection Newsworthy, which was a finalist for the The Writer's League of Texas Book Award and Honorable Mention in the Summerlee Book Prize. Her poems have garnered her a Pushcart nomination and been translated into multiple languages. She has been a contributing writer for Glamour, Texas Monthly, Muzzle, and ESPN's The Undefeated. Her work ranges from writing stageplays and librettos for operas such as Marian's Song to storytelling through film. She currently resides in Houston, TX.

Rozella Haydée White (she/her/ella) is the #LoveBigCoach, is a Social Impact Entrepreneur who is focused on nurturing love that is life-giving, justice-seeking, and healing so that all can thrive. She is a public theologian, spiritual life and leadership coach, inspirational speaker and writer committed to embodying love that is bold, intentional and generous. Rozella is the owner of RHW Consulting LLC and is also the creator and co-founder of Racial Healing & Wellness Coaching LLC. Rozella is the author of Love Big: The Power of Revolutionary Relationships to Heal the World (Fortress Press, 2019) and is a contributor to the New York Times Bestseller and international bestseller, A Rhythm of Prayer, edited by Sarah Bessey. She has contributed to many books, written numerous articles, curriculums, and resources focused on leadership development, spirituality, and justice steeped in a Love Ethic.