Friends & Fiction with Dolen Perkins-Valdez

On this episode, Kristy Woodson Harvey & Ron Block welcome New York Times bestselling author Dolen Perkins-Valdez to discuss her enthralling new novel, HAPPY LAND, in which a woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American Kingdom—and her family’s ties to it. Dolen is the NYT-bestselling author of TAKE MY HAND (2022), which was awarded an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and a Fiction award from the Black Caucus American Library Association, and was long-listed for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. A three-time nominee for a United States Artists Fellowship, Dolen is widely considered a preeminent chronicler of American historical life. She joins us to discuss HAPPY LAND (April 8, Berkley) which has been called “exhilarating” by Charmaine Wilkerson and “astonishing” by Jodi Picoult, and which has been named a most anticipated book of 2025 by People, Harper's Bazaar, Reader's Digest, Woman’s World and more!