Mama: A Queer Black Woman's Story of a Family Lost and Found

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir/Biography • Winner of the 2025 Memoir Magazine Prize in the LGBTQ+, Family, Resilience Category


In this searing and uplifting memoir, a young Black queer woman fresh out of college adopts her baby brother after their incarcerated mother dies, determined to create the kind of family she never had.

Nikkya Hargrove spent a good portion of her childhood in prison visiting rooms. When her mother—addicted to cocaine and just out of prison—...