By Richelene Mitchell, Foreword by Imam Zaid Shakir

It was the year 1973; the Vietnam War was officially over and Watergate was to begin. Pink Floyd’s, Dark Side of the Moon, was the coveted album of the year, reggae music was launched and bell-bottoms were all the rage.

Dear Self: A Year in the Life of a Welfare Mother, chronicles the journal of a young African American mother struggling to raise her seven children amidst the crushing poverty of housing projects, impassive public policy and deep-rooted discrimination. Restricted by unfortunate circumstance, 39-year old Richelene Mitchell expresses her intense literary yearning and activist awareness by writing letters to herself.

An open and moving memoir of the trials and platitudes of life, Dear Self is very likely the first literary work of its kind. Narrations in crystalline prose tell of a system that snares it’s most…

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