Hi! My name is Nanea Woods and I am the Founder and President of the coolest Bookclub of all time. Let me tell you a little something about this club. Prose Before Bros is a community made for Women of Color. …PAUSE… Those last three words are so important. I often think about how few spaces there are for women who look like me, to have agency over. Spaces where the function and the intention is to center our voices and make us the default rather than an afterthought. This idea is only heightened as I thought about the city I grew up in and currently live in (Portland, still the whitest city in the U.S.) and how surrounded in whiteness we are in our everyday lives. How often we have to assimilate and code switch to just blend in or to be accepted. For a person of color it can be exhausting. I built this club, this platform, this space, as a reprieve; an oasis and an exhale for a community of women who share my same passion for reading but who also share in the need for a space where women who look like me can feel seen, feel heard, and get to exist without explanation.

We are built to prioritize, uplift and celebrate the Black and brown woman. We are not shy about saying who this club is designed for. PBB will continue to make space for WOC in this club first and always.

Of all the millions of places in the world that’s designed for and prioritizes whiteness, PBB will be the one place that seeks to do the opposite. If you do not subscribe to these ideas and it makes you feel unwanted or uncomfortable then this might not be the club for you. If you are not a woman of color and hearing this makes you feel empowered to make room for these voices please check out our FAQ story highlight on how you can support our mission.